Today the journalists have been outmatched. Dozens of girls stormed the headquarters of the Jerez Regulatory Council when they found out that Miguel Poveda was going to be there talking about his show 'Historias de viva voz', which he presents on Saturday, March 5th at the Teatro Villamarta, in the setting of Festival de Jerez 2011. And the theatre is going to be just as full tomorrow as this venue was today, since the tickets sold out some time ago. So it’s no surprise that someone in the room asked him if he is aware of “Povedamania”.

Miguel Poveda (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

The cantaor says that he’s the same person, “but I do feel that more and more people are approaching my cante, people who have nothing to do with flamenco or copla”. But he doesn’t think the merit is his own, since he recognizes that “I’ve just followed the steps of others who have given us prestige and have opened doors, like Paco de Lucía, Carmen Amaya, Antonio Gades and Enrique Morente, who is a very important person in my career, especially because of his freedom”. The secret of his success, however, might lie in this phrase: “I love music above myself”. And he’s still surprised to have such an extensive following, “singing por malagueñas or songs by Rafael de León, no little commercial songs”, he points out.

This 'Historias de viva voz' is “an adaptation of the show which he inaugurated Seville’s 2010 Bienal de Flamenco with, but with a more intimate, direct format”. Poveda’s aim is “to pay tribute to a vital element which is flamenco voice and the different registers where it has traveled”. This show has meant a turning point in his career as a cantaor: “When I got together with Rafael Estévez and Nani Paños – who he shares the directing, idea and selection of repertoire with – I realized that the old-time cantaores are more modern than what we might presume”.

Next recording

Miguel Poveda (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

Chacón, La Niña de los Peines, Caracol, Marchena, Bambino and Farina are some of the cantaores he pays tribute to in the show. And he does so putting ways together which were opposed to one another at one point in time. For example, the album based on this show which he is going to start recording next month will include the soleá apolá in which he unites Mairena and Marchena. “Some people might think it’s being disrespectful, but I don’t care: I like them, I put them together and I’m sure that inside, they wanted to live in harmony”, he affirms. He also lets on that he’s going to record the lullaby by Bernardo el de los Lobitos, “with different arrangements, some Jerez cante, some poetry...”. And the thing is that, as he admits, this show “has made me wake up again”.

The dedications are no surprise in tomorrow’s performance, in which he has Chicuelo and Jesús Guerrero on guitars, and Amargós on piano, among other musicians. One goes to Moraíto, who recorded on his first album and took part in 'Sin Frontera', a show he performed at Festival de Jerez 2008 which recreated the lesson that Jerez has taught him: “The naturalness of the coexistence between different forms of cante and without distinguishing races and origins”. And the other one goes to Shoji Kojima, “one of the people who has made flamenco greater at the other end of the world”. But that will only happen if the girls and their digital cameras let him leave the room...