How and when did you begin singing? we ask don Antonio

I don't actually remember. I've been singing more than forty years. I started out in Jerez when I was thirteen or fourteen. In those days I only sang soleares and seguiriyas gitanas. At fifteen I hit the small towns, accompanied by today's excellent tocaor Javier Molina and his brother who danced. We made all those trips on foot.

Was there little money?

Whatever they felt like giving us. Then I went to Cádiz, and from Cádiz to Seville, the same year they killed el Canario on the Triana bridge. I went back to Jerez. Seville scared me, so big...

SIX 'REALES' FOR FOUR SONGS

In '86 Chacón tells us he worked in Jerez, in a café cantante where there was one Juan Junquera. He paid me six reales for four songs, and threw me out into the street. "You're no good kid" he told me. And I went on, from town to town. Four months later, one of Junquera's sisters, called Tomasa, hired me in another café cantante in Jerez, with a salary of four pesetas per show. From this café I went on to Cádiz, to the Perejil fair, earning seven pesetas a day. There Enrique Ortega, the uncle of that boy Caracolito, sang seguiriyas, as well as el Mellizo.

Were they good artists?

The best there were at that time. You can just imagine how good they were that when I saw them in the café cantante I told my tocaor, the maestro Patiño: I'm not singing seguiriyas. I'm embarrassed. So then just what do you want to sing my dear boy?... Play some malagueñas. And that's what I sang, I hardly knew how, but they really applauded a lot.

The famous malagueñas

Ever since that night I've been in love with the malagueñas, and I started to chop and change from my own repertoire. They liked it so much that it became a standby in the café that there was a competition between el Mellizo and myself.

Did you talk about cante?

Something awful. We got up on stage, Enrique el Mellizo, who was making eighty pesetas a night, with his regular guitarist Tapia, and myself, making seven pesetas, with the maestro Patiño. He'd sing a verse of seguiriya and then I'd sing a malagueña. The debate would go on for a while, and then he'd come back again, and then the kid again, that's what they called me.

Do you remember the malagueña you used to sing back then?

As if it were yesterday. It was this one (quote):

Dando en el reloj la una
de aquella campana triste
hasta las dos estoy pensando
el querer que me fingiste
y me dan las tres llorando.

The clock was striking one
With that sad little bell
At two I was still thinking
Of he love for me you feigned
And by three I was weeping.

It's not one of the prettiest ones Chacón my friend.

But the poetry and the music are mine. Like the one that's also mine and which become so popular:

¿A qué niegas el delirio
que tienes por mi persona, que la conoce todo el mundo?.

Why deny the passion
you feel for me,
when everyone knows it?

And this other one of mine also:

Rosa, si no te cogí,
fue porque no me dio la gana.

If I didn't pick you oh rose,
it's because I didn't feel like it.

CHACÓN IN SEVILLE

Did you make a lot of money in Cádiz?

Not so hot. I was 16 and they took advantage of me. From Cádiz I went on to Utrera, to a café that that Junquera guy had who paid me six reales and threw me out. Then he gave me sixty reales. In Utrera I managed to save a few "duros" and got away to Seville. I showed up at the Filarmónico. Some well-knowns called for me to sing, and I went up on the tablao to sing, getting hired thereafter.

And the owner from Utrera?

He went crazy. He came to Seville and passed the hat I returned the five ounces of gold I had received to don Andrés González, owner of the Filarmónico, and went back to Utrera. From there I went on to the Cádiz children's group, in a theater that there was in the Puerta Ontamana. I was earning sixty reales. Silverio came to Cádiz for me, and hired me for sixty-five reales at the café he had in Seville, on Rosario street. Weren't you ever there?

A long time with Silverio?

Yeah. They cajoled me. I think they touched up the contract, and where it said one month, they changed it to nine, and I sang in the Silverio for nine months running. From the Silverio I went on to Málaga, to the Siete Revueltas café, for five duros a day. That was in '87. I worked for one month and then returned to Seville, to the Burrero, the café with the stepladder, on Amor de Dios street with Tarifa. Two months later, back to Málaga, to the café Chinita, now with eight duros. By the way, I had sung earlier in a café that wasn't strictly cantante, the Universal, where I was making fourteen duros a day. I remember the newspapers there called me a "bandit" because I was making twenty-two duros a day. And nowadays any cricket makes two hundred pesetas in a tablao... and even more!

THE BURRERO IS OPENED ON SIERPES STREET

When was that?

In '88. Before that I was in the old one, and from there I passed on to the new Burrero, on Sierpes street, the place that Mr. Barrau now has. That year Silverio died. I was in the Burrero until '89, when I was called to the military but was let off since I wasn't needed.

