Madrid, Spain - Renowned Spanish guitarist Mario Escudero died in Miami, Florida, November 19, 2004, at 8 a.m. Escudero had been suffering of Parkinson's disease. His son will bury his ashes in Madrid.

Mario Escudero Valero was born in Alicante (Spain), in 1928. He was one of the great innovators of the guitar in the 20th century. Escudero studied in Madrid under the tutelage of two of the greatest Flamenco guitarists of the time, Ramón Montoya and Niño Ricardo.

Escudero moved to the United States and recorded several guitar albums in New York, as a duet with another Spanish master, Sabicas. Some of these recordings became a reference point for the great modernizer of Flamenco guitar in the 1970s, Paco de Lucía.

Mario Escudero became a US citizen in 1969. He maintained homes in Sevilla & New York for over 30 years and returned to Spain in the 1980s. In 1994 he moved back to the United States, when his son Ramón died in 1994, and gradually lost his ability to perform due to Parkinson's disease.