Interview with Martirio, copla singer
“Flamenco is the music
which transforms the most”
Silvia Calado. Madrid, May 2009
Photos: Daniel Muñoz • Translation: Joseph
Kopec
Some of her words are nearly a
caress. She utters them giving importance to each and every
one. The conversation with this beautiful woman, who is
between the daily Martirio
and the lady Maribel, is calming. A state which you might
be able to reach when you can celebrate a quarter of a century
on stages. The Huelva-born singer, a revolutionary of the
copla, is not flamenca in the strict sense of the word,
but flamenco led her to art, she had the hatching of new
flamenco really nearby and her music is imbued with flamenco
nowadays more than ever. And it is a privilege to know from
her viewpoint how flamenco has evolved over these 25 years.
While she talks about it, her green eyes show through her
sunglasses...
After 25 years on stages, how do
you weigh up your career as an artist?
It’s a real pleasure to feel like
celebrating 25 years on stages. I always say that having
a dream is one of the most important things that can happen
to you in life. And when I started out, I could never have
imagined that so many lovely things were going to happen.
Meeting artists I admired, being able to sing with them,
going to countries where I’ve been welcomed wonderfully,
singing in other languages, having played with rock stars,
with flamencos, with jazz players … And still having
the same desire, the same vocation, the same excitement
and managing to keep on being independent, autonomous and
having that creative freedom which is a ‘must’
for me. I give my absolute thanks to the music because although
there have been slumps and there have also been bad times,
they’re not important at all to me compared to the
beauty these 25 years suppose.
It’s significant that you’re
releasing this live album with your first record company,
Nuevos Medios, which has been so relevant for the evolution
of flamenco music…
Mario Pacheco is a spectacular guy with
a marvelous catalogue who moreover has a lot of capacity
to take risks and a lot of musical knowledge. He seems like
the right one to bring out this anniversary record. And
it seems really romantic to start with him, he who believed
in me and still believes in me after 25 years. He put Nuevos
Medios’ operation in full swing for it to come out
as well as possible. The edition is a beauty.
Here you have Raúl Rodríguez
as the producer found …
The producer of my life. Raúl had
already worked with me before; he produced ‘Flor de
piel’ and ‘Mucho corazón’, and
he composed the sevillanas ‘He visto color’
with me. But it is a genuine pleasure. He has a lot of knowledge
of sound, which is fundamental when you mix, when you choose
the songs he knows them all, he’s capable of easily
going from one genre to another, he has that desire, that
strength and that youth. And he has a hard disk with everything
I’ve ever done that knows me better than anybody.
I think he’s the person who best knows how to accompany
me, but he’s also the person I can talk to best when
choosing one song or another because he knows a lot about
me. He gives me that certainty. And I think Jesús
Lavilla is a fantastic pianist. I’ve been working
with the two of them for some time now; that’s why
I wanted to do this concert and make this album with them
because they cover the entire musical spectrum perfectly,
they have great mutual understanding, they’re really
up to accompanying the song, they know the lyrics, they
know me really well, they elaborate… and besides,
they have no ego between the two of them.
Is Raúl the one who makes
that flamenco contribution which runs through (nearly) everything?
Yes, of course. Raúl makes that
flamenco contribution because flamenco comes out in everything
he plays.
There are coplas and songs which
cover different styles…
… soleá por bulerías
appears in the tangos, also in the boleros, blues and flamenco
appear in ‘Torre de Arena’… I’m
not a pure flamenca but, of course, I’ve had a flamenco
air in my life since I was born. Flamenco is the music I
like best. I think it’s the music which transforms
the most. When you’re lucky enough to hear or see
some good flamenco stuff, I think it changes your life,
eh. It takes all the nonsense away from you. Moreover, in
flamenco you can’t cheat; flamenco is like x-rays.
From your viewpoint, what has the
evolution been like that flamenco has experienced in these
25 years?
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“Well-made
flamenco fusion sounds glorious to me”
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I think flamenco has improved hugely as
far as the audience goes; it’s opened up a great deal
to a great many people. Now a lot more people like flamenco
a lot more. On the other hand, there are true talents. In
baile, guitar and cante, giant steps have been taken; there
are truly wonderful artists. I think it reaches people a
lot more. There’s also pseudo-flamenco, I don’t
even know what to call them, the ‘ayayay’ ones,
who I don’t think really contribute anything and they’re
continuing but from a great distance a school begun by Pata
Negra and Kiko
Veneno, even Ketama.
But from a great distance. If that serves, let’s say,
for you to sit and listen to Fernanda
and Bernarda de Utrera after listening to a little softer
music, then OK. But leaving the stuff there doesn’t
contribute absolutely anything. And I don’t think
that has anything to do with flamenco fusion. Well-made
flamenco fusion sounds glorious to me, which is what’s
done by Benavent, Jorge
Pardo, Chano Domínguez, Javier Colina, McGill…
and a whole lot of musicians who are doing wonderful fusions.
That’s one thing and this light flamenquito is another.
It’s all OK, but people shouldn’t get confused
when calling one thing or another flamenco.
In the early days, when you used
to compose with Kiko at the round table, were flamenco and
copla in a similar situation?
Well, no. Perhaps the copla was used a
lot more as the soundtrack of the Franco regime. Flamenco
was more concealed, maybe because there weren’t so
many commercial interests. Until they finally saw that there
was a road where there was a market and they started to
open up. But it didn’t have the same connotations.
What is true is that in 25 years, flamenco’s prestige
has increased worldwide.
And what was happening to the copla?
