-
How can the primitivism of flamenco fit with the search of new harmonies?
- Well, you grab tradition
with one hand, and with the other hand you scratch, you search. It is very important
not to lose tradition, because the essence, the message, the base is there. With
tradition you can go anywhere and run away, but without leaving that root since,
in fact, the identity, the fragrance and the flavor of flamenco are there.
When
he is fourteen, Paco wins the International Flamenco Art Contest of Jerez de la
Frontera. D.E. Pohren writes the following comment: «He is the most
exceptional of the tocaores in the Contest». Paco de Lucía believes
that «critiques are practically of no use, because you are your own critic.
If you haven't played well and the critique is positive, or vice versa, you stop
respecting the critic. In very few cases the critique can be constructive, even
if it is not positive; when I was seventeen The New York Times told me off, but
I was impressed by the truth it said. Usually, they either write very lyrical,
very beautiful things and that's all; or they say good things about me without
even explaining why. In Japan they are more serious, more scientific and stricter».
Despite
all praises, Paco has the feeling that struggle is a stimulus, that the good will
of the public puts you to sleep and he keeps on working. Between the age of fourteen
to seventeen, he records three L.Ps together with Ricardo Modrego, and
he joins a group that tours Europe and which includes Camarón de la
Isla, Juan El Lebrijano, Matilde Coral, Paco Cepero,
El Farruco... He stays with them for seven years. The shows are improvised,
very emotional and he finds the opportunity to play solo.
-
What's the role of flamenco within European culture?
- I believe flamenco is
the most important culture in Spain, and would even say in Europe. Somehow, flamenco
represents Spanish culture, even if many people do not like such a globalization.
Flamenco is andalusian, the basque, the galician, the catalan have nothing to
do with it. So I guess they don´t like to be known out of Spain because of flamenco.
But Andalucía is an important part of Spain. Flamenco is an incredible
music, it has an enormous emotional force and a rhythm and a feeling that very
few European folklore's have.
In
1967 he records "La guitarra fabulosa de Paco de Lucía", where the influence
of El Niño Ricardo and Mario Escudero is still visible, but
two years later with "Fantasía flamenca" we can already see the extraterrestrial
accent, the quietness of melancholy, the beautiful solemnity, the early experience
- I was going to say the innate experience - which are characteristic of great
musicians. But Paco also has the incredible privilege to grace himself with anything.
And when he I analyzed, admired, devoured, when the world wants to transform into
a category something that is purely accidental, Paco is so discrete that his discretion
looks like disdain. He would rather be a spectator than the protagonist, because,
according to him, his natural condition is «to be a spectator, but the circumstances
of the career I have chosen have given me the role of protagonist, it has been
hard to live with that».
-
Do you believe that Francisco Sánchez is really Paco de Lucía?
- The real Paco de Lucía,
the musician, the one who seats on stage, is indeed Francisco Sánchez.
Then there is Paco de Lucía, the personality, the one who wears
the mask and is conditioned by many things, he is not the pure musician. Outside
the stage you have to make concessions, appear on TV, give interviews and put
on a nice smile so that people don´t think you are stupid. I have tried for Paco
de Lucía and Francisco Sánchez to be as close as possible,
although I don´t always succeed, because of the career I have chosen or the circumstances
of life.
-
Is success based on brainwashing the public?
- The artist wishes to
be understood, to communicate and to prove that he holds a truth. I am not sure
to what extent you want to brainwash the public but... yes, there is some truth
to it. Maybe the success is to brainwash the public.
- Do you thing that
the more you have access to the majority, the less you are yourself?
- Yes, but an artist must
be faithful to himself, he must like himself and believe it because that's what
he automatically reflects and that's what reaches the public. People say that
in order to be universal you have to be from your own town first. I believe that,
if you only think about what others would like, you go crazy, you would get lost.
- Are you concerned
by failure?
- Yes, a lot. I don´t know
whether it's vanity o whether it's because I need affection, or both...
-
Does money symbolize the fulfillment of one's duty, the signal that you have offered
to the world what it wished to have?
- To live within a society
and within a system is like a game where money means that you win: you get money
for doing something everybody likes. In the case of artists, money is the recognition
of a valid job, just that. I imagine that the money a manipulator makes does not
give the same feeling. One has to know how to value money because it's easy to
fall into the trap of wanting more and more money despite having more than the
amount you can spend. When it comes to that point, it becomes unhealthy and dangerous.
In
the past, the artist was surrounded by the silence conspiracy. Nowadays, the artist
is surrounded by the clamor conspiracy. That is why he dives and comes out drunk
with glory, only because he has been able to better himself. He is a romantic
follower of Real Madrid, and maybe just to forget the sorrows of the season, he
likes to play table football. Lately he even allows himself the innocent luxury
of superstition because «not long ago, in a hotel in Oporto, a small parrot
entered in my room. We became friends, I trained it, it would stand in my shoulder,
on my guitar. I would speak to it, he would stand on my hand, I fed it, I had
a slight idea that small parrots bring bad luck, and someone confirmed that to
me. When I boarded the plane, I started thinking about the bird and I was really
scared».
