You play the most with the brothers Paco and Miguel Angel Cortés.

I do a bambera and the tangos de la Repompa with them. They know me very well. Riqueni is there, too, and what a great player he is!

How is it that you've recorded for so many different labels? It happens a lot in flamenco.

When I wanted to make a recording of singing, like "La Luna en el Río," Auvidis offered me what I was looking for. In any case, I've always done what I've wanted to. Recording companies have never asked me to do commercial things. I'm aware that recordings have to sell, that you have to do bulerías and tangos; you have to give a little, in that sense: tracks that aren't too long that can be played on the radio.

You don't seem to make too many commercial compromises.

But you can't be unyielding; you can't go and make a recording of seguiriyas. The anthology offers a wide range of cantes by female singers. I'd proposed the idea to Hispavox before Polygram, eight years earlier, but it just sat there on a shelf. A person who left Hispavox to work at Polygram remembered the project, and the Lorca recording had been selling well, so it all came together. We were better off doing it later; more research had been done and we had more experience. It was better to record it later.

A lot of research went into it.

But I had a lot of help from my husband, Miguel Espín. He's got all kinds of recordings. I mean, he's got them, so I've got them; what's his is mine too, you know? Without that help it would've been impossible. Performing live... A mother with three kids... They helped me in the selection of material. I had the last word. I'm really happy and satisfied with the anthology.

What singer does the anthology pay the most tribute to?

My favorite singer of all time is La Niña de los Peines, but, to tell you the truth, she doesn't need a tribute like this to defend her work. She was incredible.

There are other singers to mention. People normally only talk about La Niña de los Peines.

La Perla de Cádiz, Fernanda y Bernarda; they don't need this kind of tribute, either. When you put them all together, you realize how important women have been in singing. It's a personal tribute. Some things weren't very well known, like the alegría "Toma esa puñal dorao." That went over really well. It's a song from La Mejorana that nobody knew, and I knew that Manolo Vargas sang it, and that La Mejorana was the mother of Pastora Imperio, so... There's also a bulería that Camarón's mother sang, a taranta of La Antequerana, things that people didn't know about. When you sing them from a modern perspective, they take on life.

You've collabored in recordings of other people, like the guitarrist Juan Carlos Romero.

I sang at the presentation of the recording at the "Sociedad de Autores"(Madrid). On the recording I sing two verses of soleá por bulerías. He's a great composer with very good taste. We recently did something in Seville that we'll be doing in Madrid. It's a really beautiful show.

There were very few people at the presentation, but Manolo Sanlúcar and a few other musicians were there.

That's not too bad, then...

Are you going to record soon?

Soon. I've got to talk with the recording companies, but we're preparing things now.

You sing on a very recent recording by Manolo Sanlúcar where you play an important role.

That's another reason to put off my recording. I do six songs with Manolo, and we presented it live. I'd rather wait a bit.

The recording is surprising in the melodies of the voice and in all the musical work.

It was a real tough recording; the hardest thing I've done so far. It's a different way of singing, as if I were just another instrument. Difficult melodies... I had to keep my singing low-key; I was at the service of Manolo's guitar, and I couldn't embellish it too much.

The melodies of your voice seem highly composed.

Yeah, Manolo knew exactly what he wanted. It's incredible, with that music and the verse by Lorca.

And the things he says about you in the liner notes.

I almost cried when I saw it, and the same thing happened to Tino. Manolo has such a way with words! It was hard work for me, but well worth it.

Isidro Sanlúcar, who's also on "Locura de Brisa y Trino", is not as popular as (his brother) Manolo, but he's there on a lot of recordings: Duquende, recently, José Mercé...

He's a great artist. He's always in the background; he'd hide under the table if he could. You practically have to push him to get him to say hello at a concert. He's just shy like that. For us, he's a star. Everyone wants to work with him, and he's always busy, or it's this, or that... What he did with Duquende is fabulous, and we know it. He enjoys doing good work. He does more commercial things, also, but always in his own style.

What recordings are indispensable for getting to know flamenco?

You have to listen to Chacón, to Pastora; it depends on what you like. Vallejo, Manuel Torre...

And more recent work?

Camarón, undeniably. He was so great that young people today can't see anything else. Morente is an important artist; Paco de Lucía, Sánlucar...
But I think that young people ought to listen to things that go back a little further. Camarón was my age. I'm part of his generation, and I've listened to him a lot, but he listened to a lot of others. What young people know today is filtered by his personality, so I think you have to go further back. But I can understand that they find his singing so attractive... And it's harder to listen to old recordings, with the sound quality, but a CD sounds great.

Do you set aside time in a day for listening to flamenco?

No, but you'll hear it a lot at my house. My kids like it. My daughter Lucía is thirteen, and she likes Niña Pastori, and things that sound like flamenco. One of my kids is sixteen and he's nuts about flamenco. He comes home from school and puts on Mayte Martín, Camarón, everything; Morente... When I want to hear something, I do it at night when everyone's asleep. Some people think I study all day, and they ask me how many hours a day I spend studying. It's not a university course that you study. I might not listen to anything in a week, and then I'll start listening to something over and over. When I did the anthology, I sat down and studied some cantes, or I will when I want to do something new for a performance. But if not, I don't think about it, and I spend more time just enjoying myself then studying.

You know the newer generations in flamenco.

The other day I was watching Duquende, and then Cigala. And Arcángel, that monster. God, he's a great singer! Marina is singing really well; and when Estrella Morente sings, I do whatever I can to see her.

Flamenco isn't dead.

I feel sorry for the people who say that it is. When Camarón died, some people said that flamenco was dead. It changes; it can't be the same as it was sixty years ago.

The singers you mentioned are young, and they know a lot about singing.

Sure they do, but there are young people that insist on calling everything "new flamenco." For me, new flamenco singers are the ones that I mentioned, not Ketama. Ketama is something else. But that's okay; no one has to criticize Ketama. They've got a great group and they do their own kind of music. There have to be Ketamas and Niña Pastoris. I love Niña Pastori. She's really fun, and she's doing what she likes to do. The problem has a lot more to do with confusion in terminology. There will always be different-sounding flamenco. The flamenco of La Niña de los Peines sounded different from what Tomás el Nitri did. Pastora evolved. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is, and in a hundred years, I'll be a classic, and people will say, "That woman sounds so old!" Flamenco is an art like any other, and you have to let it fly!
But when people don't know about flamenco and they try to do it, the results are not good. But Ketama doesn't go around saying that they do seguiriyas, as far as I know... They say that they do music, and that's all.

Doesn't it bother you that other kinds of music use flamenco rhythms and melodies?

No. Why should it bother me? If it's well-done... But I'm not going to put Caracol and a rock group in the same category. Each one has his own category!

In the last Bienal, there were talented young artists and others from more recent generations that were doing new things.

There are artists that don't know how to evolve, and they think that everything that isn't remaining static is breaking away from history. They should be more respectful of what people feel. You can't tell an artist how to sing. Then it wouldn't be real.

It's more false to want to be faithful to tradition, and to fit yourself to a pattern.

I have to sing with my voice and my ways, and in the way that I see and feel things. That's more authentic than trying to make a carbon copy; to duplicate what Pastora or anyone else did. And flamenco is based on individualism.

One of the most coherent things in the Bienal was Eva's show.

She's the best, without a doubt.

We don't know why there aren't female guitarists...

There's no tradition, so... But Mayte Martín plays really well. When I heard her, I thought, "What a witch! She plays so well." When a woman appears who plays well and has charisma, there'll be more following her. There are women in classic guitar, but not flamenco.

Daniel Muñoz