Interview with Queco, singer, composer and producer:

"We flamencos must rid ourselves of biases
and complexes when creating"

Silvia Calado Olivo. Madrid, November 2003
Photos: Daniel Muñoz

Once upon a time there was a boy raised in the heart of flamenco in Córdoba. The lullaby which used to nestle him every night was the voice of a cantaor, the strumming of a tocaor. Queco's childhood memories are above all jondo: "My father dedicated a small room right next the bedroom where we five siblings were to a cante gathering every Thursday, which gave rise to the first flamenco peña in Córdoba over thirty years ago. It was called El Rincón del Cante and still exists today". And that was his school.

	Manuel Ruiz 'Queco'

"At the age of nine or ten we were no longer behind the wall listening to whoever was singing", who were no other than Fernanda and Bernarda de Utrera; El Lebrijano, Paco de Lucía, Camarón... There are tons of anecdotes, but Manuel Ruiz likes recalling the mornings when "I used to wake up with fifteen-year-old Tomatito sleeping next to me". And the thing is that his "house was the artists' house". His father used to add the lessons to the personal experiences: "Every day he made us listen to old cante - especially Antonio Mairena and Caracol - and he used to teach us to distinguish the styles. He passed on the flamenco bug to us starting when we were kids". And "at the age of eight we were already singing at the festivals in La Unión, Cartagena, Almería... I have posters with Camarón, Fosforito and Turronero on them... and at the bottom, in fine print, El Queco and El Quiqui".

Adolescence brought with it other airs. The discotheque took the place of the peña and "I got hooked both on Spanish and foreign symphonic rock. I used to listen to Supertramp, Alan Parson, Pink Floyd, Alameda, Triana...". And the crossing was decisive. Queco tells that "my voice changed; I couldn't sing flamenco any more, and I devoted myself to the guitar in order to go on musically. The instrument enabled me to begin composing". It didn't take him long. "I formed a group with my brother and we made our first record in Barcelona when I was sixteen years old with Vicente Amigo, who was fourteen. It was also his first record. Then I went full steam into the record world".

Following his mandatory military service, he landed at the Madrilenian tablao El Burrero by the hand of José Mercé. And there "I used to sing my songs at night... when somebody came in. If there were two couples, Tauro, the owner of the place, used to tell me to do some romantic little sevillanas". Of course, staying at the tablao was not his aim. "I carried a demo in my pocket with twenty songs written and recorded with Vicente Amigo to show to companies and producers. And I was lucky because a month later, producer José Luis de Carlos came and told me: "Go to Córdoba and I'll call you next week". And ten or fifteen days later we were making the first record".

In total, Queco recorded four solo albums: 'Dragones y Mezquitas' (BMG Ariola, 1986), 'Ámame' (BMG Ariola, 1987), 'Tu espíritu me roza' (Sony, 1988) and 'La cuarta luna' (Horus, 1991). The gap was long... and justified. On the one hand, he recognizes that "I stopped singing because I got disappointed with the world I was moving around in; there was nothing else besides groups, just pop music, all the Madrid scene - Nacha Pop, Alaska...- and there was no room for Andalusian music, it was a constant struggle. On the other hand, a stroke of bad luck: "I had a car accident when I was going to Barcelona to find out about the marketing plan for the fourth album. That clinched it and I gave up. It wasn't worth it".

Manuel Ruiz 'Queco'

Every cloud has a silver lining. The saying is confirmed. "Just like I grabbed the guitar when my voice changed, when I had the accident I started producing. The machinery is already in motion and you go on cranking out songs". El Pele was among the first to go through Queco's creative sift. "I've known him since I have power of reasoning; he's always been at my house and he became a cantaor there. I grabbed Vicente Amigo and I told him that we were going to make it. And a very nice album came out, 'Vengo del moro', which was a turning point, fresh air. The only ones who were doing anything different were Enrique Morente, Paco de Lucía and Camarón; the rest didn't dare". Queco points out as a contribution "putting in choruses contrasting with the cantaor and many new ideas which have remained over the years".

And those features have shaped a recognizable mark in the 'Turu turai' by Remedios Amaya, in the 'Agua de mayo' by La Susi, in hits by Andalusian-wave artists like Pastora Soler... His is an act of generosity, since "I've always composed for myself and afterwards I've adapted those songs for others". There's one exception. "The only time I've composed something after meeting the artist and considering their anxieties, in what they wanted to bring across, is with La Susi. After talking to her and her having told me a bunch of things, I put myself in her shoes".

Tackling flamenco productions has been a rewarding and thankless task at the same time for Queco. "I'm now ridding myself of all the biases. But I've suffered a great deal making flamenco records. You're always thinking about what your colleagues will say, when Paco (de Lucía) listens to it, when Vicente listens to it, when someone else listens to it... And look, a time comes when you dust yourself off and do what you feel like, the way you feel it. That's why 'Aserejé' came out, because it was just the opposite, after three flamenco albums I had a horrible time on, working really hard on the voices, the bases, the sound... At times, playing and doing fun things you have a better time, but flamenco is something I have inside me and can't give up".

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