Paco Cepero, flamenco guitarist. Interview
“Now I’m discovering
what I have inside”
Fermín Lobatón. Jerez, November 2007
Jerez-born guitarist Paco
Cepero is celebrating a double anniversary this year.
On the one hand, his golden anniversary with the artform;
on the other, his sixty-fifth birthday, a symbolic age
associated with retirement, which seems far away from
him for the time being. Cepero has just released ‘Abolengo’,
his third concert album since 2000, a record which could
be described as mature and which displays the serenity
shown by the artist, who has returned to his hometown
for some years now where he lives on the same street where
he was born in the Barrio de San Miguel. The best way
to understand that serenity of his recording might be
to share an afternoon with him at his home in Jerez, just
like to understand Paco Cepero’s music and toque,
the best thing is to converse with a guitar at your side,
because he won’t hesitate to grab it and display
the elements which make his sound unique and perfectly
recognizable.
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Paco Cepero (Photo Daniel
Muñoz) |
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You’ve recorded three concert
albums in seven years, over thirty scores of your own,
something which might not be very usual among guitarists.
Does that mean the source hasn’t run dry?
What it means is that I pick up my guitar
more often now, I have more time, more serenity and I’ve
found myself once again with what reaches my soul, which
is guitar. I’ve had a very extensive career, with
a really big break in productions and songs, but I’ve
never enjoyed myself the way I am now. Now, at the age
of sixty-five.
After that stage you’ve mentioned, do you feel that
in this return to guitar, it was hard for you to recover
the place you used to have?
It isn’t that it was hard for me,
it’s that it’s being hard for me, because
in reality I’d been forgotten and saying ‘here
I am, alive and well’ has been really hard. I think
I’ve been quite lucky because I believe that in
my style of toque I’ve always had personality and
I have my followers above all among young people; I think
it’s giving me my place and they hold me as a maestro.
Do you regret anything about
the past?
I’m happy with my life. And if
I’d continued with guitar I don’t know if
it would’ve been better. But in that era, it’s
not that I wasted time … I did waste it with regards
to guitar, but the thing is that when I had my first hit,
which was ‘Amor, amor…’ by Lolita, I
started getting flooded with juicy contracts and, as you
can understand, with one song I earned more than in two
years playing at Torres Bermejas. That put me up in the
clouds and I was up there for a great many years because
it was one hit after another. By Chiquetete, Julio Iglesias,
Rocío Jurado, La Pantoja, Manolo Escobar, El Fari,
Maria del Monte, María Jiménez, María
Vidal, Los Marismeños, Bordón 4… many
people. They asked me, they paid me and I let myself be
loved. It was a crazy period. I lived at the recording
studio. Ten, twelve productions a year … I didn’t
even see my children. And so, unconsciously, by the time
I realized it, I’d lost the place I’d earned
with my own bare hands accompanying with guitar. I’d
made a big name for myself as a composer, but I was forgotten
as a guitarist. And when I come to my native land, I reflect
upon it and I realize that I’ve acted the fool.
Then my new era begins. The record world has crumbled
and you aren’t called to compose any more, and the
only thing I know how to do is to play the guitar. I didn’t
have any cantaores, so concert guitar.
A category which has become a
sort of refuge for you, as you were always distinguished
for accompanying cante.
The thing is I don’t have anything
else. Before I used to have a great many cantaores, but
in time they’ve disappeared and I find myself alone.
Nor are the flamenco festivals the same; so I’ve
had to devote myself to concert guitar in order to survive.
At first I couldn’t see myself in it; the responsibility
is very great, and besides, you have to study. Accompanying
cante is a piece of cake for me. That’s what I can
boast of in life; of having been a cante fan and having
accompanied cantaores well. As long as I didn’t
upset them, because I’d grab a cantaor, play for
him two or three times, he’d get used to me and
didn’t want anyone else to play for him.
Paco Cepero (Photo Daniel
Muñoz)
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Curiously, in that period you
just have one album as an accompanist, the famous ‘Morrongo’
together with Santiago Donday (NM, 2003). That cantaor
couldn’t be upset, could he?
Not at all! He was a cantaor who wasn’t
really used to guitar. He used to sing a lot better with
rhythmic tapping, with knuckles, and guitar made him uncomfortable,
inhibited him; but I really liked recording with him because
he was one of the few cantaores remaining from the forge
with bronze voices. Another one like that was Chocolate,
and the thing is that I’ve been lucky enough to
play for Terremoto, La Perla, Tío Borrico, Sernita,
Sordera, Tía Anica la Periñaca… Check
out such top-notch cantaores. I was born in the era just
when those relics remained. Next came that generation
of we younger people who fought to do something new. There
was the seed of what’s being reaped today. Camarón,
Pansequito, Turronero, Lebrijano, Juan Villar… I
don’t know. In that period I used to play for everybody.
