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Camarón’s art
In the flamenco world, La Venta de Vargas,
a restaurant located in San Fernando, is the place where
many of the most important cantaores in Spain have grown
personally and professionally. In a short time, it became
the center of art in Andalusia and in the entire country.
La Venta was the meeting point for artists, matadors, writers,
painters, politicians, and of course, cantaores. There,
at the age of fourteen, Camarón takes his first steps
as a cantaor, but as his brother Manuel explains, “José
used to sing for a living, he didn’t live for singing;
he just used it as a way to make a living to bring some
money home after my father’s death”. They were
years in which Picasso, Antonio Ordóñez, Curro
Romero, Lola Flores, Manolo Caracol and a long et cetera
had the privilege of seeing how Camarón de la Isla
was forged, the greatest cantaor history has ever known.
Excerpt from 'La chispa de
Camarón'
|
At the age of 16, he competed in the Antonio
Mairena Cante Jondo Festival, in Mairena de Alcor, the
most important flamenco contest in Spain, and as it couldn’t
be any other way, he won. From that moment on, Camarón
would always feel a bond with the town of Mairena and he
was always grateful for the gestures of generosity, admiration
and respect which the locals professed to him throughout
his professional career.
Despite this success, José continued
to debate between a life of bullfighting or cante, so great
was his passion for the former and so great was his art
for the latter that he took advantage of any opportunity
to make his dreams come true. In fact, he was just about
to join the “cuadrilla” (bullfighting team)
of Manuel Benítez “El Cordobés”
if it hadn’t been for his friend Pansequito
giving him his place as cantaor in the company of Miguel
de los Reyes. It would be his first contract and the chance
which would allow him to travel to Madrid, where it was
said that “people become bullfighters, soccer players,
singers” and where the nightlife, money and fame would
await him.
He was 18 years old when he reached the
capital. After this contract, others would come with Dolores
Vargas “La Terremoto”, and finally, Torres Bermejas,
the tablao which saw him make his début. Blanca
del Rey, bailaora and owner of the Madrilenian flamenco
tablao par excellence, the Corral de la Morería,
remembers how important the tablaos in that era were for
cantaores to prosper: “They were the flamenco years.
Nowadays, nobody doubts the importance of this artform,
within music and dancing, the importance of gypsy culture
in our country. But in the sixties and seventies, flamenco
was the enticement of intellectuals, scientists and art
people”… “The tablao did a really important
job. The tablao got the artists out of the inns. The tablao
dignified the artist”.
“Flamenco has followed that route
which few artforms have, which runs from a radiant life
full of a thousand colors to drama. And that joy and that
grief expressed in music gushed forth from Camarón’s
soul”…. “I remember Camarón singing
at the bar at Morería in late ’76”…
“Camarón’s quejío reached the
deepest feelings of your soul”… “because
it wasn’t a quejío from the throat or from
the chest, it was a quejío from the soul. Really
from the soul. And we flamenco artists recognize that very
well. Because there are cantaores who sing really well and
even they themselves are listening to their own quejío,
an auditory quejío, which isn’t a vibration.
And singing with your soul … that gives an artist
authenticity”, Blanca explains in ‘La chispa
de Camarón’.
Torres Bermejas became the springboard
for Camarón to consolidate his fame as a flamenco
cantaor and soon came the first records and also his union
with Paco
de Lucía, whom Camarón considered as his
brother. “Paco is one of the greatest musicians flamenco
has ever known and the best guitarist by far. That’s
what my husband used to say”… “To José,
Paco was more than a friend. They treated each other with
the respect which comes from admiration. Because they always
admired one another.”
“Paco and José, a non-gypsy
and a gypsy, two cultures, two totally different lifestyles
which were united through flamenco”… “But
a time came in both of their careers when they decided to
go their separate ways.”…“Time joined
them on some albums after the break-up, but Paco and José’s
art was lost in the nights of partying, in the flamenco
encounters which arose for the pleasure of it, and very
few kept on enjoying it.”
After Paco de Lucía, Camarón
joined professionally with Tomatito,
a wonder on the guitar who carried flamenco joy in his heart.
With him, Raimundo Amador and Kiko Veneno, he recorded ‘La
Leyenda del tiempo’, an album which revolutionized
the concept of flamenco and ruffled a lot of feathers in
that era among flamenco purists and those who regarded with
admiration what was coming from the outside. Years later,
before he died, Camarón admitted to Manolito “the
one with the mole”: “Manuel, I would have liked
to record ‘La
Leyenda del Tiempo’ now. We didn’t understand
anything back then. Now, with the knowledge I have …”.
Kiko
Veneno “was given by God the gift of being able
to work with Camarón de la Isla on this album”,
as he himself recognizes, and he longingly recalls the good
times he shared with him: “Camarón was a completely
progressive person, completely brave, who at times of doubt
would always take a step forward. And he had boldness through
his self-confidence. And he thus demonstrated the groundbreaking
talent which he meant”…. “In spring of
1979, we began rehearsals at Ricardo Pachón’s
recording studio in Umbrete”… “We spent
some unforgettable evenings there putting together those
songs”… “and in the middle, Camarón.
