David Lagos, flamenco cantaor. Interview
“If I ask for anything,
it’s for me to be allowed to develop as a cantaor
the way I feel it”
Silvia Calado. Jerez, October 2009
Photos: © Daniel Muñoz / Translation: Joseph
Kopec
“What gives this album character
is the guitar and the vocals”. With this statement,
David
Lagos confirms that his first record will be
faithfully reflected up on stage. And also that it is a
transparent reflection of what he is today as a cantaor,
after years of contributing his cante to bailaores. ‘El
espejo en que me miro’ projects his voice, his lyrics,
his perfect communication with Alfredo Lagos and also his
experience. But moreover, it contains images of those maestros
who he learned from and who inspire him when he pours out
flamenco from his throat. And in the selection of dedications,
an unusually varied taste for his origin is revealed, since
he believes that “it isn’t incompatible for
you to like Agujetas and for you to like Morente”.
What he does consider essential in an artist is for him
to have personality. And David Lagos does.
Although it’s a début
album, it isn’t a beginner’s album, since you’re
backed by a solid career for baile. Why has David Lagos
waited to record until now?
Everything comes in good time and I couldn’t
find the moment sooner. This album has been forged very
gradually, and I think it comes at a time when I’d
matured my cantes, shaping them every so slowly. Earlier,
I might have had lyrics here and there, but I didn’t
have the repertoire consisting of whole songs. Besides,
I’ve realized that as I’ve dedicated myself
nearly exclusively to singing for dancing, until you have
an album out it’s hard for people to believe that
you can sing as a soloist. Nowadays a cantaor has to be
really prepared to be at the back accompanying and the only
way we have to be up front is to bring out an album. Now
they’ll be able to listen to me and give me the chance
to be up front.
And it was some time ago when you
were recognized as a sensational new cantaor, wasn’t
it?
I don’t know when you take the leap,
but now you’re still a young promise until you’re
fifty years old, ha ha ha. When you stop being
a revelation you might not even have any voice left. I’m
36 years old and I’ve spent a great many years singing,
but it’s hard to make that little leap and have the
public, critics and organizers take you for real. I think
the album’s been made at the right time for me to
stop being considered a young promise. If you like it, you
like it, and if not, there’s little more I’m
going to give.
The title speaks of reflections,
influences, references…
They’re two aspects I wanted to make
a reference to when I speak about ‘El espejo en que
me miro’. One of them is the family side, the friends
side, my daily life… It’s a tribute to my family’s
teachings, but at a personal level, to what I’ve learned
from life. And another side is what I’ve learned from
colleagues, from artists I’ve never even met, like
Camarón, and who influence your cante. Especially
cantaores I’ve drawn on the most, the ones I’ve
listened to thanks to musical equipment or the radio, having
all to myself the luxury of listening to a historic cantaor
such as Antonio Chacón. I’ve tried for each
song, even if it doesn’t contain a specific reference
to that cantaor through a cante of his or some lyrics, to
make a reference to his attitude, to his form. In the malagueña,
I make one to Chacón’s style; the other one,
a little more my way; the end of the alegría is pure
Chano Lobato... The album is a tribute to the pillars I
have in my life, in cante and in the personal.
There are cantaores in your family,
but it isn’t one of those cantaor families from Jerez
that everybody knows.
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“It’s
a family where you sing… and where you write,
two qualities you’re born with”
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It isn’t a well-known one, but it
is a cantaor family. It’s a family where you sing…
and where you write, two qualities you’re born with.
My grandfather couldn’t read or write, but he was
capable of perfectly rhyming while improvising. I’d
never paid attention to that, but I realized that my brother
writes, my uncles write… I think it’s something
inherited, just like cante. When there’s a cantaor
in a family, well then, that’s the way it is. But
when you’re at a party and you see that out of my
mother’s fourteen brothers and sisters, twelve of
them sing… then it has to be something inherited.
Professionals from the family are Aguilar de Jerez and Aguilar
de Vejer, but they’re not very well-known in Jerez.
My family has instilled me with the love for it and I’ve
inherited the qualities for singing from them.
And they’re more into cantes
por fandangos, not so much the ones considered typical of
Jerez, aren’t they?
Yeah, my family comes from the countryside,
although my mother and the younger of the fourteen brothers
and sisters were brought up in Jerez. So the experiences
they’ve had and their way of understanding flamenco
has been through cantes of a different type. And that doesn’t
make them more or less flamencos. To me, flamenco is like
a big ensemble and within that ensemble there are sub-ensembles,
and one of them is that of fandangos. But understanding
through fandangos the granaínas, cantes de levante,
milongas… Anyone in my family out there has an incredible
repertoire of old-time lyrics. In the olden days, the medium
they used to have was a really old radio and the cantaores
who came out back then were like that, with a different
type of speed in their voice, a different moment in flamenco.
The one who’s taken a different road is Aguilar de
Jerez, who’s in Japan, and who was the one that instilled
in me the cante from here, which is different, neither better
nor worse, but a way looking more for depth and jondo flavor.
