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Carmen Linares, flamenco
cantaora. Interview
The upcoming album. A bunch...
of verses Juan Ramón
“I can afford not to do
cantes, because
I’ve recorded a great deal of flamenco”
Silvia Calado. Madrid, June 2007
Translation: Joseph Kopec
Carmen Linares (Photo Daniel
Muñoz)
You have an upcoming album in
the works. Can you fill us in?
We’re going to do a tribute album
to Juan Ramón Jiménez, with poems of his
and music which is being composed by Juan
Carlos Romero. We’re at it. Now we’re
choosing texts. Juan Carlos has already done like five
songs, five styles, really nice. Moreover, it’s
going to be an album which is not necessarily going to
have flamenco styles, because the metrics don’t
adjust to the cantes. Of course, it is all going to be
inspired by flamenco. But the compositions are by Juan
Carlos. There might be a ballad, or some subject which
suggests more spiritual music to him … because Juan
Ramón is a very cultured poet. I’ve let him
compose what he’s inspired to do. I’m not
going to have any problem with singing something which
isn’t exactly a cante because it’s a special
album.
Moreover, you’ve already
tackled challenges like that. Look at ‘Locura de
brisa y trino’...
I can afford to because I’ve already
recorded a great deal of flamenco: the anthology, all
my early albums were cante... People who are just getting
started might have to do more classic records to show
that they know their stuff, but thank God I now play with
one of the advantages of an experienced artist; that is,
you can choose what you want to do.
Why Juan Ramón Jiménez?
Simply because he’s a great poet
and no flamenco album has ever been done where his poems
are sung.
Carmen Linares with Miguel
Ángel Cortés (Photo Daniel Muñoz)
Is there an added difficulty
in turning poems into cantes?
Of course there is. In fact, when they’re
poems which don’t have the metrics of the cantes,
the composer has to step in. That’s the case, for
example, with Enrique
Morente, who has musicalized really hard poems. The
same as Manolo
Sanlúcar on ‘Locura de brisa y trino’,
which are poems he had to do special composing for.
How are you carrying out the
selection process?
Between the two of us. He’s chosen
some poems and we send him things. He always asks us to
send him stuff because he has enough to do with the composing,
though he’s also selected verses. It’s joint
work.
And the planning is...
I hope we can record it at the end of
the year and it comes out next year. Coincidentally, next
year is the fiftieth anniversary of Juan Ramón
Jiménez’s death. The same thing happened
to me as with Lorca’s folk songs; everybody thought
I’d done it for the anniversary, but in reality
I’d recorded it beforehand. And since it was such
a nice album, it was taken advantage of and when it was
Lorca’s anniversary, the record company sold a lot
of copies. But we didn’t make it thinking about
that, just like this record, which we’ve been working
on for some time now.
What motivates you about Juan
Carlos Romero?
He has a very personal way of playing,
he has a lot of feeling, a lot of sweetness. And at the
same time, when he has to break away, he breaks away.
Besides, he’s very flamenco; he has really flamenco
toque. And he composes with a lot of criteria and a lot
of quality. The things he does don’t smack of songs
to me; we have plenty of songs now. They smack of flamenco,
of music.
Carmen Linares (Photo Daniel
Muñoz)
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