What do you think your contribution
to toque was in your time as an accompanist?
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| "I
think I imposed working slowly" |
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I made a breach in that era. When the
Paco Cepero sound and style start to be defined more was
with Turronero in that bulería by Caballero Bonald
“Olivaritos del campo/ quién los varea”.
I think I start to play the guitar a lot more slowly there
and I put it within where it is today more or less. That
change was really surprising because in that period people
played really lightly. I think I imposed working slowly.
And the falsetas…
Yeah. I think I’m one of the first
guitarists who got ovations in accompaniment. But I wasn’t
trying to show off; I’ve never been like that. The
cantaor would give me my space for him to have a breather
and I’d do my falseta. What happens is that I had
a way of playing that reached the audience and they applauded
me. But I didn’t want to take the spotlight away
from the cantaor. Everyone visibly wanted me to play for
them.
Before that golden era of the
festivals, you already had years of experience at tablaos
behind you, and even earlier, at parties and inns in Jerez.
I spent eighteen years at tablaos. And
here in Jerez, seeking parties with young gentlemen, quite
a few more. Then La
Paquera brought me out at her best time, and afterwards
Manolo
Caracol in his last company. The thing is when you’ve
had such a long career and you have so many experiences,
well, some sensitivity has to come out of you. Right now,
without making an effort, everything is coming out of
me which I’ve soaked up in over fifty years in the
business. Because I say that many years counting a show
at a big theater, which was the Falla in Cádiz
in the month of January 1958, but I’ve been playing
the guitar longer than that.
Paco Cepero (Photo Daniel
Muñoz)
A golden anniversary with an
album; ‘Abolengo’. How would you describe
that record?
I say it has two sides; a flamenco side
and a more musical one. It’s my life; what Paco
Cepero is. If I’ve featured anything when I’ve
made music it’s that it’s easy for me to create
melodies. And then, in flamenco, though it’s wrong
for me to talk about myself, I think my guitar sounds
flamenco. I really attack the strings, I put my soul into
it, and my way of strumming… There’s also
the legacy of my maestro, Rafael del Águila, who
made me listen to a lot of classical guitar.
Since you’ve come back,
how do you size up the guitar scene?
I’ve always listened to guitar
and I’ve really admired my colleagues. I remember
when I was with Camarón, when I used to play for
him every day at Torres Bermejas, and Paco
de Lucía appeared there and I saw them record
together, because I was an admirer of Paco’s. Camarón
asked me if I minded if Paco played for him, and how was
I going to mind, if that was a one-of-a-kind duo …
But what’s your opinion
of today’s flamenco guitar?
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| "For
cante to really get to me nowadays, I have to be
wrenched" |
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Well, I don’t think you can play
any better than the way the new generation is playing.
The only thing I’d tell young people is that although
they’re doing a wonderful job harmonizing, don’t
forget the flamenco. Lest what is flamenco should be lost
with such wealth in harmonies. We can’t lose our
roots. With such wealth you run the risk of us sounding
like the rest, whether it is John Williams, Baden Powell…
any of the guitarists who can stick in a thousand changes
in harmony and string transposition, but flamenco is so
rich … It’s a legacy left to us by our elders
which we can’t lose.
And what’s your opinion
with regards to flamenco in general?
For cante to really get to me nowadays,
I have to be wrenched. There are few people left nowadays
who get to you singing. Gains have been made in technique,
but I prefer heart and soul, a heartrending voice that
reaches my soul rather than being told a lot of stuff
and not understanding it at all.
A final message?
I’d like to add that I’m
delighted with how I’ve been welcomed in my new
phase and I hope they’re able to consider that being
a guitarist from a great many years ago, they can still
stand me. Because nowadays guitar is in a different ambience,
but I see that when flamenco is played, you’re also
admired.
From your entire range of scores,
is there any song which you consider a good luck charm?
There’s one which gave me a great
deal which was ‘Esta cobardía’, an
international hit recorded by El Puma, Julio Iglesias,
Los Panchos, as well as Chiquetete, who was the one who
made it famous. There’s also the one by Lolita (‘Amor,
amor’) which opened doors for me, though the first
song that did well was ‘Me tocó el perder’
by Turronero. It was a period when I used to give songs
to people for them to sing them. I wasn’t even a
registered author or anything. My pride was for others
to sing them.