The other one looks more for beauty, embellishing the cantes.
To me, they’re both complementary and I’m happy
to have been between the two of them because I’ve
taken a little bit from each of them and I’ve come
out of the mess.
And in fact, in the selection of
cantaores receiving tribute, you can see really varied taste:
Morente, La Paquera, Chacón, Camarón…
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“I’m
very proud of being from Jerez, but I understand that
it has a vision of flamenco which is a bit archaic and
very special”
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I don’t think it’s incompatible
for you to like Agujetas
and for you to like Morente. They’re different kettles
of fish, but they’re both from the same sea. The fish
from one kettle doesn’t have to be better than from
the other; they’re different concepts of cante. I’m
very proud of being from Jerez, but I understand that it
has a vision of flamenco which is a bit archaic and very
special, always looking towards its own and closing the
circle. That’s good on the other hand because its
ways of singing really stay their own, since it’s
not very open to other trends. In that sense, I’m
glad for Jerez. But it’s also true that I do loads
of traveling and listening and seeing, and I don’t
think that listening to other things is incompatible because
at any rate, it’s enriching for me. Then each person
takes it to his territory and tries to personalize it. I
hold on to everybody’s best stuff and I try for it
to enrich me; I don’t look for the bad part to say
I don’t like it. That why the selection of cantaores
I dedicate stuff to is so varied. I might have been listening
to El Sevillano for two or three months and when you come
out and sing, even though you aren’t doing something
of his, it obviously influences you. I think flamenco is
too great and too rich to deprive yourself of all that wealth
and styles which are there.
Most of the lyrics are written
by you. What do you express?
I aim for two things. The first is for
them to adapt to the essence of the style I’m singing.
There are certain styles which have very specific subject
matter, I mean, I don’t think it’s really right
to sing por alegrías and recall a tragedy. Although
in some lyrics you can get a little more romantic, in these
they have to sound like salt, like freshness. The seguiriya,
just the opposite. I try to make the lyrics smell or taste
a little like the subject matter the style should have.
And the second, the more of a message you can give in the
lyrics, the better. There are folk lyrics which are very
good, but we really sing others because we’ve heard
them so much. Just as I speak about developing oneself artistically,
I also think that the lyrics have to be renewed a little.
Also, recognizing beforehand that there are a lot of old-time
lyrics heard very little that nobody sings. It’s not
that you need to create new lyrics in order to have a nice
repertoire that’s been heard very little. But since
fortunately I’m good at writing, well I take advantage
and if the message is mine, then I feel it more deeply when
I sing it.
And although it’s not very
well known, many colleagues sing lyrics of yours and they
nearly seem to be traditional...
Yeah, there are some lyrics. For example,
the ones I do about “pa caballo el cartujano”
aren’t mine, but rather belong to my Uncle Álvaro,
Aguilar de Jerez. Since they maintain the essence of the
style so well, they sound like folk lyrics. When you write
new lyrics and the person listening to them thinks they’re
folk lyrics, that means they’re successful. When I’ve
been told on occasion how nice certain lyrics are, they’ve
never told me that thinking they were mine, but rather age-old
ones. And that fills me with pride.
But it must be hard to protect
the authorship…
I’ve been given details when other
people have sung my lyrics. If I’ve sung them later
on, I’ve been told that I was singing something by
that other person. Well, if I’ve sung them first,
I’m not going to say anything either, but if the occasion
arises, I do clarify that I haven’t sung so-and-so’s
lyrics, but rather so-and-so sang lyrics of mine. But I’m
proud that people sing lyrics of mine thinking they’re
folk lyrics. And regarding authorship, well the truth is
that the authors’ society is handling it and the colleagues
are legal. I’m proud of it; I hope to go on hearing
lyrics of mine at colleagues’ recitals. In fact, Argentina,
who recorded two songs of mine, every time I hear her sing,
for example, the tangos, I get a sensation… because
to me a song of mine is like my child and I like seeing
it in someone else. Jesús
Méndez has also recorded something of mine; Londro,
whose album is about to come out, also has songs of mine…
and I have a few assignments I don’t want to talk
about yet. Little by little, I’m making a little place
for myself authoring lyrics. Then most of the music I add
is traditional because I like to use that and contribute
freshness to it. I’m not going to try for the music
to be mine if it’s influenced by folk music, but I
am with the lyrics.
Guitar shares the spotlight with
the vocals on this recording. On the one hand, there’s
Santiago
Lara por bulerías and por alegrías. What
has he contributed?
I started working with Santiago through
the Mercedes Ruiz Company. I’d already done stuff
with them before the show ‘Juncá’, but
the ties grew stronger there because the show was done between
the three of us and we achieved quite good artistic harmony.
Santiago has a lot of knowledge, development and musical
wealth, besides being a really good guitarist. Moreover,
I think he’s a magnificent person. I’ve had
to resort to friends and colleagues on this first album,
and he fit in perfectly for me because besides being that,
I like the way he plays and he was ideal for both songs.
