Interview with Encarnación Marín, La Sallago, singer:

"I think that pure cante is never lost
because there's always a select audience"

Estela Zatania. Almería, February, 2002

On the night of February 23rd, 2002, when the young international superstar of flamenco, Estrella Morente, was closing the Millenium Festival in Madrid after having received platinum and gold records for her first two recordings, a more humble flamenco happening was taking place in a small flamenco peña on the outskirts of Almería. A woman born over eight decades ago had made the long trek from her birthplace of Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz) to offer her timeless cante to a small group of flamenco-lovers. Many aficionados were unaware that La Sallago was still professionally active, and given the ubiquity of avant-garde flamenco these days, it was a great luxury to actually meet this singer with the voice that recalls another, simpler era and echoes the wisdom of an entire lifetime of cante.

La Sallago (Photo: Estela Zatania)

The meeting with Encarnación Marín was not the typical interview with neat questions and answers. La Sallago intertwined anecdotes, songs, recipes, memories... At times she appeared to be speaking in verse, with that rhythm and good humor Andalusian people possess in such generous quantities. In the great Cádiz tradition of El Espeleta and Pericón she enthusiastically told outrageous stories with a twinkle in her eye and arms waving about. Fernando Moreno, the guitarist who had brought her from Sanlúcar to Almería and accompanied her cante at the peña smilingly told us: "There's never a dull moment with her, she had us in stitches the whole trip". She is known for her saetas, but is a complete singer with a personal and unmistakable style. As a young girl she was quite the rebel in an era when young girls did not rebel. In earlier interviews she has spoken of her difficult marriage, but now all appears to have been forgiven and her only desire is to have a good time and "do a lot of singing so that people can get to know the cante of the Sallago family and of Sanlúcar". Two central themes dominate the conversation of the woman from Sanlúcar, two faces of the same coin: childhood and old age. The childhood of the children she never had...and her own old age.

We are at the home of Norberto Torres, writer, guitarist, founder and member number 1 of the flamenco peña El Ciego de la Playa in Huércal de Almería. The grandame asks for a cup of coffee "burning, scalding hot". Her first sentence gives an idea of the colorful character seated in front of me across the table: "My name is Encarnación Marín Sallago and I'm eight-three years and fifty days old". Then she leans over and whispers: "With this awful cold I've had see if you can get me a little whiskey so I can get through this tonight..."

You were widowed in 1969, isn't that so?

And just how do you know that?

Because I've been studying, on the Internet...

And how does that work? Well, I was singing in El Puerto when my husband died...

The reason I mention it is because you recorded your first solo record in 1972, at the age of 53. Did marriage limit your professional possibilities?

It was hard, very hard... to go out, to go around alone. In Sanlúcar there were always a lot of women who sang, both young and old...we used to go out for our coffee and people would invite you. And the paid fiestas, of course, but my beginnings were always among friends. My husband never interfered with that...he knew that my mother sang, my two older brothers were very good singers, they're gone now, and the other one who's still alive also sings, but none of them ever became professional. I'm the only professional singer in the family, and why? Well, because I always liked it a lot and because I cherish Holy Week, which is how it all started.

I was always working, I was the eldest, and there were some very hard times. My brothers used to go to sea and I used to sell my fish from a plate you know, when I was a very small girl. It was during Holy Week that people got to know me, singing saetas. There was the Virgen, on Barrameda Street... I was in the Bar del Rocío and when I saw the Esperanza virgin one of my cousins pushed me to the front of the crowd: "Now is when you have to sing, not when you're at home!". And I sang. And that's how it all began. At fourteen I was making pocket money thanks to singing, right in Sanlúcar, but not because I asked for it or demanded it, but because everyone knew we were bad off and food was scarce. My mother had no idea that I was singing: "Matilde, your daughter's singing all around town, you wouldn't believe what she's stirred up!". And my mother answered, "It can't be my daugher, she hasn't got any time for singing". But everyone would give me a coin or two, those who could afford it, and those who couldn't.

Later on they called me to sing saeta in the Casino de Sanlúcar, but first they called Rerre de los Palacions, a well-known young singer, handsome, really good and with a good background. I ended up working with him four or five years in Madrid. So Rerre told them: "Why do you bother to call me when you've got a Sallago right here who is the same or better?" The rich people in Sanlúcar didn't know me because I had never left my neighborhood. I went to the Casino to sing and that's where the upper crust got to know me. Then I went to Jerez to sing saetas using my mother's name, Matilde Sallago. Then I went to Cádiz, the same night, and I used the name Consolación Sallago, that was my aunt, to sing in the saeta contest. Then to Seville, the same night - that was in '48 - with the saetas. The first night in all three places, with a different name each time. In Seville I called myself Encarnación Marín, no Sallago. And a guy said: "Don't you all realize it's the same person?!".

Encarnación Marín, La Sallago (Photo: Estela Zatania)

Your grandmother was from Lebrija, wasn't she?

But how do you know all this? What's that "internet" thing?

There are many things written and it all comes to you right through the telephone line...

Wow! That's amazing! Well yes, my grandmother was from Lebrija... she came to Sanlúcar de Barrameda because she needed money, so she went to the port and that's where she fell in love with my grandfather Sallago who was going back and forth from the Americas on the ships. My other grandfather was from Galicia [northwestern Spain] and everybody wants to turn me into a gypsy...that I must be from Lebrija, or Utrera, or Jerez... Jerez was where I met the Domecq family [sherry-producers]. We used to go every day to wheel and deal: we'd buy wheat to grind at the mill and when the Domecqs heard me sing they took my baskets and all the things I had brought to sell and said: "You aren't going to sell any more because you're coming to Jerez with us". And from then on I got wrapped up in fiestas and all sorts of gatherings... Jerez gave me everything, I swear to God. When I was young they had my face painted on plates, me and my sister, like two roast sardines, with our corkscrew curls... So what else do you know about me girl? [she laughs]

Did you know Manuel Torre?

Manuel Torre wasn't Manuel Torre... he was 'Niño de Jerez'. And my mother always used to say: "Encarna, if only you could hear the Niño de Jerez...". That Manuel Torre thing was because he didn't want to be called Niño de Jerez, because he was a really huge man.

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