Cádiz-born Santiago Donday is one of those marvelous oddballs we come across in this art from time to time. He is at the same time a legend and a performer more than necessary in the current clone-filled scene of musical art. Of art in general. A cantaor who is truly original because of tradition. Rare because, though an indispensable cantaor, he has kept his distance from commercial circuits; as a result, at the age of seventy-one, 'Morrongo' (Nuevos Medios, 2003) is his first album. Rare for being heterodox because, without straying an inch away from the traditional styles and manners of Cádiz and Jerez (his father, who according to his statements is his main influence, was from Jerez), his anarchical personality molds them as he pleases in the shape of impressionist touches, so that on occasion the melody is completely blurred, or simply, it is hardly aimed, for the sake of pure expression of feelings.

Rare and at the same time traditionalist for a reason, and the thing is that his lifelong musical experience is exclusively flamenco. No accent from any other source has ever appeared in his cante. His greatest power, all things considered, beyond his knowledge of styles, is his voice, his broken timbre full of harmonics, sweet and rough at the same time. And his huge expressiveness.

As rare as its author is this album recorded at the request of Jerez-born guitarist Paco Cepero. On it we can listen to Donday's versions of traditional cantes, mainly soleares and seguiriyas, his favorite styles, although he also displays good manners, unknown to many enthusiasts, in fandangos, malagueñas by El Mellizo, tonás, tientos, bulerías and cantiñas. Performances full of rests and sorrowful tercios uttered with the thread of a voice and skin-deep emotion. An unusual, absolutely relevant album which finds its best formulation in a couple of 'a capella' touches, such as the one that opens the album, spontaneous and fragmentary, extracts between real and pretend from gatherings of friends which show the best facet of our performer, up close, free and easy.

A building constructed in the shape of smooth but impacting vocal touches in an impressionist style, fragmentary, but which has as its foundation, that is, as a harmonic and rhythmical base of classical forms, the sure, effective guitar of Paco Cepero. Morrongo is a jewel from another time, from all of time, strange but which happily someone has decided to put into circulation. Don't be stingy and make up your mind: you'll buy something unique.

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