In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) operates an awards program based on the certified number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards. Certification is not automatic; for an award to be made, the record label must first request certification. The audit is conducted against net shipments after returns, which includes albums sold directly to retailers and one-stops, direct-to-consumer sales and other outlets.
José Fernández Torres, known as Tomatito, is a Spanish roma flamenco guitarist and composer. Having started his career accompanying famed flamenco singer Camarón de la Isla, he has made a number of collaborative albums and six solo albums, two of which have won Latin Grammy Awards.
Alejandro Sánchez Pizarro, better known as Alejandro Sanz, is a Spanish musician, singer and composer. He has won 22 Latin Grammy Awards and four Grammy Awards. He has received the Latin Grammy for Album of the Year three times. The singer is notable for his flamenco-influenced ballads, and has also experimented with several other genres including pop, rock, funk, R&B and jazz.
Nouveau Flamenco is Ottmar Liebert's first album, released in May 1990, written in a subgenre of flamenco known as new flamenco, fusing pop music forms and call-response structure together with flamenco elements.
Francisco Sánchez Gómez, known as Paco de Lucía, was a Spanish virtuoso flamenco guitarist, composer, and record producer. A leading proponent of the new flamenco style, he was one of the first flamenco guitarists to branch into classical and jazz. Richard Chapman and Eric Clapton, authors of Guitar: Music, History, Players, describe de Lucía as a "titanic figure in the world of flamenco guitar", and Dennis Koster, author of Guitar Atlas, Flamenco, has referred to de Lucía as "one of history's greatest guitarists".
Oscar Lopez is a Chilean-Canadian guitarist, whose signature style blends Latin and jazz styles.
Jesse Arnaud Cook is a Canadian guitarist. He is a Juno Award winner, Acoustic Guitar Player's Choice Award silver winner in the Flamenco Category, and a three-time winner of the Canadian Smooth Jazz award for Guitarist of the Year. He has recorded on the EMI, E1 Music and Narada labels and has sold over 1.5 million records worldwide.
Strunz & Farah is a guitar duo with an eclectic sound that has been described as a cross between world fusion and flamenco.
Armik, is an Iranian-Armenian American New Flamenco guitarist, producer and composer. Several of Armik's albums have reached Billboard's Top New Age Albums chart. A child prodigy, born in Iran of Armenian descent, at seven years old he pawned his watch for a classical guitar, which he hid and practiced on in the basement. By the age of nine, Armik had completed formal music lessons as well as a rigid instructional regimen. At the age of 12, he was a professional recording artist. He launched his solo career in 1994.
Young & Rollins is a guitar duo, consisting of Daniel Young and Lawson Rollins, that performs and records original music which draws upon an eclectic mixture of salsa music, Latin jazz, blues, samba, bossa nova, flamenco, and classical styles. Their music can be broadly described as a melding of Nuevo Flamenco, World Music, and Latin Music genres. Daniel Young and Lawson Rollins began collaborating after meeting in Washington, D.C. in 1998. They came from different musical backgrounds - Rollins started out as a classically trained guitarist before moving into Latin American and flamenco guitar styles, while Young holds a degree in jazz from The New School in New York City.
Luis Villegas is an American guitarist who released an album called Cafe Olé in 1996, which was nominated for the Best New Album award at the 41st Annual Grammy Awards in 1999. Villegas's style combines new-age music, flamenco, and jazz. He is known for using a technique of playing fast, intricate lines by using the fingernail of his right index finger in place of a guitar pick. He also had a small role as a member of a band in the film Collateral starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx. He is currently a member of the group Heavy Mellow, along with founder Benjamin Woods and percussionist Mike Bennett.
"Samba pa ti" is an instrumental by Latin rock band Santana, from their 1970 album, Abraxas. In English, the title means "Samba for You." It was released as a single in 1973. The song charted at No. 11 in the Netherlands, No. 43 on the German charts, and No. 27 on the UK Singles Chart, Santana's first single to chart in the United Kingdom.
Willie & Lobo was a musical duo composed of William Robert "Willie" Royal, Jr. (violin) and Wolfgang Hubert "Lobo" Fink (guitar). Their music, characterized as New Flamenco and World Music, is a blend of Gypsy, Latin, Celtic, Flamenco, Middle Eastern, Rock, Jazz, Cuban Swing, Tango and Salsa.
Miguel de la Bastide is a Trinidad-born Flamenco composer and virtuoso guitarist who first appeared on the scene in 1996 on the CD compilation Flamenco: Fire and Grace under the record label Narada Productions that placed him alongside some of Spain's most prominent guitarists, including Paco de Lucía, Tomatito and Rafael Riqueni to name a few. Since then, he has appeared on numerous other Flamenco and Nuevo Flamenco compilations. He is the only guitarist from Trinidad and Tobago that has had success recording in the flamenco genre and is also a recipient of the Chalmers Award and Toronto Arts Council Award.
Javier Limón is a record producer, singer and songwriter born and raised in Madrid, Spain. Limón has worked with several artists, mainly from Spain, since he incorporates elements of flamenco rhythm to his work. Besides his work as producer has also dabbled as an interpreter and has released three studio albums, Limón, Son de Limón and Mujeres de Agua. Since 2003, Limón has done recordings in Israel, Bogotá, Bristol, Paris, Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires, New York City and Morocco. In 2004, Limón was awarded the Latin Grammy Award for Producer of the Year for his work on Lágrimas Negras by Diego El Cigala and Bebo Valdés, Cositas Buenas by Paco de Lucía, El Cantante by Andrés Calamaro, El Pequeño Reloj by Enrique Morente, Niño Josele by Niño Josele and Tributo Flamenco A Don Juan Valderrama by Various Artists. Javier Limón serves as the Artistic Director of the Berklee College of Music's Mediterranean Music Institute, which operates in Valencia, Spain as well as Boston, Massachusetts.
Pavlo Simtikidis, often called simply Pavlo is a Greek-Canadian guitarist who plays, "a Mediterranean sound mixing the folkloric styles of Greek, Spanish and Latin music with pop sensibilities." Born in Toronto, Canada, he is the son of Greek immigrants, George & Freda Simtikidis, of Kastoria, Greece. His albums Pavlo and Fantasia certified Gold in Canada, and album Fantasia was nominated in 2001 for a JUNO Award for Best Instrumental Album.
Lester DeVoe is an American elite flamenco and classical guitar luthier who designs guitars for Latin music. He has been cited as " among the most in-demand flamenco guitar makers alive today".
Leda Battisti is an Italian singer-songwriter.
Opium is a studio double album by German-born guitarist Ottmar Liebert and his band Luna Negra. The album's first disc is called "Wide-Eyed" and features an upbeat, nuevo flamenco sound, reflective of Liebert's previous work. The second disc is called "Dreaming" which features a mellower, ethereal sound. Opium was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1997 for Best New Age Album. The album was inspired by a postcard that Liebert received from his paternal grandfather, who had worked on the South Manchuria Railway. Opium was produced by Ottmar Liebert, along with his brother, Stefan Liebert.
Canción Andaluza is the final studio album by Spanish musician Paco de Lucía, released on April 29, 2014 through Universal Music Spain. It was released posthumously after his death on February 25, 2014. Produced by de Lucía himself, it features collaborations with fellow Flamenco singers Estrella Morente and Vicente Castro "Parrita", and Venezuelan salsa musician Oscar D'León.
