“One
of the things I value most in a cantaor
is for him to be personal, that as soon
as he opens his mouth you recognize him”
In principle,
it was dedicated to the old-timers of Jerez,
not exclusively to La Paquera. Part of the lyrics
mentions more people; La Bolola, Tío
Borrico, Terremoto… a generation of cantaores
from Jerez that I nearly was able to live with.
They were singing when I was already born, it’s
a generation close to me although I haven’t
been lucky enough to share parties with them.
And to me, that generation of Terremoto and
that age has been magical in cante. In fact,
if I have to recommend a cante album, I’d
recommend ‘Canta Jerez’, which is
where that clique is. I think La Paquera, as
a ‘bulearera’ and as a cantaora
with personality, is special within Jerez. One
of the things I value most in a cantaor is for
him to be personal, that as soon as he opens
his mouth you recognize him. And that’s
her case. As soon as she utters “ali ali
anda”, you know it’s her. I started
to get lyrics and those of La Paquera fit in
for me and then I focused on her, but it’s
a broader tribute. It’s a Jerez-style
bulería with speed, since it used to
be like that in the olden days. And although
it has the air of Jerez, it doesn’t do
normal styles from Santiago or from La Plazuela,
because they’re scores of mine inspired
by the cante por bulerías from here.
Then, as I do another bulería with a
sweeter style, I thought that this one has to
be foremost and as it opens the album, I wanted
the first impression to have an impact and encourage
people to go on listening.
Tangos
de Arena
I’m going
to begin with a list of errata. I must have
made a lot of mistakes on this first album and
one of them was not mentioning Miguel Poveda
in the credits because I didn’t know that
the music in the introduction to those tangos
was also his, and not just by Alfredo Lagos.
I’ve already apologized to him, as the
colleague that he is, and he’ll appear
in the following edition, since I don’t
want anything that doesn’t belong to me.
Except for the introduction, which is part of
Israel Galván’s show ‘Arena’,
the rest is put together upon poems by Bergamín
and Miguel Hernández, making a reference
to Morente.
There are some cantes which he does in that
show and they’re projected in audiovisuals.
They don’t have rhythm but when I listened
to them I was inspired that they could go por
tangos. Changing the lyrics a little and taking
it to my ground, starting with what Morente
did and which I liked so much, I reworked the
song with Alfredo. That song is really shared-out
between Alfredo and me. There’s my dedication
to one of the greats we have left right now
and he’s one of the top representatives
of today’s cante. When you’re at
that age, you’ve lived a lot and I see
huge wealth, wisdom, experience and personality
in Morente. Moreover, he’s one of the
ones who’s sung the most and the best
to poets.
“if
there’s anything I have to ask people
for, it’s for them to let me develop
and sing the way I feel it”
In this cante
de levante, the message in the first set of
lyrics is to say that I don’t ask anything
of the artist’s life I lead, and if there’s
anything I have to ask people for, it’s
for them to let me develop and sing the way
I feel it. In that era of cantaores like Terremoto,
since there wasn’t so much information,
a cantaor was allowed to develop his personality
a lot more. A person used to do a style of soleá
and nobody would question if it was good or
bad because he’d done it his way. Nowadays,
since there’s so much information, it’s
hard for a cantaor to develop and be capable
of personalizing because he’s constantly
being compared to what’s already there.
When you start to do a style and you change
a phase because at that moment it’s what
you feel, right away they start telling you
that’s not the way it is. And cante is
the way it’s felt inside the cantaor.
When you sing you’re recreating cante,
not creating anything. And I think we should
be more permissive with the generation of cantaores
we have right now because we’re not always
going to be thinking about what’s already
there. If not, we’re never going to let
this move forward. Do you like what this person’s
doing? Is it flamenco? Does it sound like what
he’s trying to do? Yes? Then we’re
going to forget about the recording from 1930
and we’re going to try for this to sound
the way it has to sound, which is like 2009.
That’s why in these lyrics I make a reference
to that idea: if I ask for anything, it’s
for me to be allowed to develop as a cantaor
the way I feel it. The second lyrics are the
taranta by La Gabriela, which I heard Camarón
sing a great many times, but I do it with other
lyrics, lyrics of mine, but making a reference
to him… even though he isn’t mentioned.
But I do so in the very title of the album.
The title refers to those lyrics or that saying
‘El espejo en que me miro’ which
he made very famous by singing it por soleá
apolá. And I also do the second lyrics
my way, but recalling the maestro.