He was a person of extraordinary beauty. Besides being handsome
on the outside, he had inner beauty which was overwhelming”…
“He knew that one of God’s angels had touched
him with his grace”.
Excerpt from 'La chispa de
Camarón'
|
Camarón’s La Chispa
“My family is all from La Línea
de la Concepción”... “My father dedicated
his entire life to peddling”... “We’re
roving gypsies”... “I was born on …, 1959.
I was brought up Catholic”... “When Camarón
starts to come to my house, I was seven years old and he
was sixteen. At that time, nine years’ difference
turns into many more”.
By then, Camarón was already very
well-known in Cádiz; not in vain were many girls
in love with him. “A few years went by and José
always used to drop in at my house when he went to La Línea”...
“Then, Rancapino - Jose’s close friend - came
to me and told me Chispa, José loves you and wants
to talk to you”... “José, like a good
gypsy, was seeking a woman of his race at that time in order
to form a family, and he had his eyes on me”.
It was the beginning of a relationship
which would lead to a wedding some years later.
In those years, Camarón was already
an acclaimed genius. Between recordings, he used to spend
long hours listening to Bob Marley, Pink Floyd, The Beatles…
and tuning guitars and instruments he brought from all the
countries he traveled to. “He had an innate quality
for music … He’d listen to a song or some lyrics,
he’d sing it once or twice and he’d remember
it forever”, Dolores recalls.
José loved children. He was excited
about the idea of having offspring. He had grown up in a
big family, all of them living in one room. “I think
he missed that life”, Dolores recalls. “We spent
a year and a half without me getting pregnant”, but
finally the miracle occurred. “My Luis was born on
February 6th, 1979”. Next came Gema, Rocío
and a few years later, little José.
“He only felt like being with his
family. He didn’t want anything to do with the press,
or receptions, or fame, or prestige. He was Camarón
when he was up on stage; when he got down off the last step
of the tablao or he left the recording studio, his family
came first. And after his family, his lifelong friends,
the ones from his childhood, Paco de Lucía and everyone
else.”
In February 1984, his brother Juan Luis
dies in the hospital from a heart attack. This death left
José dismayed. “The last death that he remembered,
the last time that he saw his sisters’ faces shattered,
was that morning in January, when his father Luis left this
life to go with God”. This loss made José focus
even more on his family and friends, always trying to keep
his personal life separate from the spotlights and TV cameras.
However, this would not be the only death José would
have in his family. After Juan Luis, his mother died. “There’s
no doubt that for my husband, one of those indispensable
people in his life was Juana Cruz”… “José
was shattered by the loss of his mother. He didn’t
speak. He only thought. He wanted to relive his childhood
and just be with his family and friends”. But life
was taking away from him the ones he loved most and he would
still have to bear the death of his brother Curro.
The life and death of a myth
“The nightlife and his friendships
didn’t do José any good in those years. I never
saw anything, because José was really prudent about
those things; we found out from people close to him who
had the courage to tell us what was going on”, Dolores
comments.
It was the beginning of the end. “What
a shame that such a pure, such a free soul would fall victim
to that damn garbage … He who didn’t want to
depend on anybody, who was annoyed by obligation, became
hooked on something he knew wasn’t worth it”…
“I tried to solve the problem by all possible means”.
Finally, Dolores got psychiatrist Marcelo Camus to move
to San Fernando and live in their own house and thus treat
her husband more closely.
For the first time, the psychiatrist who
treated José speaks of a more intimate, more personal
Camarón. “José was a man marked by the
social class structure of the rich and poor which he lived
with in that San Fernando where he was born. Of militaries
and shellfishermen. An introverted, shut-in, insecure person.
He was really scared of failure in every scope of life:
that’s why he fled from people, because he didn’t
want to be judged. Emotionally fearful, and mentally between
two complete opposites: either dependent or totally independent.”…
“He was pictured by others as a cold, dull, distant
person… but with his own friends and family, he was
just the opposite. The only thing that mattered to him were
his family, his wife and his children. The rest in his life
was secondary”.
Marcelo Camus was also able to diagnose
what exactly was the problem which hooked and condemned
the cantaor for life: “Camarón the drug addict
has to be demythologized, Camarón hooked on hard
substances. It’s a lie: Camarón’s true
addiction was called nicotine.”…
So much so, that “in weeks of treatment
he came clean from the opiates and I didn’t manage
to get him off nicotine”.
When Camarón was recording ‘Potro
de Rabia y Miel’, he was diagnosed with lung cancer.
“On July 2nd, 1992, at quarter to seven in the morning,
José died at Germans y Trías Hospital, clenching
the hand of my uncle Ramón. A few minutes later,
the radio was saying that flamenco was in mourning. That
the cante genius had died. But what I loved most left me.
My husband, my life, my story, the father of my children.
And to me, every day that goes by is another day without
José and one more with Camarón de la Isla.”
