Legendary folk guitarist Moro has dropped his latest single, a Spanish instrumental written and played in the toque style of Andalusia, “Cinco de Mayo.” The writer and performer of 12 LP albums and the No.1 solo-guitar song from 1981-1984 has performed in over 50 countries, for kings and queens, sheiks and movie stars, but is perhaps best renowned as the most-celebrated champion of the historic troubadour tradition of the last 200 years — and likely the most well-traveled of all time.
A few months before his 21st birthday in the early 1960s, Moro took up a backpack, left his wallet behind, and set out to circumscribe the globe with nothing but his guitar and his soul. The result became a finalist for ForeWord Magazine's 2012 Book of the Year Award, his acclaimed autobiography, Kin to the Wind.
Today Moro releases singles on the Budwick independent label whenever he feels a hankering, and they enjoy international radio circulation. The present release of “Cinco de Mayo” is his first since 2019's “Wanderin'.” As the vaunted artist relates it, “Cinco...” forced its way into being.
“I needed time for the right thing to come along,” he says.
Moro records in a pair of insulated rooms attached to his garage the size of walk-in closets. Far from the mic-and-laptop rigs many indie artists content themselves with today, Moro enjoys the warm acoustics of state-of-the-art analog equipment. And when he’s particularly happy with a recording, he sends it to a digital mastering lab for finalization.
All this and more is palpable while listening to contemporary tracks by Moro. All this and much more.
“I strongly feel 'Cinco de Mayo' would’ve pleased my friend Dorotea Estampio,” he writes. “I met her in Old Town Granada — she was a gypsy flamenco dancer and we performed onstage together, she on her toes and I on my guitar. I grew to love her so much, the Andalusian-style melody of 'Cinco de Mayo' actually roots in that love and makes me all at once happy and sad whenever I feel her immortal spirit enjoying it.”
To hear Moro tell it is to give faces to the seeming spirits swaying in his sounds.
“When she danced,” says Moro, “she regarded the world around her with a soul-penetrating gaze so intense as to be capable of exorcism. Our awed crowds studied her with bated breath.”
Sharing the stage with him were her husband, also dancing, and her teenage son, also playing guitar. Moro speaks of all three with the friendly reverence of a collaborator who's worked on a thing of marvel.
“Ingenious, clever and alert, [her son] somehow always knew where I was going with the music. So we easily became a duet, and the four of us — two guitarists and two dancers — performed in public squares, gypsy caves and even theaters, for aficionados throughout Andalusia. The people generally gave us a little money with which Dorotea bought us food and beautiful, if humble, lodging.”
“Cinco de Mayo” was originally published to the world in Moro's 1994 CD, “Amilucience.” Today's updated version comes as remastered with surgical precision by London's famous Tom Frampton, whom Moro describes as “a great young engineer with unheard-of understanding, whose legendary skill has elevated the sound.”
Lifelong symphony patron Ted Wildhage says of the remastered Cinco de Mayo, “The notes are so full, so resonant and beautiful. Hearing it took me back to a special place with good times and memories. I’ll keep it and play it often.”
And what of Moro's own memories? He's as wistful as any of us.
“I’ve never been so happy with anyone,” he writes. “I'd have stayed with these gypsies forever. But a noble and fascinating Spanish duchess in the audience invited me home for dinner late one balmy Saturday night after our show. Only 20, I’m afraid I went home with her and never saw my gypsy friends again. Life with them had been so happy and spiritually golden, losing them in this way gave me a lifelong heartache that refuses to go away.”
“Cinco de Mayo” by Moro on the Budwick label is available from quality digital music stores online worldwide now. Get in early, classical-guitar music fans.
– S. McCauley
Lead Press Release Writer
www.Octiive.com
“Cinco de Mayo” by Moro —
https://www.amazon.com/Cinco-De-Mayo-Remastered-2021/dp/B09C24RT1Z/
“Cinco de Mayo” Official Slideshow Video —
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx7Bhw60Jds
Moro Official Website —
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