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Niña Pastori (Photo
Daniel Muñoz) |
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What does Chaboli
contribute to this album?
Chaboli gets involved a great deal. He
gets into a production and... There are people who tell
me that he’s there as my husband everywhere. And as
far as I’m concerned, he should be there even more
so, because it’s something very much our own. Then
the musician might come, he gives him what he wants him
to play, where he wants him to come in... but it’s
not the same when you’re the creator and you know.
As a musician you might be less of a virtuoso or less perfect,
but you know more what you’re doing. I have my little
tiffs with him because of that; since he’s the author
of many of the things and the one who does the arrangements,
there are some times when I’d like him to be there
more than what he is. It isn’t the same when you’re
the creator of stuff as when you give it to others for them
to do it.
Does he share that restlessness
for taking a glance at flamenco?
Oh yeah. He also felt like it, totally.
When I commented my idea about where I wanted to take this
album, in what shape and how I wanted to do it, he agreed
completely with me. Yes, because in the end the producer
has to agree with what the artist is feeling at that moment
and what he or she feels like. And I think that’s
one of our keys; that Chaboli knows me well, he knows what
moment I’m at and what he tries to do is enhance what
I feel a little bit... quite a bit, I’d say. It’s
important to do what you feel, what you feel like telling
and expressing it at that moment, and in the end that makes
things easier, even reaching the crowd.
Getting back to the guitars, Vicente
Amigo plays the bulería ‘Vagabundo’.
What does that collaboration mean to you?
That might have been the peak moment, collaborating
with Vicente. The truth is that Chaboli and I are proud
that he’s there with us; he’s a great guitarist.
And I think the bulería ‘Vagabundo’ suited
him really well, fit his way of playing... or at least we
thought so. I’m very happy and content with this collaboration.
Moreover, as a person he’s been very humble, very
affectionate to us... we’ve loved him.
How does a cantaora adapt to different
guitars?
Imagine. They’re all first-rate guitarists.
Adapting yourself is easy. Ha ha ha. Adapting yourself
to Vicente Amigo, Josemi and Diego isn’t complicated
at all.
The other tracks, however, are
very ‘Niña Pastori’...
I think there’s half an album and
half an album. There’s a half on which I’m going
a little bit backwards and another half an album more along
the lines of what I’ve always done. Which of course
I also felt like and which also went with the album. I think
‘Esperando verte’ is tangos very much along
the lines of Niña Pastori, and ‘Capricho de
mujer’ is a new wager, it’s a rumba with an
air of the seventies in the arrangement... I think it’s
a record that’s cool, for people to enjoy.
Do you think the people who follow
you are ready to listen to a soleá or a minera?
It might be that it may shock the people
who follow me the most or they might not understand it,
but well, it’s what I felt like, what I had the urge
for. It’s done with all the affection in the world
and I hope that those who have never heard cantes like that
before, well, that they like them.
Should young people maybe know
flamenco better?
Well, it’s not that they ‘should’,
I don’t think flamenco’s an obligation. Flamenco’s
there, it’s music of ours, from our country, they’re
our roots, but it’s not that they ‘should’
know it. It’s another style of music. And I don’t
mean that it’s just another thing; it has importance
with capital letters, it has incredible wealth in harmonies,
in melodies, in rhythms, it’s very deep, very long...
but it’s not an obligation. I think you have to like
it. And it’s nicer to have an audience of true fans
who are there because they like it and enjoy it, than one
which is there out of obligation or fashion or a given moment.
Does that have anything to do with
you believing that “flamenco is a kind of minority
music”, as you stated in a recent interview?
Yes, flamenco has always been a minority
type of music; it hasn’t been like pop. But pop is
also easier and not everybody is a notary or judge, is he?
Flamenco is complicated, it isn’t a simple kind of
music, it has its years behind it, you have to listen to
it since you were little to be able to understand it naturally;
then there are people who take a liking to it over the years
and who understand it equally and know where the olé
is. What isn’t easy can’t be for the masses.
And in another one you said that
as times have changed, it’s harder for young people
to express the troubles of flamenco, didn’t you?
The purest and most traditional flamenco
has come from poverty, from troubles... Flamenco largely
belongs to the gypsies and they have experienced that. A
minister’s son has never sung. To sing pure flamenco,
you have to have experiences, because you sing about troubles
and grief, and it’s easier to sing that when you live
it. Nowadays children live differently, we live better,
thank God, and the troubles have gone elsewhere. It’s
not the same to sing about the troubles of the past as about
having a virus in my computer. “Aaaaay. I have
a viruuuuss”. No, that doesn’t work. Ha ha ha.
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