By Steve Simmons – Posted at 10:45 p.m., March 25, 2022
Spanish guitar phenomenon El Twanguero is taking his devoted fan base to the jungle.
Known for his blending of styles, pristine technique, six albums, world tours and passionate fan base, Twanguero’s career has taken him from a classically trained prodigy under the tutelage of Jose Lázaro Villena, a former student of guitar legend Andrés Segovia to Latin Grammy winner in 2013 as a producer. And now he’s taking his music in a new direction while staying true to his roots.
Diego Garcia, aka El Twanguero, will release his latest album, “Backroads, Vol 2” on the Cosmica Record label in a launch party, at 8 p.m., Thursday, March 31 at L.A.’s Hotel Café. (For details, see below).
A Trip That Was Fated
A series of events and experiences converged to draw Garcia to the jungle, “where I always wanted to make an album.”
A few years ago, he was invited by his then-girlfriend to play guitar at an ayahuasca session she was leading in Topanga. The ceremony that involved the traditional drinking of the hallucinatory plant/vine tea blend from the jungle. “I was given the opportunity to experience the jungle for the first time without having been there.”
Garcia was given a guitar by famed maker and one of his favorite and long-term suppliers Spain’s Guitarras Ramirez at the National Association of Music Merchants conference in Anaheim, just before the pandemic hit full strength. “It was a special model made with Central American wood,” says Garcia. “I got the idea to take the guitar to where it came from and make an offering to the trees for the gift of this instrument and complete the circle. I wondered how it would sound in the place where it belongs and where sound travels differently.”
He wanted to do a sequel to his 2017 Spanish Independent Music award-winning solo album, “Carreteras Secundarias – Backroads Vol. 1,” the result of a road trip around North America. He traveled from Chicago to Nashville, Mexico and finally Patagonia, studying and playing blues, ragtime and country to create what he calls “an anthology of music of North America,” and recorded in Buenos Aires.
Getting To The Jungle
With the pandemic raging and the vaccine still on the horizon, Garcia found that with increasing COVID-19 restrictions, Costa Rica’s jungle was the best place to continue his project.
Spanish friends helped him rent an airbnb cabin, so his accommodations were not entirely primitive. “I was not in the wild,” says Garcia. But he had to contend with mosquitos, rain and humidity, always being aware of taking care of his guitar.
Using the discipline he first learned at age 6 in the Valencia Conservatory (“I was supposed to be a classical player by I wanted to play rock”), Garcia developed a morning routine of practicing, rehearsing, keeping a musical diary and hiking at 5 a.m. listening to the birds. “It was like a symphony.”
Armed with “a couple of mics,” a laptop and a sound card,” Garcia was able to record himself, the ambient sounds of those birds, plus cicadas. He used studios in Limón and one an-hour and-a-half away in San Jose for production and adding percussion overdubs.
Realizing the album is a wild departure and a risk, Garcia says, “I’m a practical guy. In the middle of a pandemic, I didn’t have a band, so I thought okay, this is going to be a solo album with a wooden Spanish guitar with nylon strings–and limited technology. It forced me to sit down and tell you a story through my guitar, the instrument of my life.”
Adding New Depth
The music reflects the profound effect being in the jungle had on Garcia, both personally and professionally.
“I sat on my little chair in a clearing and started to listen to the sounds of the jungle,” says Garcia. He started to interact with the mix of cicadas and crickets, the howler monkeys and all the birds. He heard the birds singing in the keys of D major and minor, and decided to continue the theme of birdsong and nature that he first touched on in his “Argentina Songbook” (2013).
And then there was a moment when he realized everything was silent. “This is when the project began making sense,” Garcia says.
Among the selections are:
Jaguar, a song inspired by the ayahuasca ceremony. “I drank the tea and I had a dream and saw a jaguar and animals crying,” says Garcia. “It opened something inside me about respect for nature and using my guitar for a good purpose.”
Working with the idea of “America’s cat,” Garcia gave the song thumping, cat-like counter-rhythms to evoke visions of big cats prancing in the jungle. Using his trademark blend of styles, Garcia wanted the selection to represent the animal’s geographic area with the South American milonga, samba and bossa nova. (Listen here: https://youtu.be/b_aLRlmBfZM))
He says both La Leyenda del Cañaveral (The Legend of the Sugar Cane Field –https://youtu.be/sAYid1OUA) and Samba de la Jungla (also in the key of D) are “conversations with the inhabitants of the jungle.”
