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'CHANO LOBATO, MEMORIAS DE CÁDIZ'
Juan José Téllez and Juan Manuel Marqués
Translation: Norman Paul Kliman
Chapter 1. "That Santa María neighborhood..."
Chano Lobato and Antonio Carrión (Photo: Javier
Hurtado)
The neighborhood is called Santa María: It tastes of fish and the slaughterhouse.
The crumbling houses are propped up with supports, even in their bathrooms. The
cobble-paved streets are the stage for neighbors who know each other just as their
great-grandparents did. They are the guardians of an area that has never fallen
into disgrace because it never rose to glory. Humor and misery are the Yin and
Yang of a city of 18th century palaces and tiny political parties, of its ostentatious
upper class and its ruthless real-estate speculators.
"I was born in Botica Street, number 27. That's where El Morcilla lived
until he died. It's on the corner of Mirador Street, and El
Mellizo was born on the other corner. El Morcilla used to say that he was
the one that paid for that marble plaque dedicated to his grandfather, and that
it cost him a fortune. That's what he used to say, but I don't know… He was
such a liar…"
Too many images in his head to be put easily into words: "I've got references;
that Santa María neighborhood...". His gaze becomes dreamy, as if
images of remote incidents were flashing before his eyes: a fossilized landscape,
a taste of times gone by that has hardly changed in the passing of trivial events,
an aluminum bar counter where there used to be pine, the Carnival cuplé
where the soleás of Cádiz were sung, the newly plastered
façade of a restored building, or, to offer a more recent example, the
moving of the Piojito from the market to the distant proximity of Puerta Tierra.
"I've just spent a short time in Morocco, and I saw streets that reminded
me of the neighborhood back in those days. People would sit in their doorways
in the summer, and there was a great flamenco atmosphere; especially, the Matadero
shop, where all the flamencos used to hang out. They'd all be there every time
people would get together for some fun. Rosa, the mother of La Perla, and all
the flamencos in the neighborhood and in Cádiz would show up. Ignacio Espeleta
used to go there. He'd sit in a big wicker chair in the doorway of the Matadero.
I remember Ignacio and a lot of others. When I was a kid, there was a bullfighter
that used to hang out there called Agualimpia. He used to dress really sharp.
"There were a lot of flamencos: Varita, the puntillero, and Charol,
after him; his wife, Mercedes. There were lots of places: Casa Constantino, Casa
Andrés in Mirador Street, La Constancia. A party would break out at the
drop of a hat, and the baptisms back then used to last three days, getting better
and better right to the end! When the baptisms would end in the morning, we'd
go to the house of María La Morcillera, who used to live near El Falla.
She was a relative of Santiago Donday and her son Agustinito used to dance really
well. Her son Curro was my age, and he's already dead."
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Barrio del Pópulo
(Photo: Andalucía.org)
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It was a pantheon of families and workers that did what they could to get by.
A personal sanctuary of art, with artists like Rosa La Papera that were as legendary
for their talent as they were for the good times that surrounded them. But this
activity was not limited to the Santa María neighborhood itself, and included
others like El Pópulo, El Mentidero, and especially La Viña and
La Caleta, which are on the other side of town and complete the human geography
of Chano Lobato's childhood. It was a world in which the only race was ingenuity,
budgets never went beyond the limits imposed by scarcity, and the only language
spoken was rhythm.
"I grew up with Jineto, Juanito
Villar's uncle, with his mother, with Pilar, La Jineta, Pablo, Curro, Gertrudis,
all the Gypsies in the neighborhood. Then there was the inn owned by Clarita Baena
and Chano, who was her first cousin. There was a corridor upstairs and some stables
and things downstairs. The flamencos that you'd see there were canasteros;
they'd travel from town to town. Sometimes they'd come to see their relatives
that were in the jail across the street, and they'd stay there. In Cádiz,
there was the inn at the tavern, in the neighborhood of the tavern, but the inn
of the neighborhood was this one that was across the street. They'd show up there
with their things. There'd always be some relative of theirs in the jail, and
the children wanted to see them, but they didn't have much money to spend. When
I was a kid, I used to go with them to ask for food at the San Roque military
base. We all lived and played together, and they got used to our way of living.
