But there are premeditated projects like the harmonization on Carmen Linares's 'Un ramito de locura'...

That's right. I've only made two recordings as an accompanist to cante because my attitude to vocal performances is pretty unique for personal reasons. I feel that guitarists have to make a concerted effort to earn respect. To be able to play the guitar well takes a lifetime's work… that's why I've never agreed to play the odd tune for someone, I've always drawn the line at that. You can't just call up ten different guitarists for an album - what do they think we are? Potito called me, and they called me for Niña Pastori's first disc, some other stuff too, but I always said no because on one track you don't have time to build a rapport or work on anything. The only projects where I've played for vocalists were with El Indio Gitano and Carmen Linares. The first was a more classical approach, and on Carmen's disc we tried not to use the guitar simply as an accompaniment. The format up till now was falseta-cante-falseta. And what I tried to do - it isn't always possible - is to harmonize the vocals while she's singing… and I think the result is pretty good.

Quite the opposite of the typical call-response structure...

There are those who say that 'Un ramito de locura' sounds like a guitar recital. People don't understand that throughout a project like this there's a musical evolution, and it's a different concept to the one they're used to.

Hence the cries of disapproval, like at the Festival de Caja Madrid.

That tells you something about Spain: bad manners are rife. And aggression and ignorance abound too. That's a dangerous breeding ground. They go to the theater with the same mentality as if they were going to a bullfight or a soccer game. It doesn't happen at festivals of any other kind of music, but at purely flamenco events with the usual line-up of cantaores and a festival set-up, you can find really nasty audiences. You just have to deal with whatever gets thrown at you. Our infrastructure is better over here now, our installations are better, the motorways are better... but when it comes to education and culture they've gone from bad to worse. The only thing people respect these days is money. People don't respect others for who they are nowadays; they only respect them if they've got money. And since the values of culture and education aren't seen as attractive any more, the situation can only get worse.

Besides, Madrid's flamenco scene is nothing like that of Jerez. The New School of Flamenco guitar album reflects what youngsters are playing these days, and it isn't the same as what Morao's playing, though both things are perfectly valid. Young people in the 21st century are bound to make a different brand of flamenco. Jerez de la Frontera is just like a little island, there it doesn't matter what's happening in the outside world. It doesn't matter if Camarón is taking the world by storm, or if Paco de Lucía is a genius. And I love it. I always have appreciated it, I've been there (he points to the photo of himself and Tío Borrico), but I've always been a restless soul and I've never fitted into any particular school. That's my destiny, to not fit in. For example two years ago I played 'El Concierto de Aranjuez' in Italy, and for a couple of months it was driving me crazy. It's a really hard piece to play, but I adapted it, played it and had a fine time doing so. If the only thing that makes you happy is playing El Zambo por bulerías, you'd be better off marooned in Jerez for the rest of your days.

It's hard to draw a line between what is and what isn't flamenco though, isn't it?

That's right. That's hard to do; really there should be a wider spectrum of terms to classify the music. Not long ago I met Barullo de Jerez at an exhibition, he's the son of Juan Moneo and nephew of El Torta, and his singing is amazing… but he works as a carpenter. In the end he started singing without any kind of accompaniment and he blew us away… and that's the greatest thing in the world. But within the universe of flamenco there are many different kinds of aesthetics. In the old days flamenco was a local affair, you could find it mostly in Jerez or Seville, and there were strict rules about the aesthetics. These days there are artists from all over and it's obvious that, given the modern times we live in, the flamenco people make isn't gonna sound anything like the old stuff. In fact the cantaores who are enjoying current success - and there are some excellent vocalists around, from Barcelona and from Huelva alike - these guys are doing a fantastic job and they're all contemporary artists. Some say, too, that flamenco will be around so long as there is joy and suffering in the world. It has to be said that people today are a lot less radical, kids today seem a little bland, they spend their days without... as if they were waiting for something to happen. Modern cantaores practice a lot, but experiences like that one we had with Tío Borrico, that's all in the past now. There are still some faces around, like Chocolate for example - did you see that seguiriya he sang at the Seville Biennial Festival? You don't see many performances like that these days.

