The gypsy flamenco band the Gipsy Kings are touring North America and the band’s added a unique song to its repertoire.The group is from the South of France… and they’re of Spanish Romani heritage. Their style of music is rumba flamenco, often mixed in with popular beats. They’ve had a busy career and they are loved in the United States where they tour about twice a year. The band first burst onto the world stage in the late 1980s with hits like “Bamboleo”.
They haven’t released a new studio album in over three years so it’s a little puzzling that their latest work is heard in an animation movie: Disney-Pixar’s’ TOY STORY 3. Since Buzz Lightyear is switched to Spanish in this film the theme song is too. “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” becomes “Hay un Amigo en Mi,” a full-blown rumba-flamenco tune, courtesy of the Gipsy Kings.
Tom MacDougall is TOY STORY 3’s music supervisor says, for the scene in which Buzz Lightyear starts to dance, they needed a band with an iconic sound that would identify flamenco, and Spain, immediately in American moviegoers’ minds. And no band could do that better than the Gipsy Kings.
Tom MacDougall: “For that moment we needed people to know immediately what’s happening you hear those first chords on the guitar and even when I see the film now with audiences they get right away so for that minute or so of the footage the song identifies what’s going to happen and you just enjoy the ride.”
Gipsy Kings’ band member Andre Reyes says they were immensely pleased to get the song request from Disney-Pixar. He says they worked to make it their own -- “we gave it a Gipsy Kings makeover, with the style of singing of Nicolas, the lead singer, and the traditional Flamenco rhythm.” He adds that the song may give the band a special connection to American audiences during this tour. And if they get requests, Reyes says they’ll definitely play their version of the TOY STORY 3 theme song.
The Gipsy Kings will be at the Seminole Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, Florida on February 28, 2011.