There was one that they used to call El Gordo that'd run around barefoot. He used
to play ball with us, and boy did he learn fast! In Cádiz, there were never
any of those differences that you hear about between Gypsies and everyone else.
I never thought like that when I was growing up. The kids of those families were
like our brothers; it was like one big family. They were canasteros; they'd come
to town and get used to our way of life. When I went to Barcelona for the first
time, I had my first encounter with racism, and it made me sad. I went to a cinema
with two or three flamenquitos, and we were really surprised. They weren't
treated very well, and that was a long time ago. I've never thought that was right,
no matter who does it. The flamencos in the neighborhood had to go to school like
the rest of us kids. Kids would fall in love, get engaged, get married, and start
a life. That's how it was for all of us when we were kids."
He remembers Cádiz as an island, where there was no room for any kind
of differences, except for those existing between the fortunes of the rich and
the instinct of survival of the rest of the population: "People used to work
at the dock, and the slaughterhouse was across the street. In Cádiz, flamencos
have always had to work hard to get by. I've never seen any kind of difference
between Gypsies and everyone else. Like I told you before, everybody went to school,
kids would fall in love and get married. It didn't matter is she was flamenco
and he wasn't, or the other way around. There was a lot of mixture in that sense,
and none of that mattered for singing or dancing. I never heard of any kind of
problem about whether or not people would speak caló. The only things
people would say were gachocita, el gachó, el tomatuno,
la cebolluna, and that's it. In Cádiz, nobody ever used the word
payo. They'd say 'primo, ¿tú eres flamenco, tú vendes cal?'
and that's it. Nobody would say payo or gitano in a nasty way. In Cádiz,
the word gitano is like a complement: 'Qué cara más gitana. Qué
flamenco vienes.' It's a nice thing to say to someone. When I traveled up
north, I saw how uptight some people were."
Chano Lobato remembers his childhood in the 1930s: "I was a kid like any
other, always up to something and getting into trouble. I'd sneak into a party
any way I could. All the Gypsies in the neighborhood would go by the Matadero
shop. The people that worked at the dock would be there, too, and there was always
something happening. There was a little window there where I used to listen to
them sing. And the baptisms… All those parties; it wouldn't matter if it
was in La Viña or in Santa María. You know how small the city is.
Murallas de Puerta Tierra (Photo: Andalucía.org)
"Listen, I'm telling you the truth, here. Ignacio Espeleta used to twist
my ear to find out what I'd eaten, and I used to say, 'yes,' just so he'd give
me a quarter, even if it weren't really what I'd eaten. He used to pick on everyone.
I remember him perfectly, because he used to live in Campo del Sur, next to a
house of Chano Baena, his sister Clarita. You used to see a lot of gitanos
canasteros around there, because the jail was across the street and they used
to come by with their stuff. They'd leave their animals there. I remember Almejita;
his son had the same name as his father. That kid was in the El Campo school,
La Salle, those brothers with the bib. I was in that school, but I got kicked
out because I used to skip class, and I went to the El Campo school. It was a
mixed school, with boys and girls. They put me in the class with the older kids.
Almejita was the best student of them all and Gypsy to the core. He was the smartest
kid in the school. He was a great singer, because he used to go to casa de Conrado
to listen. That was a warehouse and shop where a lot of old flamencos used to
hang out, and this kid used to go there to listen. He knew how to sing like Enrique
(El Mellizo), or how to sing the soleá of El Morcilla. He was incredible.
He was a great kid, but when he got a little older, he had heart problems and
died very young. What a great singer he was! I'm not kidding. His father took
him to Barcelona, and they came back after six days. They stayed at a place there
in Las Ramblas, in the archway of the theater, where there's a big boarding house
with a lot of different rooms. I stayed there once, too. So, he sent a telegram
back to Cádiz, and, since the place was called 'El Gato Negro,' he said,
'We're OK. Meow.
magazine@flamenco-world.com
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