No
te necesito
The title is
a representative phrase from this song, a different,
sweeter kind of bulería. Nowadays, since
everything fits in por bulerías, it’s
one of the most versatile and most flexible
styles to sing what you want. As long as it
goes to the rhythm, any other style works with
the bulería; there are people who sing
fandango por bulería, taranto…
everything and it sounds good. The romantic
works… and I don’t want to call
it cuplé because I understand that a
cuplé is a song already elaborated from
beginning to end, like what Adela la Chaqueta
did with ‘Voy a perder la cabeza por tu
amor’. They are more stylized lyrics,
but they turn out nice por bulerías and
since they have rhythm they’re easier
to take in than if I sing them in a mellower
style. Nearly all the lyrics have a mushy theme.
There’s a reference at the end to the
ranchera. The first time I heard it, not as
a ranchera, was Juanito Valderrama por bulerías,
but a little bit his way. And I had that in
my subconscious from having listened to it as
a child, and it fit in perfectly for me with
the rest of the lyrics. I think it’s turned
out to be a sweet, romantic song with a nice
bulería air.
The malagueña
is dedicated to Chacón
and I would never say that the first lyrics
it has are a creation of mine, but I would say
that I’ve taken them to my territory.
They have connotations of Chacón and
Aznalcóllar, who used to do very personal
fandangos which take the phases to minors. I
listened to a bit he did, I saw that it fit
in better por malagueñas, and afterwards
I stuck in Chacón’s ending. It
isn’t a creation as such, but it is taking
from here and there, taking it to my ground...
and it’s turned out nice. The second lyrics
are a malagueña by Chacón, always
my way and with lyrics of mine; I never tried
to copy him. He had faculties I wish I had!
To me, Chacón has taught a generation
how to sing. I can’t say so from the knowledge
of having lived it, but from what I’ve
studied from the album, I don’t think
there was anybody before so complete and who
left such a well-rounded discography where others
could draw upon. In the matter of recordings,
which is what I can judge, there was a before
and an after with Chacón, although he
might have drawn on other cantaores such as
El Mellizo. If I had to pay tribute to an artist
I’d drawn upon, it was obligatorily him.
Sólo
la guitarra sabe
David Lagos
(Photo Daniel Muñoz)
El
Sevillano’s type of voice, without
going so far, is the kind of voice I have. It’s
a type of voice a little high-pitched, which
adapts well to cantes like the farruca. One
day I listened to stuff and talked about him
with my uncle. But the recording he had of ‘Solo
la guitarra sabe’ wasn’t his, because
it’s hard to get. So I started to look
for it, I listened to that song with Melchora
and all his discography and I noticed the bulería
which I join it with in the second part of the
song, then I began to ponder… Since I
spent a lot of time listening to him, I unintentionally
took a lot of his stuff. On joining it with
the bulería, since it was a really sweet,
melodic song, it acquires freshness, movement.
It wasn’t a song I’d intended to
record for a long time, but on going deeper
into El Sevillano, I couldn’t help it.
Precisely, he’s a cantaor who’s
gone down in history for his fandangos. And
I think paying tribute to him por fandangos
was going to be really hackneyed. I wanted to
highlight a lesser known side of him. I think
a bulería by El Sevillano will make few
people stop and listen to it. I like to rummage
around.
Sal
de Cai
I have been working
on this song live for a long time now. One of
the styles I feel I identify the most with,
rhythmically and for its essence, is the alegría.
When I began singing, it was one of the first
things I started to do; I don’t know why,
it came really easily to me and it’s the
first thing everybody asked me for. I like it
because of its way of carrying the rhythm. Also,
when I was with Cristina
Hoyos many colleagues were from Cádiz
and I soaked up Cádiz through them, even
in their way of speaking. Juan Ogalla, El Junco,
José Anillo… all from Cádiz,
all from Cádiz. In the alegría
on the album I aim for it to have that real
Cádiz essence and since it’s not
something sought for the disc, it faithfully
reflects my career as a cantaor. It includes
lyrics I did one, five and nine years ago. ‘Sal
de Cai’ is now really well-wrought. As
far as the dedication, as a representative Cádiz-born
artist I’ve met, Chano
Lobato is the personage par excellence.
And in the cantes from Cádiz, he is undoubtedly
the mirror that I look at myself in. I do a
lot of his stuff when I sing por alegrías.
I think that reference is the strongest one
on the album, a full-fledged reference. I’ve
always been very successful in the live shows
when I’ve done it because that way of
Chano’s has a lot of strength. The truth
is that I was really excited about putting the
alegría on the album. An artist from
Jerez doesn’t usually sing much por alegrías,
and I’d never think of paying myself a
compliment, but there are a lot of people from
Cádiz who have told me that, for being
from Jerez, I give it a really good air, ha
ha ha. I’ve handled it with all my affection,
with all my respect, always from the viewpoint
of someone from Jerez… from Jerez, the
province of Cádiz. They’re two
lands with totally different flamenco air. That’s
why when I sing por alegrías and I’m
told it sounds like Cádiz, I feel proud.