He offered himself, got to the studio and few people are
able to do what he did in so little time. It’s been
one of the collaborations I’m happiest with.
And do you use a guitar to compose?
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“Nowadays
a cantaor can’t live on three little cantes”
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No, I use the guitar for them to hit me
over the head with, ha ha ha. But I use it to bring out
tones and since I make them up, I drive the guitarists crazy.
It sound good to me and I use it to compose and that’s
all. People are really well-trained nowadays; anyone can
pick up a piece of wood and get things going. Nowadays a
cantaor can’t live on three little cantes unless he
does them exceptionally well. Nowadays everybody knows all
the styles, they have references to know if the cantes they’re
listening to are good or bad, and the cantaores know some
guitar, the guitarists know some cante, the cantaoras play
the box drum, as in La Tremendita’s case… like
the guitar, which she does play. A great many colleagues,
Arcángel or Terremoto, for example, play better than
a lot of guitarists. There’s a high level nowadays;
that’s why it’s so hard to have personality
and that’s why I value it so much.
And speaking of personality…
What role does Alfredo Lagos play on ‘El espejo en
que me miro’?
Both in the credits and in this interview
and every time I speak, I leave him for last to be able
to say that without him, this record simply couldn’t
have been made. The backbone of this album is Alfredo Lagos,
who’s gotten involved in a way I think only a brother
can do. If not, he would have told me to get lost in the
first song. I called him up many times to tell him that
I already had several sets of lyrics, for him to come and
have a look… He has a lot of work; it’s been
really hard for us to make our agendas coincide and that’s
why the album has taken so long. Of course, from the very
first moment he’s been involved unselfishly. The album
couldn’t have been made without him; I’m wholly
grateful to him. Besides his music, his knowledge, his everything.
I might not be objective because he’s my brother,
but I think he’s one of the top guitarists of his
age, I think he perfectly represents the level which today’s
guitar is at. He’s up to the musical level, he’s
up to the level of flamenco flavor… I go soft when
I speak about him, as a brother and as a fan. And of course,
I also have to name Melchora Ortega in the thanks, because
there aren’t any lyrics I do that I don’t go
to her twenty times and interrupt her for her to listen
to them and tell me her opinion. She’s the filter
I sift all my lyrics through, everything I compose. And
if she tells me it’s no good, it’s no good.
When you write and compose it’s important to have
an opinion from the outside; it encourages you to go on,
it reaffirms you in paths you’re working on and you
keep on going from there. In short, the album couldn’t
have been made without Melchora or Alfredo.
That’s to say, Alfredo
Lagos determines the disc musically…
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“The
backbone of this album is Alfredo Lagos, who’s
gotten involved in a way I think only a brother can
do”
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The first one I turn to when I create is
Alfredo, besides the fact that as I’m his brother,
I’ve seen him since he started to pick up a guitar.
If I know anything about guitar, it’s for having been
beside him listening since his first guitar technique studies,
which are a pain in the neck; they didn’t even let
me sleep. I know Alfredo’s guitar and him from another
perspective. There’s a special connection with him;
he knows me perfectly as soon as I open my mouth. And just
by looking at him, I know if it’s alright or if it
isn’t. Alfredo’s contributed 60% to my way of
singing. I think the way of singing of today’s cantaores
is defined a lot by the guitarist who’s playing for
them, and you can tell when a cantaor always has the same
guitarist. For example, Mercé and Morao: talking
about Mercé means looking at Morao. There are artistic
partners and I’m lucky that Alfredo is mine; his way
of playing influences me a lot when singing. Without him,
it would have been a different album.
Is the simplicity in the accompaniments
intentional?
I reflect what a live show is. It doesn’t
seem ‘fair’ to me, especially on a first album,
to use elements which might be enriching but also camouflage
and then you aren’t going to use them on stage. Those
who have seen me sing live and listen to the disc will see
that it’s practically a recital of mine; it seemed
the most honorable and the humblest thing to me. When I
do a live show of that album now, I don’t want it
to be disappointing. There are records with songs which
have brilliant musical arrangements and then you have to
listen to them with a guitar, some clapping and one voice
and it’s not the same. I aimed for it to sound as
similar as possible to a live show, in the tones I sing
in live, the styles I do live… everything I offer
in a live performance. So it has the minimum; some percussions,
a contrabass in a couple of songs… I think the live
show just with guitar and vocals is going to sound like
what’s recorded. The accompaniment doesn’t camouflage;
it’s there helping and supporting, but it doesn’t
give it character. What gives this album character is the
guitar and the vocals. In flamenco, we’re used to
recording one thing and then listening to another live.
I think recording is done for success with the public in
general, trying to please everybody, but from my viewpoint
- at least on the first album - it was about me feeling
I could identify with what was recorded. And I know some
people will like it and others won’t, that it will
limit the scope of my audience because there are many ears
that prefer musical arrangements, and I just offer guitar
and my voice. I think nice things can be built starting
there… you don’t need trumpets.
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