At that time the copla was really insulted
by people who were progressive or liberal, and nowadays
the copla has been stripped of that bad name and people
appear and call on that repertoire as what it is; a treasure
of Spanish music. To me it’s marvelous because I started
fighting for that, trying to strip the copla of that handicap,
and now I see that they’re singing copla from La Shica
to Plácido Domingo. Well, and Miguel Poveda, who
has
made an album where we’re going to claw at one
another. He’s one of the ones I like most in the world
singing copla.
Flamencos’ ties to the copla
are growing tighter right now…
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“The
copla has always been done por bulerías”
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Of course. The copla has always been done
por bulerías. From maestro Chano Lobato to El Sevillano,
who used to do coplas por bulerías which were glorious,
with La Niña de los Peines in between… Even
Estrellita Castro. But the way it’s being approached
nowadays with such a big opening of being able to stick
in jazz, being able to stick in so many instruments that
have never been used before, and taking it to another reading,
that’s never happened before. I think it’s a
wonderful moment for the copla.
In fact, in your concert the musical
accompaniment is full of nuances from a bunch of genres…
Even the Argentinean tango. ‘La bien
pagá’ leads to the Argentinean tango. The copla
has a melody, harmony and musical structure which matches
really well with genres that are similar to it.
The arrangement of the fandangos
by Toronjo is surprising. How did you reach that conclusion?
How nice, eh! I always thought fandangos
de Huelva could go into swing. The first time I brought
it up… The first thing I’ve ever sung in my
life was the fandango. I had the chance to meet Paco Toronjo
and see him sing many times. I think it was decided inside
of me there that I wanted to sing because I saw what he
transformed in the auditorium. Really, I saw what it was
to start of singing and modify the consciences and feelings
of the people sitting there. Listening to the fandangos
by Juan el Camas, I thought it had a wave which could be
taken to Billie Holiday. I began to stick it in swing with
Raúl and then we grabbed the ones by Paco, which
are the ones I’ve listened to the most, together with
that one by Juan in tribute to him because we loved him
a lot, too. It’s never been done like that before.
It doesn’t seem strange and it doesn’t lose
any of its essence. However, it even has a rock-style edge.
“When listening to Toronjo, it was
decided inside of me that I wanted to sing because I saw
what he transformed in the auditorium”
The fandango has that power to
concentrate emotions and messages…
The fandango is the most universal genre,
the one which has been taken the most to Latin America and
a great many cantes have come from there. It’s an
essential structure in flamenco cante and especially in
folk song.
Your way of performing puts the
words in the foreground, doesn’t it?
I think it’s fundamental to give
words their weight; that’s why I’m always careful
with the lyrics. They have to be lyrics which go through
me, through my life’s experience and which are involved
with me; then I can sing them as stuff of my own. That’s
why I like poetry so much and the next thing I do will surely
be a poetry album. I like to give words and dramatic sensation
on stage their weight; I think the theater on stage is fundamental.
From drama to laughter, but for all of it to have a theatrical,
magical wrapper, for all of it to take you on a trip and
connect you and for the person who is singing to be a mirror
of yourself a little bit, and to transform you as I believe
is art’s obligation.
And what do flamenco lyrics say
to you?
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“In
flamenco, I think the music has changed a lot more than
the lyrics”
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Flamenco lyrics are marvelous, because
they’re sentences, because they’re very distilled,
very synthetic and they enclose a world within. I also miss
new lyrics, I think young people should resort to poetry;
there are a lot of lyrics which can be sung. If you notice
people who have written new things that have been sung,
well there’s the wonderful Carlos Lencero, thank goodness.
I think young people must seek in poetry, where there are
marvelous lyrics, besides modifying the old-time ones. I
think the music has changed a lot more than the lyrics.
And there are lyrics which can even be chauvinistic, that
a woman of today… could seek others. There are times,
like in the last fandango I sing, which is called ‘Aliciente’,
that on changing the lead and it being sung by a woman,
the thing becomes totally different, simply by turning the
lead around, as occurs with ‘La bien pagá’.
That’s fifty years ahead of its time.
And you’re still faithful
to Martirio, to your esthetic signs of identity…
Nobody has ever told me what I have to
wear and I do so because I enjoy myself. I like having created
a character, deep down, to be myself. And it also allows
me privacy and an absolutely normal life. I love it for
me as an artist; my feet are always on the ground at every
instant. The thing is that I like dressing up as Martirio,
sketching the dress, going for the fabric… I like
getting involved in absolutely everything, from the cover
illustration to the mixing. It isn’t just seeking
the lyrics and the musicians, but rather everything that
goes with it… I love it. And I love having the collections
of things I have and some day being able to exhibit them.
It’s lovely, it’s such nice creative work by
people who have helped me such as Andrés Martín,
the comb maker, who had been making back combs for twenty
years; he died last year. And so many people who have made
lovely things for me. If I were forced it would be a real
bore, but as it’s something which comes from me, it’s
a pleasure for me, a game.
And it’s true that you achieve
that privacy. We were introduced at the concert
by La Shica at Galileo and we didn’t recognize
Martirio…
It’s fundamental to me. I like looking
more than to be looked at, even if I don’t have the
best tables at restaurants. I like being next to people.
And I think you can tell that; I’m not in a big house
in the middle of nowhere and have the news reporters coming
to me. I take the bus.
Is that usual, for you to go and
see young people, to discover new artists?
Yes, there are few things which get me
out of my house: a good dinner or a good concert. That’s
never any trouble at all for me.
