José de Castro and Jopi, is a Spanish guitarist, producer and musical director. Nowadays, he is playing with the band that accompanies the Spanish singer Melendi.From the city of Leganés, in Madrid, he started in music studying classic guitar, solfeo and coral, moreover other music-related topics.
He’s been playing since he was ten, studying classical guitar, harmony, choir, and music theory. At the age of seventeen, fascinated by the electric guitar he joined several rock bands, performing with some of them in Madrid’s music scene, winning important contests as the “Trofeo Villa de Madrid”. Later on, he begins to play as a professional guitarist in some orchestras and bands on a national level while working as a music teacher in various modern music schools,”Ritmo y Compás” among them, where he taught until 2002. In that year, his first instrumental album was released, entitled “Un poco de lo mío”(A bit of my own); written, arranged, and produced by himself. It contains nine songs with a rock sound adding funk, pop, and fusion elements.
His debut album as a soloist received excellent reviews from the Spanish press (Guitarra Total, Guitarrista, etc.) and the international music press (Guitar World, Vintage Guitar Magazine). The CD was sold in Europe, the US and Asia. This fact, along with his great talent and sensibility as a musician, made him a house name in music sessions as a recording player as well as a live guitar player on demand. He has worked since then with a great number of Top 40 Spanish artists as a musical director, sometimes also as a music producer and composer for some of them.