Domingo Alvarado: «Carmen hired me because I was from Jerez!»

By Flamenco Journalist, Estela Zatania

It’s funny how things happen sometimes. A neighbor lady walking by my front door on the narrow pedestrian street where I live, glimpsed a poster of Fernanda de Utrera on the wall, and remarked “oh…you’re into flamenco…I have an uncle who sings flamenco, but you wouldn’t know him, he lives in New York”. Indeed! Turned out, this was the niece of flamenco singer Domingo Alvarado, whose family owns a historic building just a few meters up the street from me. The same building, decades earlier, was a popular tabanco (traditional bar specialized in wines and where flamenco was often present), as often pointed out by older taxi-drivers when they drop me off.

Domingo, a flamenco singer from the era of ruffled shirts and sideburns, settled in the United States after Carmen Amaya hired him on Antonio Mairena’s recommendation, something he was very proud of. In an interview we did in 2003, he describes the first encounter with the legendary dancer: … {continued at expoflamenco.com}