He started Balada para un Náufrago (Song of the Castaway) at his Santa Monica home and finished it in the jungle. “I first felt like a castaway as an immigrant in this country,” says Garcia, “and then again during the pandemic.”
Along with the physical challenges—”The jungle changes you. Your body gets stronger. There are slopes you have to climb and you have to drink lots of water”—Garcia also found a new approach. “In the jungle you don’t get distracted. It calms you down and connects you inwardly. You become the philosopher.”
Not worried about the standard three-minute limit for a recording, in the jungle he “didn’t want to stop the flow. I want the songs to be much deeper.” Some of the songs Garcia says, are perfect for meditation and inner reflection.
Twanguero Costarica, a documentary of the making of the new recording, Backroads, Vol 2 can be seen at https://youtu.be/YtJQwbNHlyA.
Becoming El Twanguero
“Diego Garcia is the name on my passport,” says Garcia. “I was born in love with the guitar (in Valencia) and Twanguero is the character that I imagined as a kid, traveling around the world and meeting people just to find out how different countries approach the guitar. They all have their own sounds.”
After 15 years of trabeling through North and South America, Garcia found his voice in Twanguero, “a unique musical project where I merge my Spanish roots with the electric sounds that were born in California in the 1950s that I heard on my father’s records.”
Twanguero is fond of the portmanteau. A blend of the word “tanguero,” a tango fan, and “twang,” the guitar sound popular in country and rockabilly music. So a twanguero is basically a twang aficionado.
He also appreciates the fact that there are lots of Garcias (“it’s the most more name ever”), but only one Twanguero.
A Signature Style
Garcia’s idiosyncratic style is a blend of every genre he likes to play. He’s known for combining classical Spanish guitar, Latin rhythms, blues, bluegrass, rockabilly, American folk, surf music, flamenco, tango and exquisite fingerpicking.
“I like to mix the electric guitar with Spanish guitar tradition and what I’ve learned from American music,” says Garcia. “Everly style is a challenge that takes a lifetime of study.”
But Garcia decided to learn from the masters. To perfect his country music licks, he knew he had to go to Nashville to experience the sound. ”I realized there were a lot of badass guitarists and musicians there,” says Garcia, “and I decided that I wanted to travel the world to learn the different styles.” So it was off to Argentina to perfect his tango and to Chicago for lessons in the blues. He terms his method “drinking from the well.”
“To learn the different styles it’s important to me to go where they come from,” says Garcia. And I think being a specialist in flamenco or the blues is a beautiful thing. I respect it a lot, but I’m like a natural blender. I think there’s also another side of being an artist, which is individuality.
“I am three guitarists in one,” says Garcia. “I play classical nylon-string with my fingers and artificial nails. I play with a thumb pick when I switch to the steel-string acoustic. And when I play electric guitar, I play exclusively with a pick – no hybrid picking. I developed the three techniques to get the music right, and to express myself the way I want to.”
California Connections
At a young age, Garcia discovered country and was heavily influenced by Chet Atkins and Buck Owens, one of the founders of the Bakersfield Sound. As tribute to that twangy style he loves, Garcia has played the Guitar Masters Series at the Bakersfield Music Hall of Fame several times. “I have a following there,” he says.
After living all over the world, Garcia settled in Santa Monica around 2017, “with around 12 guitars” (he has 15 more in Spain). He often bikes to his boat in Marina del Rey where he has a small recording studio.
To kick off the tour for Backroads, Vol. 2, Garcia will again take part in the Ventura Music Festival. The 7:30 p.m., Saturday, April 9 show will feature an acoustic solo set based on the new album and a second half with his band and electric guitar. For information, visit venturamusicfestival.org/twanguero/
Going Global
Since he sees himself as a proponent of world music, it’s no wonder that Garcia would be involved with Playing For Change. The multimedia music project, with 60,000 subscribers features videos of singers and musicians from across the globe.
The organization maintains a performance space in Venice, and Garcia met the founders Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke when he was living in the city. “I was invited to play there and met some of the best guitarists I’ve seen.”
Playing For Change also operates the Playing For Change Foundation, and Garcia is a big fan of its work building music and art schools for children in countries including South Africa, Brazil and Nepal.
His most recent video for the site, recorded in Topanga Canyon, features Twanguero on an electric guitar playing his Minor Rag – Spanish Rag – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkRBSZH1EEk
Twanguero at Hotel Café Second Stage, 1623 Cahuenga Blvd., L.A., 90028. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10. For information and COVID-19 requirements, visit https://www.hotelcafe.com/tickets/?s=events_view&id=11055
