Interview with Vicente Amigo and El Pele on 'Canto':

"We both hurt on the same side"

Silvia Calado Olivo. Madrid, October 2003
Photos: Daniel Muñoz
Translation: Joseph Kopec

The time for their roads to come together again has arrived. It was a pending matter for Vicente Amigo and El Pele to cross paths. And they have done so at a geodesic point called 'Canto', twelve years after having separated their professional careers. With their hearts as a source of complicity, the Córdoba-born guitarist and cantaor share their art with universalizing intentions, wishing to turn into extroverted the introverted. Neither borders, nor labels, nor hieroglyphics... but rather depth, legibility, soul, transcendence. And they say so themselves, proud of having conceived and developed a record "at the same level as any pop, rock, jazz, or whatever star, because it might be flamenco, but it's an awesome album no matter where you play it".

Vicente Amigo and El Pele

Is 'Canto' a pending reunion?

Vicente Amigo: It had to come up. Sooner or later we had to do something together to give ourselves a treat. We've sought the moment when we both had time to do it; that means seven months that we've been there... It's easy to say but to make albums like that, you've got to seek that time. And we found it and it's been worthwhile. As far as our feelings are concerned, we're proud of having shared such a wonderful project. It's not easy for one of us to get the other out of the way. When someone hurts you as an artist, that's a chain which springs up and becomes a part of you and is there forever.

What do you both think is the key to your mutual understanding?

Vicente Amigo: The first thing is friendship, whether or not we make a record. We've already done a lot of things and traveled many kilometers together, we've been together for a long time and we've known each other since I was little. We're always going to be friends. And on top of it we've made an album which arises from that friendship and that respect we have for each other as artists. I think our mutual understanding in the musical and the artistic is in our hearts. We both have great heart for what we do. And it hurts us more or less on the same side.

El Pele: The key is in the harmony, the affection, the feelings and the art. If there isn't that feeling... And it has to be between two people who know each other very well.

Vicente Amigo: Sorry to interrupt. I have a lot of very good friends, but they sing like dogs.

El Pele: In art, harmony, feeling, affection... And we started a great many years ago and that's what's there.

	Vicente Amigo: "I have a lot of very good friends, but they sing like dogs"

Vicente, when conceiving a record for a cantaor, do you think of it as a tailor-made suit?

Vicente Amigo: When I have time, you always try to compose something, lyrics to be sung, you seek melodies, which are tailor-made for him. But one thing comes with the other. There are even influences at the time of composing from what I've lived with him, from his voice, from his style. And when you write lyrics, you write them for him because you imagine... it's great to compose for someone; you have to imagine their heart, their way of doing it.

Pele, and have you felt identified with what he had prepared for you?

El Pele: The thing is it's very easy to lend your voice to Vicente's tunes. All I have to do is sing. He thinks about my way of singing, about my structure, about everything.

Vicente Amigo and El Pele

The complicity is obvious. Would you say that the album's character is extroverted?

	El Pele: "The thing is it's very easy to lend your voice to Vicente's tunes"

Vicente Amigo: Yes, but when things are so strongly felt they might just as easily seem extroverted as just the opposite. There's a soleá there and a seguiriya which... And you listen to the bulería and there's so much heart... The essence of this album is the heart there is in it; how heartrending it is, song by song. We've sought to make a truly well-rounded album; it's completely flamenco, pure, but it doesn't matter how you label it. It's the same as when you write a book; what it's about is that you read the book and you identify with it, you don't get tired of it, it doesn't make you lose interest. We do this for ourselves, but above all, for people. Because if the artist isn't a receiver, the art doesn't exist. I think the record has been well received because things that are done with your soul put into it that way and thinking about them, not haphazardly, I think they have their reward.

El Pele: The important thing is getting across.

Vicente, what's more comfortable for you; creating for yourself or for others?

Vicente Amigo: For me, it's more complicated to make my record. An instrumental album is more complicated precisely because you yourself don't want to get bored and that's the way not to bore other people. I think when you're making an album, when making art, you're looking inside yourself to give to people, so that they understand it. And if they don't understand... they will some day (he laughs). Of course, artists are always going to understand it. Those in the guild know the complication it involves; they even know the complication involved in making it understood.

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