FLAMENCO CANTAOR CHANO LOBATO DIES IN SEVILLE. OBITUARY
Historic memory
Silvia Calado, April 6th, 2009
Special
Feature. Excerpt from the book ‘Chano Lobato. Memorias
de Cádiz’
Chapter 1, ‘Ese Barrio de Santa María...’
A year ago he fought in Nîmes.
He combated with wisdom, with resoluteness, with grace...
he was a smashing success. But instead of being carried
out shoulder-high, he left the theater with an old, fragile
walk, leaning on his guitarist. Only then, in that short
stretch to go off stage, was he the age he was; it is known
that he was born in the poets’ year of ’27.
Chano Lobato
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
|
Chano
Lobato, the last cantaor, was transformed by the stage.
It gave him life in these last few years of delicate health,
of a bout with aggressive diabetes which he trimmed down
tremendously every time he came out to sing. And in the
French city he defeated it once again. He sat down on his
chair, took in the warm applause of the crowd and suddenly
became two or three decades younger. The maestro remembered
his maestros, Aurelio, Ezpeleta, Manolo Vargas, the old
chirigota. He sang, and how, por soleá, por cantiñas,
por tanguillos, por tientos-tangos. And between cantes,
of course, he told his stories of art.
That night, the historic Nîmes bullring,
that of the Roman amphitheater, reminded him of his attempts
to become a bullfighter in order to maintain his family
in the harsh post-war years. The cow whirled him around
in such a way that he lost even the heels of his shoes.
So he sent his sisters to the soup kitchen. But that was
told by him, with that wit of his, with that way of modulating,
with that frank smile, with that spark in his regard. I
don’t know if the French understood him entirely.
They didn’t need to. And he finished the job por bulerías,
standing, without a mike and dancing. You had to really
rub your eyes to confirm that you weren’t dreaming,
or traveling in a time machine.
Chano Lobato
(Photo Daniel Muñoz) |
|
The following morning, the Rocío
Molina Company and some accredited journalist or another
returned with him on the Ryanair flight Marseilles-Madrid,
after an hour-plus journey by bus and before his taxi to
Atocha and his AVE (high-speed train) to Seville. Remember
that he was eighty-something. And he didn’t ask for
special treatment, or any help. Nor was he offered any.
Matters of low cost... of airlines and of festivals. Just
to get off the plane, he grabbed my arm. “Niece, let’s
take it slowly”. And I accompanied him at his wise
pace down the stairs and corridors until the baggage claim,
laughing every step of the way due to his tremendously witty
way of talking about life. “Chano, we’re going
to put it on the Internet”. “Oh, niece, and
is it possible for it not to come out in Cádiz? The
thing is I owe a ton of money there”.
On Palm Sunday 2009, a big day in his adoptive
Seville, Chano Lobato passed away. He took with him his
cantes, his tales, his troubles, his hits, his dignity and
a wisdom which, until now, balanced the current fluctuations
in flamenco cante. In this first decade of the second millennium,
Chocolate, Fernanda de Utrera, Sordera and La Paquera said
goodbye. He was the only one we had left. We should have
taken each of his performances as a gift. His participation
in ‘Historias de arte’ with Juan
Habichuela and Matilde
Coral, the bulerías which Juan recovered for
his album ‘Una guitarra en Granada’, the round-tables
with Matilde on Canal Sur, the tribute ‘Yo soy del
27’ at the Maestranza, and any appearance he made
at a peña or little festival here or there. From
now on, unfortunately and out of obligation, we will just
have to remember.
