Joseph the French

José "El Francés" (real name José Rodríguez Vázquez), born in 1971 in Montpellier, is a French musician with Spanish citizenship.

Biography

She was born into a gypsy family of immigrants. From a very young age, he was in contact with flamenco through his family. José was ten years old when he met Camarón de la Isla through his father's record player. At the age of 14 he moved to live in the San Blas neighborhood in Madrid. There he became José & # 34; el Francés & # 34;, immediately beginning to compose and try to earn a living with music. His dream was to meet Camarón de la Isla and he composed some tanguillos for him, such as A rose for your hair & # 34; . This same man, in turn, sang them on the album Potro de rabia y miel, the last album he recorded before his death in 1992. That same year, José el Francés entered the studio, sponsored by Pepe de Lucía, to record his first album, Las calles de San Blas.

Fueled by the success of his previous work, during the summer of 1994, he recorded his second studio album, Somos Perfectos, published in 1995 by Nuevos Medios, in which he had the collaboration by artists such as Jorge Pardo, Tino di Geraldo or Ketama. With this album, José el Francés delves into a flamenco pop sound with Latin influences, abandoning the flamenco that characterized his first work.

At the end of 1999 he published with BMG-Ariola, Alma, his third studio album, which was presented on January 28, 2000 at Sala Caracol in Madrid with the collaboration of artists such as Vicente Amigo, Niña Pastori, Paquete Porrina, Manuel Parrilla, Chaboli or Ketama. Alma sold more than 300,000 copies and the new version of "Ya no quiero tu querer", a song originally released on his first album, was released as a single reaching number 1 on the 40 principales on September 2, 2000. The album received three Amigo Award nominations, taking home the award for best flamenco album and José el Francés was named artist of the year by the radio station specialized in music in Spanish, Cadena Dial. The album was recorded while on prison leave, since in 1998 José el Francés had been detained in possession of four kilos of heroin and accused of drug trafficking. The singer was tried and sentenced to nine years in prison.

In 2002, he published Jugando al amor, his fourth studio album in which the duet with Laura Pausini on the song "Dime" or the version of the song "Besos De Caramelo", by Ketama. In 2004, he published the album Agua de esperanza, produced by Javier Limón and Emanuele Ruffinengo, producer of two of Alejandro Sanz's most popular albums (Más and The soul in the air). In 2009, he released his sixth studio album with Vale Music under the title Respirando Amor.

In 2017 he published the album Hoy Soy Feliz, which included collaborations with artists such as El Langui, Juan Carmona or Hamid El Hadri.

Discography

• The streets of San Blas (1992)
• We're perfect. (1995)
• Alma (1999)
• Playing love (2002)
• Water of hope (2004)
• Breathing love (2009)
• Today I am happy (2017)