Fátima Yráyzoz Aranda.
(January 2001)

"FLAMENCO IS FOR AMERICANS. I SING GYPSY"

Like father like daughter, and this woman is pure pedigree. The lineage of her people shines through to the core. The daughter of this very gypsy dynasty, the Agujetas, recently presented her first recording in Madrid, acompanied by the guitar of her twenty-one-year-old son Antonio, another Agujetas who is quite up to par.

Dolores, an old-time gypsy woman who knows what she wants, has never before wanted to leave Jerez, her birthplace, nor record. Because to sing like she does, you have to be full of rage:

"I never dared to do it before because I don't think our cante interests many people, not even the record companies".

Photo: J. Vicente Resino

She explains to us: "Although this is now evolving, the majority of the record companies just want to sell, that's all they care about, even though there's a bigger following all the time. We made this record ourselves. My husband is the producer. The family".

The singing of this woman who is presented as the "Daughter of 'Duende'" is full of the gut-wrenching sound of old. Her sound is well-aged, like that of her father, Antonio de los Santos, like that of all the Agujetas. But Dolores confesses that nobody knows what it's been like to live with the "Jerez hermit". "My singing is pungent because I'm gypsy, pure, no frills. Like my mother and my father, and that's how I live. I didn't copy my father. What people don't know is that I'm the oldest in my house, and I've lived with him, and this is very difficult to explain, its a long, complicated life. They'd have to pay me to tell about it.

Photo: Tomoyuki Takase

Dolores doesn't want to hear a thing about flamenco. "Flamenco is fashionable now, but flamenco isn't my thing. I don't sing flamenco, or 'deep song', I sing gypsy. Flamenco is for Americans, and what my father does is also gypsy cante, not flamenco. I don't care what other people do, that's their business, not mine.

Her record is full of depth, traditional verses. Soleá, seguiriya, martinete and malagueña, and to close, as is fitting for someone from Jerez, bulerías.

"You get the flavor from your husband, your children, your house, and life. Life teaches you to be purer all the time because you realize that whatever is in the world of flamenco, that's what they're interested in. You can't mess with anyone, I don't care what they do".

"For certain cantes, there has to be something that has made you suffer, and then you recall those moments. My cantes are seguiriya, martinete, soleá".

La Agujeta's wisdom is steeped in humility. "I have no axe to grind, nothing to prove. I do what I can, I don't know about cante or nothing. I've got that little thing, period. I add my personal twist and my feeling when I remember all I've been through".

Interview: Fátima Yráyzoz Aranda.
Translation: Estela Zatania.