Who was working in the Burrero at that time?

Wow, all the big shots of the day. La Serrana, the Coquineras, la Bizca, el Perote... anyone you can think of. I've got a bad memory for names. From the Burrero I went on to tour all Spain.

Were there more flamenco-lovers then than now?

Of course... but now they spend three times as much. In the Burrero they ordered a hundred "cañas" and they cost fifty pesetas each, which right off the bat gave the owner twenty-five, because they drank half. Then came the brand-name labels, which cost thirty reales, the most expensive. You could really raise hell with a hundred pesetas! Those were the days!

Were you away from Seville a lot?

About four years. I returned in '93, married now, but still not settled down. I was still spending everything I earned and helping whoever I could. Since I don't have children...!

The phonograph tubes and the grammaphone plates.

They say you made a fortune with the plates, isn't that right?

Yes indeed. It's true, but I don't have a penny. In '99 I made 11,700 phonograph tubes for a firm in Valencia. Borrull played for me. For that deal I got 32,000 duros. I had to pay the "guitarrero" (guitarist).

A tidy sum!

Well, before that in Seville with an Englishman who turned out to be a spy, I made about five-hundred cylinders, at two duros apiece. Later on in Madrid I made said Englishman more cylinders, at five duros apiece.

Five thousand duros!

Which I collected in cash... and which I spent.

And the recorded plates?

I've got ten plates recorded with the maestro Habichuela, for Odeón. They paid me ten thousand pesetas. I didn't like them after they were recorded. You can be sure those recordings drove me crazy, because they were heard all over the world.

And aren't there any good ones, I mean that you like?

In 1913 I made ten disks with Ramón Montoya for an American firm. They paid me ten thousand reales. Those came out very well. There are two malagueñas and soleares. The recording company agreed to make more but I haven't heard from them.

You must have savings, no?

When I don't sing I don't eat. I've lived fast and well. I'm still living well. I don't deny myself anything. My family the same. If bad times come, we'll call them good.

Have you been in América?

Yes indeed. In Buenos Aires. I went off with a friend, for fun, just to know what it was like. I sang there for a month in the San Martín theater. On the way back, like a passenger getting off at a station, I was a few days in Montevideo, and I sang in the theater on July 18th. And I was lucky.

"EL CANTE JONDO"

Do you think "cante jondo" will return like in the days when you started out?

No way. "Cante jondo" will never be a commercial show number, if somebody doesn't take it under its wing, like in Granada, important artists. Cante will be reduced to what it once was. They'll manage to get more "aficionados" to sing it, more nice ladies who sing well and copy what they hear on the gramophones

So you believe that the guy with the open-necked shirt who "ravages his throat and throws its debris out at the footlights" will get left in the back room of the tavern or dancehall waiting to "make some noise" at a fiesta?

Without a doubt.

THE BIGGEST CONTRACT

What's been your best contract?

Outside of the phonograph records, this last one in Seville, where I made two thousand pesetas. Out of this money I have to pay two hundred a night to Montoya, travel expenses, room and board. There's not much left, let me tell you!

Which guitarist or singer do you think is the best?

Forgive me for not answering that. I use Montoya because he's the one who has been most identified with my voice and my personality. Montoya's guitar is me.

Is there a lot of interest in cante in Madrid?

Not much. They reject anything which is flamenco. They hate flamenco people... but I get called to private houses, to parties, and fiestas. I can't complain. Like they say around there, "you get by!"

Chacón squirmed around when we asked him about stories of his love life from years ago and he tells us:

Come on... they're waiting for us. There are things that one mustn't talk about.

What about the 'fiestas' in Seville?

Forget it. The party people are the men who most fear the light of day. They would never forgive anyone for mentioning their names to anyone. "Who were you partying with last nigh?"... they've asked me a hundred times. And I always say the same thing: "some guys from Valencia"... if they were from Seville, then Seville... if they were from Cartagena... and so on...

Our chat comes to an end and we go down with Chacón, the educated gentleman, with the good manners and studies, because he's well-read and continues to read, he spoke to us about Estébanez Calderón's definition of the caña and el Fillo's polo, to bring us into the gathering of some other friends.

No one wasted any time. There we heard "real cante jondo", accompanied on the guitar by Montoya and by Cuenca, while Lafita made one of the best drawings of his life.

"El duende de Triana os lo contará" (Let me tell you about the duende in Triana)

Interview: Galerín.

Translation: Estela Zatania

Related information:

Historical interview by Juan de la Plata (August, 1955)