Interview with Diego Carrasco, cantaor, guitarist, producer and songwriter:

"The greatest virtue flamenco has is
that it's alive and well"

Silvia Calado Olivo. Jerez, March 2003
Photos: Daniel Muñoz

On his way down Calle Francos more than one familiar face stops him for a chat. This is the tangled web of streets which forms the heart of Jerez's old town, and there's a true village atmosphere here. Cell phone in hand, flip-up sunglasses providing him some respite from the bright sunlight which warns of the coming Spring… the curled locks of hair, black T-shirt worn outside his pants, that unmistakable voice… Diego Carrasco takes a seat on the terraza of the Arriate pavement café - one of the nerve centers of the city's flamenco scene - and orders a lemon tea "con mucho limoncito", rather than the white coffee the waiter offers him. And at a moment like this who can help but recall that memorable prolog to 'Inquilino del mundo', which says "qué me gustaría a mí invitar a esa vaquita, que ha echao su lechecita por las tetitas" (I'd like to buy a drink for the cow who squirted this milk from her udders). So the question is… after 'Inquilino del mundo', what's this 'World citizen' got up his sleeve?

Diego Carrasco

Curiosity's starting to get the better of me. What'll be on the disc? What stories is he going to tell? Apart from selecting the lines of poets such as Carlos Lencero and Rafael Fernández, there's a surprise in store, and as such he can't give too much away: "We're doing some covers, I'm not gonna name names. We're experimenting and, above all, trying to give songs their true value, appreciating the music which comes from other places and giving it a little sabor Jerezano. What d'you reckon? What do we reckon? Sounds sweet. He bursts with an overwhelming enthusiasm: "In these guys I see warmth, love, commitment… and I think, well it's often said, but I think this latest project is the most beautiful. Wow - this is delicious!" It should be, judging from the intense aroma of lemon tea wafting across the table.

Let's delve into concepts now. How will the balance be set between meditation and light-heartedness? "Making an album is like cooking a meal: you might have all the ingredients to hand, but you have to mix them with great care. A gourmet dish and a hotchpotch might have the same basic ingredients, but you have to know what you want in the end and work towards that. I think there's a new concept here, there's a feeling of freshness, with a lot of rhythms thrown in - there are even ad-libbed numbers, though with a certain sense of rhythm." The variations on the compás have a lot to do in this case with Bulerías... with a capital B. "To be honest it's become a trademark I can't live without. Diego Bulería is what I should be called."

But he also experiments with ballads, and there's a mention of those children's games he so loves... "there's a really pretty ballad, with beautiful lyrics, entitled 'Yo no miento' (I'm not lying). And then there's a number which is dedicated to children, inspired by schools and places where they teach kids music. And I had the idea of playing it with a classical scale and a flamenco rhythm. The lyrics are wonderful; they say that the passing of time told me I had to start on a new journey…" And there are also tangos, like that song for liberty "which I recorded years ago, and I think the moment has come to release it." And there's a spine-chilling story behind it: "Jesús Bola and I were in the studio in Seville. We'd been recording all day, and we stayed there doing stuff till five or six in the morning. We recorded that theme for liberty, a rough version. And when we left there we found out that during the night ETA had assassinated councilor Jiménez Becerril right there in Seville. Neither of us could believe it - we called each other as soon as we heard the news. That was unreal. The lyrics are really beautiful, a call for freedom for all men. I never like to mix music and politics, they're two worlds apart. This is just a form of expressing a very human sentiment, a plea for liberty... and we play it por tangos".

	"I never go out on stage without crossing myself"

On March 10th at Teatro Villamarta, as part of the 2003 Festival de Jerez, Diego Carrasco and company performed this call for freedom for the first time. And the chorus has echoed in the memory of the author every day since the invasion of Iraq began: "Cuántas muertes, Dios mío, tendrá que haber, para que el hombre algún día se ponga en pie y grite al viento pidiendo su libertad" (How many deaths, my Lord, must there be before man stands up and cries into the wind for his liberty). Sadly the piece served once again as something of a premonition.

We set off back along Calle Francos. Although he describes the studio as "the most beautiful of all", he places the stage "on a pedestal, it's a sacred place... I never go out on stage without crossing myself." And that's where his creations become truly complete - as with that performance at the Jerez venue: "The warmth you feel from audiences is… something else. There are two important things that characterize studio work. First you try to get across what you're like, it's my way of recording my feelings, the improvisation and the spirit of youth, for posterity. And second you have all this technology at the service of your artistic creativity, which means if you want to do something cold and clinical you've got everything you need at your fingertips. Clinical stuff scares me, you know, if you start sampling, splicing, editing… I sit down at the computer and they take a quick glance and tell me 'yeah, rewind it, give it three thousandths more on that one.' And you say 'Whaaaat?' So you run it back and they say to you 'Are you drunk or what?' We have fun but it's complicated. The studio is the most beautiful thing of all because you can do anything you like there, you can try changing things time and time again, but you can easily end up wasting days on end and produce a shoddy piece of work to boot".

Setting a steady pace from the start, the team has already managed, at this studio in the epicenter of Jerez, to lay down "a good number of definitive songs. We have our repertoire more or less completed, and now we're entering a second phase where we start polishing things up, start taking decisions, and give the project a little structure. The first, more creative phase is coming gradually to a close, but there are a couple of tunes that still haven't arrived yet… we're waiting for a special delivery!"

	"It's no surprise that these days vocalists reflect the changes of the era we're going through"

The crux of the matter is to satisfy audiences. Diego Carrasco affirms that from one release to the next "you learn bit by bit how to give people what they want." At least that's what he thought until two or three nights ago, in this same bar, somebody told him that what he liked most out of all his work is a seguiriya... "Shit, man, where am I? Are you trying to drive me nuts or something? I mean who do you think I am, El Torta or what? Who the hell am I to sing por seguiriyas? But yeah, it's true that people love that kind of music. I think you have to respect the seguiriya for what it is, but that doesn't mean you have to leave it to one side. If you're brave enough to drum up a new version, so long as you treat flamenco with due respect, then anything's permissible. And that's what I'm learning."

So much renovation, so much innovation, but at the same time with such deep roots, and so very Jerezano... How does he keep the balance between respect for flamenco's foundations and using them as a tool of expression adapted to modern times? He replies, taking a few seconds to mull over his response, that "The greatest virtue flamenco has is that it's alive and well. And that's the way it ought to stay. Flamenco's alive and that means a lot. Everything that has life has a whole world to explore, this generation, the ones that went before and the ones yet to come. It's no surprise that these days vocalists reflect the changes of the era we're going through. In the old days you'd be working in the fields or in a blacksmiths, and it goes without saying that the smell of the smoke is gonna creep into your singing, it had to. But now the present is wildly different, and it's understandable. They lived through those times. And we're here today to keep the flame alive. Back then if you wanted to hear some guy sing a trillera you had to go out to the fields while they were threshing, and even then you had to search for the guy... That was then and this is now.

Diego Carrasco in concert

More information: Diego Carrasco. The art of insinuation

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