Diego el Cigala, flamenco cantaor. Interview

“A bolero is sung with the same tragedy as a soleá”

Silvia Calado. Madrid, June 2008

Diego el Cigala weeps once more. And he wants to make people weep. The echo of his voice is the medium between flamenco and bolero, types of music which he considers to have the same feeling, “music of the soul”. ‘Dos lágrimas’ (‘Two Tears’) is moreover an album which was born free. The Madrilenian cantaor has chosen each and every one of the eleven songs on the disc, which runs from latin tradition to Spanish copla, with ‘Caruso’ in between. He has chosen the musicians, an encounter between the old Cuban guard and emerging flamencos. And he has chosen a distribution formula, an alternative option through which during one month, the Spanish daily newspaper with the largest circulation is selling it exclusively at newsstands. By the way, the first edition of one hundred thousand copies sold out in one day. Now freed up from the ties of the record industry, he feels like the owner of his work. And he therefore passes judgment: “In my art and in my hunger, I’m in charge”.

Diego el Cigala (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

When ‘Picasso en mis ojos’ was released, you said you felt the need for a flamenco album. Now was the need to go back to the bolero?

Yes. Now I felt the need to go back to those Afro-Cuban and latin sounds which I really like because they have the same feeling as flamenco. Afro-Cuban music and flamenco are very deep-rooted types of music, very truthful, music of the soul. And I felt the need to get back to it after the four and a half years I’ve spent on stages with ‘Lágrimas negras’. After Bebo Valdés, getting together with Jumitus, with Guillermo Rubalcaba, with Changuito, with the late Tata Güines, may he rest in peace, making ‘Dos lágrimas’ was child’s play. But much nastier.

The prior experience now made the way easier...


	"If it’s made me cry, it’s going to make people cry. If it doesn’t touch me, people aren’t going to be touched"

Child’s play. It was now about singing songs I like and which I could see for myself. I’ve gotten drunk on each and every one of these eleven songs. There have been times very late at night when I’ve shed a tear. If it’s made me cry, it’s going to make people cry. If it doesn’t touch me, people aren’t going to be touched. It’s as simple as that.

Did you seek those songs or did they just come along?

They came along. ‘Dos gardenias’ and ‘Bravo’ used to be sung by bailaor Faíco, may he rest in peace, por bulerías. And by Bambino, too. I’ve listened to those two songs since I was a kid. I heard ‘Compasión’ at Jorge Perugorría’s house in Havana, and I took the record from him. I took it away. And I already had two others for the sack, which were ‘Si te contara’ and ‘Compasión’. The funniest thing about it is that ‘Dos gardenias’ has always been heard in Machín’s voice, in chachachá, but taking it to the limit of guaguancó in terms of a rumbón, as we’ve done here, seems really heavy-duty to me. And they’re songs I’ve listened to all my life. My mother used to sing ‘Dos gardenias’, ‘Bravo’ too... It’s happened to me on this album like it happened to me on ‘Lágrimas negras’ with the songs I put on it: ‘Inolvidable’, ‘Corazón loco’ and ‘La bien pagá’. But in this case, I’ve put on all the songs. I didn’t look for them, because if I’d sought them, with that restlessness, it wouldn’t have come. I was in Italy and I heard ‘Caruso’ in the voice of Luciano Pavarotti. But it reached me even better when Jumitus made me listen to the version by Ana Belén and Lucio Dalla in Spanish. That’s where I said: “I want it for Christmas!”. But with a bandoneon, Richard Galliano’s, to take it to the Argentinean tango, but without losing the original melody.

Diego el Cigala in concert (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

And did the musicians also come along?

Yeah, above all, the thing is that I wanted a gypsy piano and a Cuban piano. But the gypsy pianist - Jumitus - knows the musical field of Afro-Cuban and latin music really well because he’s performed it a great deal with his uncle Moncho. I wanted to have a gypsy and a purebred eighty-year-old man. I identify Guillermo Rubalcaba a lot with Bebo; he’s from that old guard who have that touch on piano which is vintage like rum from genuine wood. I wanted that touch. When I went looking for him in Berlin and I was at the theater with Javier Bardem, I saw a man come out and sing. I wondered who he was... And it was Reinaldo Creagh, at the age of 91, with a cane, singing ‘Dos gardenias’ and I say “I’m flipping out”. For the sack! I went to him straight away, asked him if he wanted to record, and he came here to Cata Studios. The guy, who had never sung ‘Compromiso’ before, although he did know the song, got into the booth, put on his headphones once, and boom! One take and that was it. It happened to me with him and with Richard Galliano. They performed just once. Galliano came, the translator told him it was ‘Caruso’. He grabbed the bandoneon. Tian tian tian. And when I asked about him, I was told he’d already left. Ha ha ha ha. And the technician told me: “But listen to it”. That’s called a musical miracle.

And the vocals?


	"I sang the album once and once it was already mixed and mastered, I sang it again"

I’m really happy because I’ve done what I felt like; I did it the way I wanted to, with the patience I had to have. And above all, sung really nastily, really elaborate. I sang the album once and once it was already mixed and mastered, I sang it again. Álvaro, the technician, fainted. He asked me what was wrong with it. “Do you like it? Yeah. Well, I don’t. Out”. But do you know the positive thing I got out of that? That when you know a work and you reinterpret it is when you make the most of it. When I listened to the album, I knew what it needed and what it didn’t need. I already knew where to stick in the feeling and where I was going to let it slide, which is what I did. I kicked everybody out of the studio, I stayed there alone with Álvaro and I sang it in a single night. My voice was really good and since the only thing I had to do was sing, since it was all already done, it was something to enjoy. And if you enjoy yourself... What I like about ‘Dos lágrimas’ is that you can touch the musicians; the listener who hears it can feel the piano here, the contrabass here, the percussion here, the vocals which are in the middle the whole time. So if I’m touched and cry, people are touched and cry. If that doesn’t happen...

And the lyrics have been carefully selected, haven’t they?

All of them touch a nerve in me. I don’t think there are any lyrics more dramatic than those of ‘Bravo’. I even changed the lyrics. Instead of “to desire that you’re not even calm when you’re dead”, I say “to desire that you’re calm on my return”. It sounded to me like a really heavy-duty message and I wouldn’t ever want to be like that; so hateful, so brutal. I don’t think there’s a single song on this album that leaves you indifferent. What I like about ‘Dos lágrimas’ is that you don’t pass any songs. You can’t do zapping; not at all. You skim it completely; it’s forty-five minutes long and it goes by fast. What did turn out to be hard was how to place the songs. I really didn’t know how to do it and together with Jumi, we began to put it in order. There has to be a Cuban song here, a couplet here, then ‘Bravo’, ‘Dos gardenias’ there leading up to the fourth song, bam! Then ‘Compromiso’, ‘El día que nací yo’, bam!...

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