And talking of the album 'La nueva escuela de la guitarra flamenca', which direction do you see young guitarists taking?

There are five guitarists and each one has marked out his own path. You can see which school they come from, you can see the paths they've chosen. Jesús de Rosario is pure Caño Roto school, that's another 'island'. For example José Manuel León is really like Cañizares, and everything he does has that vibe to it. Then there's Canito, contemporary flamenco, another world apart. Antón Jiménez, from Madrid, also has his own universe, different from the others. Aesthetically speaking the best thing about this disc is that people are gonna see which way things are going in the future. And the way things are going is totally different to what we've been used to.

So why did we make this disc? (He asks the question himself, while he strums his guitar. And he carries on playing...)

It's a personal struggle which hasn't got me anywhere. It's always easy to criticize your lot, or society, or the institutions… We live in a really reactionary country; people are even more controlled than they were under Franco, we've lost our capacity to protest, and questions of power all get mixed up with each other. If we said to ourselves, "Do you want pure capitalism?" Then go for it, but not all mixed up. So it's really hard to carve out a musical career in Spain. I think the guitar is an instrument in its prime, we're practically still building it, but we're stifled. I know it's really hard to start out singing, it's really hard to start out dancing, and it's really hard to do anything and do it well. But I see guitarists, unbelievable musicians, and they're downtrodden because they haven't made a name for themselves, because the guitar is a static instrument, and on top of that it's a popular instrument, it belongs to the common people, its plebeian, it doesn't have the same aristocracy as the piano does. In Jerez, for example, they put on a concert by an excellent pianist, but the Teatro Villamarta doesn't put on solo guitarists because that's not chic. Why piano and not guitar? At the Bienal de Sevilla, with it's almost one hundred concerts, why are only I think eight of them guitar-based?

And it's us guitarists who are the backbone of flamenco. When I see those youngsters I feel a need to do something to help them, which is something the previous generation never did for us. I can understand why, they lived through a really difficult era, and back then the artist was some kind of demi-god, someone to be admired and who had to keep a distance… And someone, too, who had to watch their back, and who could never lend a hand to anyone who might outshine them, even if that would be seen as an honorable thing to do. But then look at Miles Davis, and who he hung around with… he knew the score though.

And by the way, the record company is German because nobody wants to know about this stuff in Spain. It's no use fighting, that's just the way it is. The socialists promoted free cultural events; they're not in power now but people got used to that idea. If there's no money around there's no concerts either because people don't want to pay. So we don't get bookings. We don't have anywhere to work. You have to do something to get youngsters out of this rut. And the future looks bleak because now even schools don't try and promote cultural awareness. Nobody has the patience to listen to music. We're creating an army of conformists who don't have any cultural background, who don't even have the capacity to say they don't like what's being played out there.

Even well-established guitarists like yourself have to resort to producing your own discs…

This is a time of change at all levels. There are antagonistic forces at work here. On the one hand we've got the kind of technology at everybody's fingertips that we could only dream of having; but politically and culturally we're pulling in the other direction. Things are getting really tight, I get the feeling we're going backwards. We've seen the evidence with the rise of LePen's far-right in France. Since democracy has been stripped of all the attraction it had, its reputation's been so damaged, it's so run-down, people think this system's had it. There's one thing that worries me: society's moving down a dangerous route - since economic values have been imposed above all others, society is shifting to the right. And in my opinion there are two public institutions that should be untouchable and should have ample funding: healthcare and culture. The problem is these days they don't need people with cultural awareness, what they need is technical people who don't think for themselves. I say this because we're noticing that nobody's buying our records - I mean who's gonna buy our records? Nobody feels the need to better themselves culturally

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