Interview of Fosforito for the video-magazine Flamenco Hoy (Vol.5).1999.
Interview by Alfonso Eduardo Pérez.

How do people sing today? Is the singing better than before?

The singing is good, not better; neither better nor worse. The cante (flamenco singing) does not change with time, that´s for sure, the cante evolves from within itself, but that "inner self" is not decomposed, its base is always there. What I mean is that new forms are added because there are people that contribute to the cante when they arrive with a different voice or a tone of voice of a different color, different, longer or shorter, and so people sing, but always with the respect for that base which is there, which is the source and the history.

People with splendid voices arrive, and if you add good taste to a good voice, well then we find an excellent cantaor (flamenco singer). It seems curious that when we talk of decadence or of golden times, this is always done with respect to the category of the cantaores performing at those times: the golden times of Silverio, El Nitri, or those of Manuel Torre and Chacón... and thus everything depends on who the cantaores are, of course. Is the time period after the Spanish Civil War a decadent period for the cante? Well I don´t think so. Its just that we had only recently had such a tremendous tragedy that people did not want more tragedies and so there were people with a more precious voice, singing less transcendental cantes, lighter ones, and people liked them, but even so there were at the time singers like Pastora, or Juan Talega, Tomás Pavón... there were very good cantaores, the cante is above all of that, it is always there. I´ll tell you something else, the cante is above even any genius, if you can call anybody a genius in this thing.

I was a contemporary of Pastora and Pepe Pinto, and also of Antonio Mairena, I lived the times of Caracol and also of other younger people and others of my age, and with others that were even younger and others younger still; what I mean is that I am here, fortunately, and I have been a cantaor for sixty years.

In 1939, when you were seven years old, Antonio Fernández Díaz used to say "Are you coming?... or Do you wish to listen to Fosforito´s son sing at the town fair?"

Yes, my father sang very well, as did my mother, and my uncle was "El Niño Genil", who is given the credit for several creations.

In spite of all the hunger and of the post-war years, which took place when I was seven or eight, I had already started singing. Even earlier I tried singing while my cousin played the guitar and people danced, and for a short while, even if it was with a meagre soup, we would hold a festive gathering and sing there... Because the cantaores, how are they created?... I mean unless it is through mimicry, imitating everything they hear, everything that they see in their environments... All have a master that serves as a guide for them, because they belong to the same family or because their voices are similar, until you find your own sound and you start being yourself, even though your master will always serve as a starting point. Well this is what happened, I had a cantaor environment in which I listened to my father keeping the compás (rhythm) and singing, to the sound of "Esta copa, no hay quien me lleve a mi casa...(this drink, nobody can take me home)".

And your father, what did he sing?

He sang `por soleá´, basically `por soleá´. And my mother sang... let me tell you something...it is an anecdote. Alonso, the master, four or five years ago, during Christmas, called my house and told me: Hey, I want you to do some things by the master Jerónimo Jiménez for me". Jerónimo was a musician from Seville of the XIX century who had done a lot of things, but amongst these there is a score called "La Tempranica", in which there is a cante `por soleá´, there is a `caña´, a `tanguillo´, a `tango´ and a `nana´, which was the one that I used to sing, and which is the final part of the score, with the violins...I told him- "Maestro, if it is in my hands to do so, I´m happy to do it, and if not we´ll manage anyway, dont you worry...". I went down to the Teatro Cervantes and he gave me the score in which the music was written... and when he goes "la, la, la, la..." and plays the melody for me, I said: "I have heard this before, I know this music", and he said "Hey kid, that´s impossible, how could you possibly know this score?". And I sang the lyrics and the music for him, which my mother had sung for me when I was a child; well not necessariliy for me, because she often sang this song and the `nana´ of this unknown master for her, that she had probably picked up sometime at her town and had somehow remembered, since she had never had access to a classical music culture where she could have listened to the score of the maestro Jerónimo Jiménez, and therefore I knew this `nana´:

"Esta niña, duérmete lucerito,
sol de los soles,
en una cunita de caracoles.
Este niño chiquito
no tiene cuna,
su padre es carpintero,
le va a hacer una".

(This girl, sleep little bright star,
sun of all the suns,
in a cradle of snails.
This little boy
has no cradle,
his father is a carpenter,
he is going to make him one)

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