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Besides, you started out playing for the biggest names
around, including La Niña de los Peines and Antonio
Mairena...
I was lucky enough, for example, to receive an award from
the Cátedra de Flamencología (University of
Flamenco) alongside Antonio Mairena. I used to play festivals
all the time back in those days, and I played for everyone.
They were my mentors, the ones who instill a strong spirit
in you, which later helps you resolve creative problems. Something
that some rising stars, not the ones I mentioned before -
they're wiser, but let's just say those from the third generation,
want to be solo performers right away. And that's really difficult
to do, because if you don't have an in-depth knowledge of
the genre you use as a creative framework, that's when you
start to run into problems. They borrow from Brazilian, Argentinean,
from Cuban music... they make their concoction, but there's
no substance to it. No, no, learn flamenco first. If you go
to college they won't teach you a degree in Medicine until
you amass the basic knowledge you need to start studying Medicine;
and, when you finish your basic studies to be a doctor, you
start to specialize. And in this game the specialization is
to be a concert performer. I admire the magnificent guitarists
who play 'para cantar'. These days I'm a little rusty... although
in this show there are no less than a three vocalists. We
always go back to the roots because we like it. Look at Paco;
on this tour he also took three cantaores. He always liked
it more than I did.
Apart from the forthcoming tour for ‘Sueños
de ida y vuelta’, what other projects do you have in
the pipeline?
Right now I'm concentrating on this. I'm really excited about
this project. Right now we don't have time to go on tour,
we're planning it for the whole of Spain beginning in March
2005. Until then, I'm still working with my sextet... that's
a little more manageable. Just imagine what bringing them
over from Cuba involves. The première at the 2004 Seville
Biennial Festival will be a chance to test the water. And
if we have to flamenco it up a bit, we'll flamenco it up a
bit. I already have them playing bulerías even!
And in the meantime are you still doing creative
work?
I'm getting excited about the preparations for Córdoba
next year, when the Festival de la Guitarra celebrates its
25th anniversary. I played there right from the first edition...
not surprising considering how old I am (he laughs).
I want to come up with something new, something inspired by
the city's history. I'm already doing some background reading...
That's what happens in music, it isn't enough to just play,
you have to enrich your experience and build up a wide-ranging
cultural knowledge. If I'm going to dedicate a production
to Cordoba, it follows that I have to know my stuff about
Cordoba.
And is there a solution in sight to the problems
with your discography?
I was unlucky... Some of the companies I recorded with disappeared,
like Columbia. The first album that I recorded when I was
sixteen or seventeen, as a solo artist already, was just reissued
as part of the ‘Historia del Flamenco' collection, which
also features re-released material by flamenco giants forty
years older than myself, like Luis Maravilla and Niño
Ricardo. That's why people think I'm so old! Later they
see me playing tennis or running down the street, and they
say hell, this guy's in good shape (he laughs).
And keeps a good sense of humor...
Everybody says that about me. That I'm always in a good mood.
This year I went to Cordoba to spend some time with Manolo
Sanlúcar - he's really suffering poor guy, after his
son died - to try and lift his spirits a little. The festival
organizers invited me to spend the week down there, and I
went because I wanted to be with Manolo. We ate together and
chatted, trying to pick him up a little with a few jokes and
my personality. People say I'm always fooling around... but
not always (he laughs). And that keeps you young
at heart too.
The
story of a flamenco-less flamenco artist
By Víctor Monje ‘Serranito’ |
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“There's no history of flamenco in my family.
But my father had a passion for Argentinean tango. I
started out when I was seven. My father played a few
chords - he didn't play well but he had a lot of feeling
- sang his tangos and there I was crying like a baby.
I have photos of me singing tangos with my bell-bottomed
trousers and my dad accompanying me on guitar with his
legs crossed... that wasn't Paco's invention!”
“There was a girl who danced
flamenco and two guitarists my age playing accompaniment
for her. I fell in love with her and that's the reason
I started playing flamenco. She was at a dance academy
called Las Celindas, that was in Alvarado, and that's
where I went to study. I was about nine at the time.
Later I played with Los Chiquillos de España,
where I started playing for bailaores. Later with the
group - like the groups you see today - Los Serranos,
with my brother and another friend. And since they were
ten years older, they gave me the diminutive nickname:
Serranito. I went out to sing at tables in Riscal, we
made a killing, and later I'd go up on stage alone with
my guitar.”
“In Los Chiquillos there was
a bailaora who got mad and walked out because she said
there was no way she could dance with me. And she came
back six months later and as soon as I saw her, the
first thing I did was dance a bulería to show
her I'd been learning. That time she decided to stay.
I had something; I don't know which flamenco artist
it was who gave me the gift. But whoever it was, by
the age of sixteen I already stood out from the crowd.
And now I've been working away fifty years on guitar...
half a century.”
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