Pepe Habichuela

Jose Antonio Carmona Carmona was born October 23, 1944, in Granada into the Habichuela guitar dynasty of gitano artists. Grandfather Habichuela el Viejo gave the clan its nickname; father Jose Carmona and brothers Juan, Carlos, and Luis continued the craft. Pepe grew up among Sacromonte zambras and Albaicin cave life, learning by accompanying family cante and baile. He later recalled climbing to the caves at the end of the 1950s to play, listen, and learn until around 1962. That noisy, unamplified world forged the forceful rasgueo listeners recognized at once.

Habichuela belonged to the generation of Paco de Lucia and Manolo Sanlucar that rewrote flamenco guitar without formal score training. His school was Sacromonte practice and, after 1964, Madrid tablaos, especially Torres Bermejas, where nightly contact with major cantaores and bailaores taught accompaniment by ear and conversation. Peers later stressed sweetness under power: Curro called the toque all sweetness; Jaime Heredia El Parron said he was not a sheet-music musician but carried music inside.

After the 1964 Madrid move he became a first-call accompanist (Valderrama, Camaron, Fosforito, and many more). The mid-1970s enclosure with Enrique Morente produced Homenaje a D. Antonio Chacon and Despegando (1977) and roughly three decades of partnership. Solo landmarks: A Mandeli (1983), Habichuela en rama (1997), Yerbaguena with Bollywood Strings (2001), Hands with Dave Holland (2010). He also worked Don Cherry, Jaco Pastorius, and Max Roach, and guided younger voices (Marina Heredia, Estrella Morente, Rocio Marquez, Israel Fernandez). Annual Flamenco On Fire appearances from 2014 and the 2020 Pamplona balcony with Kiki Morente marked late public life.

At Torres Bermejas he met bailaora Amparo Bengala; they married and shared more than fifty years. When he left tablao wages to rehearse with Morente, her dancer's pay sustained the house. Their son Jose Miguel Carmona Nino Josemi (b. 1971) became a Ketama founder and Pepe's later producer and stage partner. Pepe was uncle to Antonio Carmona and Juan Jose Carmona El Camborio, also of Ketama. elDiario places the family home in Madrid's Lucero neighbourhood, where Dave Holland visited during the final illness. A 2025 biography by Jose Manuel Gamboa, Pepe Habichuela. Now or Never, centers Amparo and Josemi as creative companions.

Habichuela insisted a solea must still sound like solea even if played in another key: he spoke of playing tientos in a minera chord or solea in a granaina chord while keeping the palo's identity. He valued accompaniment as invisible craft: sustain without covering the singer. Openness to India and jazz never, in his telling, meant abandoning jondo root. After Morente's death he spoke of fraternity and poetry. Flamenco.one recounts that after hearing Rosalia's Los Angeles he told her she sang like an old woman, a compliment in flamenco argot for deep cante.

Critics call him a titan of contemporary guitar and an involuntary patriarch of Nuevos Medios modern flamenco, especially via Ketama's family line. His seguiriya innovations (sometimes called seguiriya nueva) and harmonic boldness influenced generations while remaining rooted in Granada toque. Institutional Spain answered with the Fine Arts gold medal, Alfonso X Grand Cross, Pamplona ambassadorship, and nationwide 2024 farewells. Granada's lying-in-state and San Jose burial closed a life that began in Sacromonte caves and ended as national cultural heritage.

National Discography Prize associated with the Antonio Chacon tribute (Wikipedia: 1975). Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts (2018). Premio de Cultura Gitana, music category (2018). Granada Embajador del Flamenco Granadino. Flamenco On Fire perpetual ambassador (from early festival years; balcony concert 2020). Castillete de Oro, Festival de La Union (among 2024 tributes). Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X the Wise (Council of Ministers Feb 2026; presented at Moncloa February 21, 2026, Gelem Gelem / Roma anniversary ceremony).

Core discography spans Morente co-led albums, Nuevos Medios solos, Yerbaguena, and Hands. Spanish public radio (Nuestro flamenco on Radio Clasica) devoted multiple programmes to his guitar. ALL FLAMENCO filmed late Teatro Cervantes 2022 performances (solo taranta; seguiriya with Israel Fernandez). Death-week tributes by Pedro Sanchez, Alejandro Sanz, Ayuso, and Radio 5 circulated widely on X; artists including Lolita Flores, Rosalia, Miguel Poveda, and Jose Merce also mourned on social platforms.

No major legal or personal scandal dominates reliable obituaries. Artistic debate around fusion versus purity followed his generation generally; Habichuela's public stance was that innovation must still sound like the palo. Not framed as a personal controversy in El Pais, Euronews, or ALL FLAMENCO death coverage. No documented major controversies found in primary sources reviewed.

Habichuela died August 4, 2026, in Madrid. elDiario and ALL FLAMENCO state cause as lung disease (enfermedad pulmonar). El Pais and Euronews describe an illness that removed him from stages from summer 2024, the season of his last major tributes. Servisa Carabanchel funeral home received the body; remains traveled to Granada for public homage at Teatro Isabel la Catolica and burial at Cementerio de San Jose. Age reported as 81 (Wikipedia) or 82 (many Spanish wires). Specific narrower pathology beyond lung disease was not published in sources reviewed.