Martín Guijarro, October 2009

Raw voices. Female voices. Jerez voices. Age-old cantes… of their lives. And their corresponding guitars. There’s no further complexity in ‘Mujerez’, a simple album shared between Juana la del Pipa, Dolores Agujetas and La Macanita. Each does her own thing and then halfway through the disc the three heartrending voices come together in a round of tonás, of unaccompanied cantes, even rawer than all the rest, which is no small thing. Laying stakes on the heavy, the timeless, the simple, the untamed.

The album is opened by Juana la del Pipa. And her performance might be the most outstanding one on it, since she is the one who has been to the recording studio least and recordings of hers were in need for some time now. In fact, she’s the only one who doesn’t have an album of her own and except for her live collaborations with bailaor Antonio el Pipa, it’s hard to get a chance to listen to her. Accompanied on toque by none other than Moraíto, she contributes the bulería to listen to - a style which marks Jerez’s cantaor idiosyncrasy -, the bulerías ‘Yo he nacío en Jerez’, the tientos ‘Las fatigas mías’ and the fandangos ‘Pero más flamenca no’. Such a tremendous, booming voice, so exceptional on today’s cante scene.

Dolores Agujetas stamps the abrupt family trademark on the fandangos ‘En la tumba de mi mare’, the seguiriya ‘Llévame contigo’, the bulerías ‘Son las tres de la mañana’ and the soleá ‘Los ojitos de mi cara’. Although she had already worked on this type of repertoire on her solo albums ‘Hija del duende’ and ‘Dolores’, since both are out of print, ‘Mujerez’ serves as a re-encounter with this inconsistent but impressive cantaora, accompanied here on guitar by her son, Dieguito Agujetas.

Given that La Macanita has just released a solo album, ‘Sólo por eso’, rather better recorded and produced, her participation on this disc doesn’t really contribute too much to her discography, although it does to this project. She’s superb in the soleá - in this case, ‘Por el hablar de la gente’ - and mighty in the closing bulería ‘El sitio donde te hablé’, and upholds the more melodic register at a high level required by the malagueña ‘Cuando siento tus pasos’ as well as the taranto and cartagenera ‘Haciendo el camino’. And it’s her voice which opens the round of tonás, a little over nine minutes which are the essence of this album. This is where the cantaoras pass on the mike to one another, where a three-way dialogue is opened. It isn’t a question of comparing, but of going with the flow and certainly shuddering and even being startled by the strength and the history carried on by each voice of these women who take no heed of either fads or the times.

Further information

Reviews index

Interview with La Macanita, cantaora (May 2009)

Special Feature. Jerez Cante Families. Los Agujetas