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Dorantes’s piano can be heard in the sevillanas...

Juan Carlos wanted him to do a Huelva fandango. And if I appeared with an album by Juan Carlos Romero, as closely associated as he was with Arcángel, there were going to be comparisons and I didn’t want that. And really, they’re cantes I have a lot of respect for. I’ve never sung Huelva fandangos. And since I’ve heard them sung so well, I didn’t dare get into that. I proposed for him to do some sevillanas because of the fact that from the first day I came to live in Seville, I’ve felt as if I’ve been there all my life. I’ve never felt Catalan or foreign. So I suggested this flamenco sevillana to him and he thought of doing it in two parts: one of the romantic Seville, with horse-drawn carriages, the Santa Cruz quarter, Juan Ramón Jiménez; and the first two are more flamenco, more Triana. That’s why they’re entitled ‘Y en medio del río’. When I started singing them I thought they sounded wonderful to me; they’ve got that way like Isidro Sanlúcar’s.

Miguel Poveda (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

They’re reminiscent of Salmarina...

Exactly; I love that way.

Has the fact of being in Seville changed you professionally?

The truth is I’ve noticed it. The fact of having me near, of knowing I’m there... it seems like people remember more. They’ve also seen that I’ve kept on working, they follow my career, they like what I do... just like I like what others do and follow them. On being there, I think it’s more obvious that I’m in circulation.

Since you settled down in Seville, you’ve collaborated with Eva Yerbabuena, Israel Galván...

Yeah. It turns out costly for someone to come from Barcelona. I’ve also been collaborating with musicians up that way in very diverse projects and I then felt like collaborating with flamenco colleagues. I’m a big fan of others. I die with Israel Galván. He’d already called me for ‘Los zapatos blancos/ Los zapatos rojos’ when he did it at Barcelona’s Grec Festival. We also worked together in Japan. He’s really brave, I love him, like all artists who are brave, who take risks, who make mistakes, since when they get it right, which is most of the time, strokes of genius come out. Besides, when you meet the star in conversations, how he lives, how he fends for himself... you understand his work better. That happens to me with Israel Galván. It was great with Eva Yerbabuena, since she’s one of the artists I most admire. When she called me for ‘A cuatro voces’, I flipped out. All those collaborations within Seville’s Bienal and other festivals have made me more visible. I didn’t use to work so often in Andalusia.

And the most recent one was ‘La puerta abierta’ by Isabel Bayón, a really intense and really successful collaboration at Bienal 2006...

I flipped out when she told me. When she called me, I was really tied up. I had my thing, I had Israel’s, I had the poets’ tour in Barcelona, I was going to Buenos Aires with Mederos... And when I looked at my agenda, I saw that I had two days to rehearse. She gave me the video and I saw that I had to be the only cantaor. I’d thought there were other cantaores and I’d participate at a given moment. Then I saw that I didn’t have to do really hard things either; I’d come out singing por soleá, I had to do lyrics alluding to open doors, the pasodoble... I don’t know, a big mess. In the end, I told her that I could just rehearse for very few days, that I was going to try and do it well and asked if she wanted to take the risk... It was wonderful in the end; I had a great time. The show had a lot of taste; it was really delicate, it had emotion, feeling... and she deserves it. She’s a really nice person and dances really well.

Miguel Poveda with Isabel Bayón. Bienal 2006
(Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

When you really triumphed was at the premiere of ‘Tierra de calma’. What happened up on stage that got across something so special?

Yeah? I flipped out the entire concert, I had a great time, I really enjoyed it, I felt everything, Eva’s breathing, Diego’s, what was happening at the back... There was like a lot of energy up on stage. But I remember that when I finished singing, I exited on the other side... and I found myself walking alone behind the stage from one end to the other and I felt such a great void, as if of solitude, that I started to cry down the hallway. What anguish, how lonely after what I’d just given. More than anything else, it was the emotion, the tension of singing in Seville, the premiere, the exhaustion brought on by working non-stop for a month. But I remember that moment, how lonely I felt... and there was nobody there to give me a hug.

Getting back to the album... There are very few instruments. Were you consciously seeking that clean sound?

Yeah. One of the conversations I had with Juan Carlos was that I didn’t want to do an album with choruses. Well, I didn’t have to ask him either because he doesn’t go along those lines. I wanted a really sober album with guitar, vocals, clapping and percussion in some cases. And that’s how it’s been done.

Do you think flamenco has overdone it with so many productions over the last few years?

No, I think there have been periods of searching. People have been searching and in those searches a lot of things have been tried: more loaded down, less loaded down... and people who haven’t searched for so much; they’ve simply gone about making a little record to play in the car. Of course, others have done research, each of them goes along his own wavelength. I haven’t done it that way because the market’s saturated with that stuff and I wanted to do something different. I don’t want to shoot down others’ work to uphold my own.

Did you feel the need to return to flamenco?

As far as records go, yeah, because I’ve never stopped doing live cante performances. I think people also wanted me to do a flamenco album. It may not be the flamenco album they expected, but I needed to do it. They might have wanted a more orthodox record, which it is to me, but they’re scores by a specific guitarist who sounds a certain way and has a very particular trademark. The truth is I’m happy, but I know there are people who might have expected something else. And I think it’s a record which, without sounding pretentious or arrogant, is going to be understood much better with the passing of time. I think there are amazing worlds in certain songs like the farruca and the malagueña which aren’t appreciated with just one listening.

Miguel Poveda with Juan Carlos Romero and Paco Jarana.
Tierra de calma's premiere (Photo: Daniel Muñoz)

What have you brought to flamenco from all those experiences?

	"I’m along the lines of Enrique and Israel... and brave artists. I can’t be conservative. I’m Catalan and a non-gypsy!"

Maybe not much musically; certain details. Just plain old experience. A road paved there, I don’t know... From ‘Rafael Alberti. Poemas del exilio’, when I do flamenco, I don’t do that modulation. You change your register and you change everything. With the Argentinean tangos, even the opposite. When I’ve spent a lot of time singing other things, like the copla with Martirio, the tango, ‘Desglaç’... where I’ve taken on more the pose of a singer than of a cantaor, even sometimes when I’ve been singing flamenco, when recording there was stuff that I’d warped, which I did more stylized. You bring experience, from traveling, stages and all the rest, but musically, you have to change gears.

In view of this new generation of cantaores going along neoclassical, even conservative lines, how do you think flamenco will evolve in the future?

Do you think I’m conservative? If I were conservative, I wouldn’t sing with an orchestra conducted by Joan Albert Amargós, I wouldn’t sing things by Juan Carlos Romero, I wouldn’t sing poems in Catalan... I consider myself just the opposite. If you considered me conservative, I’d feel bad. What is true is that you can’t start building the house from the roof down. Until Enrique Morente reached those conclusions, he had quite a classic discography, with a tribute to Antonio Chacón... Don’t put me there. That neoclassicism may also be due to certain circumstances. Perhaps there’s been a saturation of other things and people want to go back to the roots; there must be hunger for the traditional. And besides, he who’s getting started and is young first wants to become a full-fledged cantaor to later go on to reach his own conclusions... if they are to be reached. I’m along the lines of Enrique and Israel... and brave artists. I can’t be conservative. I’m Catalan and a non-gypsy!

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