Historic interview with El Mochuelo, flamenco cantaor (Estampa,
1936)
Sic transit gloria mundi
Fifty years or The life of a cantaor
Flamenco-world.com, June 2009
Translation: Joseph Kopec
Literal transcription
from the magazine ‘Estampa’ in Madrid.
Interview signed by José Simón
Valdivieso and published on May 23rd, 1936 |
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Antonio Pozo el Mochuelo with journalist Valdivieso
(Photo Contreras and Vilaseca, Estampa) |
WHAT GOES FROM YESTERDAY TO TODAY
Who has never heard, like a phonograph,
following the inevitable preliminary hoarseness cried out
by his bitter, distant little voice of a gnome with a cold:
“Farruca sung by “el Mochuelo”?
“El
Mochuelo” has been, among flamenco cantaores,
the one with the greatest popularity. There might have been
others better considered by the intelligentsia, but not
more of the public domain, not more universally known.
Well then, “el Mochuelo”, the authentic Antonio
Pozo, old and poor, struggling bravely with life, combines
the humble occupation of a waiter in an eccentric bar with
his performances at the tablao of the only singing café
remaining in Madrid, where with a trembling voice as if
tarnished with a tacit bitterness that the crowd does not
notice, sings some sad coplas, with symbolic dramatic art
which slides over the primitive sensitivity of the audience
(yokels who came to sell their vegetables at the market,
court clerks, braggarts and party animals, master builders,
mistresses of Russian literature…) “I have seen
castles – knocked down by the land…”,
El Mochuelo sings with his voice wet with tears, while the
crowd muffles the last two phases of the “soleá”
with its rural orgy: “let nobody think himself great,
for anything might happen”. Sic transit gloria mundi!
We have spoken to El Mochuelo. Facing the
reporter, this neat little man grew recalling his times
of glory and triumph, and in his regard the sparkle of youth
shone which contradicted his gray hairs and wrinkles. Here
is what the famous cantaor told us:
-I’m sixty-three years old and I’m a recidivist
in marriage. You have to be brave!
-Are you Andalusian?
-From ‘Seviya’, of course. Just from ‘Seviya’.
Where was I going to be from, Christian?
-Did you start singing long ago?
-About fifty years ago. I was a kid about twelve years old
and I used to work as a cutler’s apprentice on the
bellows, which was the only thing I was any good at and
which I was paid a ‘real’ and a half for daily.
You add it up! One day a policeman who was a friend of my
father’s heard me sing and he asked me: “Kid,
do you want to sing where people who understand cante can
hear you?” “Of course I want to”, I answered.
And he went and took me to a café there used to be
at Puerta de Carmona. I sang, they liked me a lot…
and they didn’t give me anything, but the next day
they made me come back and they gave me five pesetas. The
first money I earned from cante. Then I did a tour of Málaga,
Córdoba and Ronda with the famous Silverio
Franconetti and the authentic “Viejas ricas”,
earning my salary every day. That’s how “my
career” kicks off.
FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND PESETAS “HUMMING”
POR MALAGUEÑAS
Antonio Pozo el Mochuelo
(Photo Martínez, Estampa) |
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-Have you made a lot on cante?
-I’ve earned up to a hundred pesetas per day. And
for the phonograph records I’ve earned up to seven
thousand five hundred pesetas for recording a single master
record. But where the real money used to be made was at
the gatherings, when there were good, true cante enthusiasts
who would pay like princes. That good era at the private
room of the singing café…! So, all in all,
I think I’ve earned about five hundred thousand pesetas
in my life as a cantaor.
-And do you still have…?
-Four pesetas thirty-five cents, which is all my capital
at this moment.
-Magnificent figures!
-I’ve liked living well and I’ve never given
too much importance to money. You’ve brushed with
greatness, and something from its customs rubs off.
-With greatness? Let’s be exact: what do you call
greatness?
-Well, man, I’ve sung at the house of the Marquis
de la Romana, of the Great Duke Vladimir; before His Majesty
the King twice… If that isn’t greatness, you
tell me.
-And have you been outside of Spain?
-I was in America. I’ve sung in Buenos Aires, Rosario,
Montevideo, Mexico… I was a big hit and I raked in
the dough; but the only thing I have left from it all is
this gem, the souvenir of a tribute I was paid in Buenos
Aires. You can see it’s made of gold and has precious
stones; well not even in the hardest times or in the greatest
despair has it ever occurred to me to part with it. A pawnbroker
might pay a pretty price for it, but it’s worth a
lot more to me. Romanticism! One’s a bit romantic.
-What do you sing best?
-What I sing most carefully, malagueñas. What’s
made me famous the most, guajiras and farruca. But I sing
a bit of everything. Cante jondo to be exact, which is what
professionals call serious cante and which includes gypsy
siguiriyas, soleares, jaberas, polos, cañas, martinetes,
tonás, livianas, etcetera; and easy cante, such as
alegrías, bulerías, fandanguillos… Ah!
And moreover, I sing jotas and asturianas.
THE FIRST CANTAOR TO APPEAR BEFORE
THE CROWD WELL-DRESSED AND WITHOUT A STICK
-Where does your nickname come from?
-Well, you see. When I started out, the Big Canario (Canary)
and the Little Canario were “in” among the cantaores.
One night I was singing in a room and some people who were
listening to me from the outside were commenting: “It
isn’t the Big Canario, or the Little Canario either;
what bird could this be?”. And a joker who heard them
answered: “Well, don’t you see that he sings
at night? What bird could he be? A mochuelo (little owl)”.
And El Mochuelo stuck. Well, if you’re going to publish
this, don’t forget to say that I put an end to that
sort of cantaor in casual attire who used to get up on stage
with a stick to mark the beat. Say that I was the first
one to appear before the crowd well-dressed and without
a stick.
THE SAD OLD AGE OF THE KING OF
THE FARRUCAS
And this little man, who was an idol of
the masses in his younger years, who conquered everything
with the laments and trills of his privileged voice: love,
fortune, popularity, is now going to display his elderly
figure and sing with a raspy voice those same coplas which
used to arouse enthusiasm and are now not even listened
to by those who do not see that El Mochuelo, in his sad
decline, is choking, more than due to a lack of faculties,
because of too much grief.
JOSÉ SIMÓN VALDIVIESO