- Is the Devil, thank
God, coming back?
- I have an intense life
in which every day is different from the rest, I constantly change the scenery,
and sometimes it's unbearable and dull. I imagine people leading a dull life,
getting up every day at the same time and working in something they don´t like,
and, of course, they make up fantasies and they have to believe them. If the Devil
is valid, then long life to Devil! as long as people do not die of disgust and
as long as the flies do not eat them. But whether it is effective or not is another
thing.
In
1972, he records a different king of globin "El duende de Paco de
Lucía". A year later: "Puente y Caudal". In 1975, his work
already has the double merit of a beautiful shape and a deep meaning. He performs
in the Madrid "Teatro Real" where he plays for all audiences.
- Have you brought flamenco
closer to rock audiences?
- Yes, many young persons
come to my concerts. Flamenco is an elite music and many persons who maybe don´t
like flamenco come to my concerts for other reasons; because of the guitar technique,
because of the rhythm, curiosity. I don´t know why. Maybe I became popular within
flamenco and that was not common; it can happen with the flamenco fans but not
with the masses.
- What do you think
of fusion music?
- Fusion music can bear
fruits, although I don´t believe in it. In my work with Larry Coryell,
John McLaughlin or Al Dimeola, music was neither flamenco no jazz,
it was a fusion of musicians, not of music.
- What's your definition
of music?
- I don´t know how to define
it because I'm not a schooled musician. I have entered in and I live with the
music through an intuitive perception.
Paco
has mated Latin American rhythms; with the classics he gave birth to Falla
and a very personal "Concert of Aranjuez": «Part of the expressivity
of Spanish music is centered on rhythm and melody. I play the Concert exactly
as it is written on the score, but I never heard it played with rhythm, and that's
the contribution I wanted to make». His marriage with sensitivity has bore
fruits, nineteen records. Nineteen difficult deliveries, always painful and always
new: «I never make a record if there is nothing new in it. But I always have
the same feeling, with all of my records; I do not like the record and I won't
play it at home».
Perfectionism is the
flaw of his apparent cuirass, and an extraordinary quality is the germ of his
damnation. He has a constant hunger to learn; only a duodenum ulcer he is still
treating was able to appease this hunger in 1989. It's part and parcel of his
job «it's the only way to keep on running, because when you stop, the train
leaves anyway, and there you stay». In a constant acceleration, he has somehow
succeeded in turning his depression into his expression, because «I'm already
used to it and I know how to live together with it». Since he believed that
this beautiful world did not deserve a suicide and that suicide was a little ridiculous,
he chose the only possible outcome: to play the guitar, especially flamenco guitar,
is like sweating. His work is sweat.
- Do you pursue the
muse and leave her a message?
-
I had always believed that the muse came when she wished to, but it is not true,
she comes when you are working. When you are inspired, the ideas seem to flow
better, but you have to take the guitar every day and scribble on a sheet of paper
to see if anything comes out. I scribble a thousand times, then I go over it and,
if I find something I like, I try to develop a flourish or an idea.
- Is the artist an artist
only while he works?
- People are basically
the same no matter what we do. A cyclist may be an artist and a flamenco singer
may have the spirit of an athlete. Under this perspective, we all have in common
sensitivity, laughter, weeping, sadness, it's just that our circumstances are
different. I believe less and less in the label "occupation: artist".
I don´t like labels. The fact that I play the guitar does not give me a title,
because when it comes to work I am a worker. Art is inherent to the human being.
A person can express art in any way, even without singing, painting, playing or
writing. Many persons practice as artists and they will never become an artists.
Others, besides being artists, work in an artistic activity. Even if they do not
have a technique, they know why they do it and how they do it. You have those
flamenco singers who shout and who suddenly produce something with the quality
and the feeling of a genius. The same happens in the bullfights, there are bullfights
such as Rafael de Paula or Curro Romero, for example, who are great
artists, even though they don´t have an elaborate technique.
He also knows that
the need to express something in public is a secretion which can only be excused
if it is innate and that it cannot be cured. But sometimes he feels he has survived
by holding to a six-stringed board in the middle of the ocean, and when he says
he is always thinking about his last record, «because it's what will stay at
the end», one gets the feeling that to play the guitar is the best way he
knows to bear himself. There is only one way to keep going: «being unfair towards
oneself». Fortunately he does not suffer from insomnia, but lately he sleeps
less«and I hate that because sleep cures everything».
He
says he has never tried to be the first one, never tried to run faster than the
others, but simply to walk his way, without hitchhiking, even though luxury cars
passed by him. «Time goes against you. You get older, you lose energy, your
imagination wears down and, above all, you have fewer incentives. Now I only work
to maintain the prestige I have. The only incentive you have is to meet a guy
somewhere in the world who tells you that his life changed when he listened to
your records and that he learnt how to play the guitar because of you».
It's the portrait of a
man who wished to be invisible or, as Cocteau wrote: «I wished to be
someone else, and since the poet, the painter or the bullfighter have the same
enemy, i.e. the public, I am like Manolete of whom I said in a poem: "it
was someone else in his nobility title"».