It has very traditional Cádiz lyrics
and it has the lyrics “me mandaste un
parte” a little more romantic. Even though
it’s a composition, I’ve tried for
it to maintain the essence. I have the collaboration
of Mercedes
Ruiz on baile. She herself told me to call
her up for my album, when the normal thing is
for you to have to ask her. Tell me and it’s
done; she was there the next day. Santiago also
plays, catching the complete essence of what
I wanted to reflect in the song, which is one
of the ones I’m happiest with on the album.
The soleá
is called ‘Gañán de punta’
because, for those who don’t know it,
Fernando
de la Morena used to work in the field threshing
and he was the ‘gañán de
punta’, the worker who goes threshing
in the first position. He told me that himself
and just as he was saying it, I saw it was the
ideal name for the soleá. I didn’t
want to call it ‘soleá’ because
I myself do a part which is soleá por
bulería or bulería por soleá;
there’s a little mixture. I’m proud
of Fernando’s collaboration because as
a personal cantaor from Jerez, I think he’s
an idol. What I like most in an artist is personality
and in that sense, I don’t think Fernando
gets all the recognition he deserves. A person
isn’t recognized while he’s alive…
when forty or fifty years go by, he’ll
be talked about, like what happened to Borrico.
And it’s a sad shame that he’s alive
there, and he has such a special way of saying
things, that we should bear him more in mind.
So I talked to Fernando one night at Diego
Carrasco’s bar… and proof that
we weren’t drunk is that we remembered
it the following day, hee hee hee.
I told him: “I have some lyrics remembering
you, the way you do things”. I did them
for him a little bit, I told him I’d like
to record them, asking him if he didn’t
mind. And he answered how could he mind, if
he wanted to come and sing with me. I told him
I’d be delighted and he asked me when
he had to be at the studio. And there he was.
I looked for a guitarist who would be good for
both Fernando and me. To him, Moraíto’s
guitar was ideal. I’d never worked with
him and I was a bit nervous, but there was perfect
harmony, as if we were at Diego Carrasco’s
bar. And we’ve managed for the soleá
to sound the way it had to sound. Fernando starts
off singing a trilla, since he’s one of
the few cantaores from Jerez who knows how to
sing it and he does so with all the essence
of the field because he’s lived it. With
our knuckles we managed for it to sound like
a party and inspiration. Then we do three sets
of lyrics por soleá by Fernando, who
had a cold and even though he wasn’t at
his best, it can’t sound any more flamenco.
Then I pay him my little tribute with the lyrics.
When he heard them he was moved; he told me
he was proud that I paid him tribute like that.
We combine his lyrics with mine, guitar, clapping,
knuckles… everyone taking part unselfishly.
Everyone who was in the recording got involved
in a way I wasn’t expecting. And I’d
like to mention Diego Carrasco because he acted
a little as the song’s producer, especially
with the guitar. He gave a big hand and the
three of them, Fernando, Morao and Diego, are
people who like to get across their experience.
I’ve loved having them with me; you can’t
ask for more for a song. The essence of that
song is incredible, of live flamenco, although
it doesn’t have the best sound quality.
Mi
querer como el yunque
We’ve gone
over the toná five hundred times because
it’s really hard for the essence of that
style to be reflected on an album. If you’re
not in the right state of mind, it’s really
hard to record por tonás at a studio.
I recorded and it was well-performed, but it
felt cold. And the one we left might not be
the best in the world, but it was the one that
was best expressed. Its space is the live show;
at a studio there are certain styles that it’s
really hard to make the most of, it’s
a bare voice singing. The same thing happens
with a saeta… either you record it on
a balcony looking at the face of Christ’s
image or at a studio in front of a microphone
there’s no way; it’s really hard
to take yourself there. That’s why I don’t
finish off por toná, but rather with
a change to seguiriya which helped me to put
myself in the situation. I’ve placed it
last because that’s the way I do it in
my live performances and I wanted the album
to reflect to the max what I do in the live
shows. Of course, it isn’t a standard
toná; I’ve done it my way, I’ve
repeated a part and I’ve personalized
it, trying to contribute my little bit of recreation
to it. The lyrics I finish it off with are by
Alfredo Benítez, a great flamenco fan.
He showed them to me years ago and I do them
in my live shows. Seeing the crowd’s reaction,
I think that finish is good for my way of singing
and I used it to try and remove that coldness
from the first lyrics.
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