Interview with Pitingo, flamenco cantaor. ‘Soulería’, track by track

“What should be frightening is
not creating anything in flamenco cante”

Silvia Calado. Madrid, May 2008
Translation: Joseph Kopec

When the record company noticed the success of ‘Soulería’ live, it wanted to turn Pitingo’s second album around. Some details changed, the fusion between soleá and bulería was rushed, but the Huelva-born cantaor refused to do without flamenco. The album delves deeply into that unique formula of the ‘soulería’, now turning it into a prism through which only he looks just as easily at classics from the other shore like ‘Killing Me Softly’, as classics from the jondo shore such as La Niña de los Peines, Fernanda de Utrera, fandangos de Alosno and the taranta del Frutos with Juan Habichuela on guitar. Now then, don’t be surprised if following a quejío you come across sudden Whitney Houston-style vocals. “If not, it’s not Pitingo”, the artist adds. It’s better for he himself to explain it: ‘Soulería’, track by track.

Pitingo (Photo Daniel Muñoz)

‘De Ayamonte a Mississippi’

“It’s inspired by ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’. At first, we were going to do it with the original melody, but the business of the permits... And we even thought about taking it off. But Juan Carmona was already there, my cousin Fernando, his son cheering on... Besides, it’s a song Uncle Juan (Habichuela) likes a lot because it talks about him and he even thanked me. So we left it, changing the melody a little bit. It isn’t what we wanted, but it forced us to do something different. The title is because of the choruses, because of the style. The melody we did is very black, very Mississippi-style. And it’s the only song on the album classified as a ‘soulería’, Pitingo’s style... which isn’t a new style, so nobody gets angry”.

-Someone else might do a soulería some day...

“I suppose the malagueña by Chacón would be an innovation in that era. The colombianas and the guajiras were something modern. I suppose back then, people said they were crazy. In a hundred years, gypsies will sing por soulería the same as por soleá. Ha ha ha. “After this soleá, I’m going to sing a little por soulería”. I wish we were there to see it”.

- Juan (Habichuela, they point at the back) will be there...

-Does the encounter between soul and bulería work better and better?

“Yeah, yeah, it’s something that comes out all by itself; I’ve really taken on the concept, the stuff. Now this new choir comes in and I even have the technique to guide them already... and they pick it up wonderfully. After a while, they’re already in there, clapping por bulerías”.

-You can be seen on the DVD directing the choir in the rehearsals. Was it hard?

“No, not at all. We were just there for one day. They stuck in the bulería very well, really, it wasn’t hard for them at all. Those people have a lot of rhythm and explaining it to them well... I explained it to them with my broken English. They cracked up, but they understood me”.

‘Killing me softly’

	"And whether you like it or not, you buy ‘Soulería’ and you also listen to a soleá by Fernanda"

“It came about as a result of the show ‘Soulería’, because it wasn’t going to be on the album at first. The album has taken a turn since we did the show. We had it focused differently because I didn’t want to give this so soon, ‘Soulería’, but it was the public who demanded it; it wasn’t me. They forced me - and I’m delighted - to do it all faster. I wanted a more flamenco album, but given what happened at the Teatro Calderón and then at the Bellas Artes, the record company noticed and said that the album had to be turned around. Apart from that, they see everything that’s come, I walk down the street and twenty-year-olds stop me, just like the people who write to me on the Internet. And whether you like it or not, you buy ‘Soulería’ and you also listen to a soleá by Fernanda, the taranta del Frutos and fandangos de Alosno. Maybe I’m going to be crucified in Alosno, but a lot of people are going to know what a fandango de Alosno is. And that, even though it’s adorned, there’ll be people who walk down the street singing it. Look at the blacks in the choir; they already know what it is, they already have it in their heads”.

Pitingo (Foto Daniel Muñoz)

“The important thing is to give people flamenco in a decorated way; if not, it falls apart. There’ll always be people who are enthusiasts, but there are fewer and fewer, a great many fewer, people have begun to stop going to peñas. And you have to give flamenco differently. New people are being born; it’s normal. Not even the flamencos my age themselves want to listen right now to the flamenco which I like, the classical stuff of old. You speak to a lot of them my age, devoted to flamenco, about La Niña de los Peines and they don’t even know one cante, and have no idea who Marchena, Bernardo el de los Lobitos or Juanito Mojama are. It’s a shame. And this way, it might reach a lot of people. Camarón reached the audience by, without him knowing it, that more commercial way of singing. And even La Niña de los Peines... That’s the one I like the most, my number one, I have her in my heart. There are some tientos on the album by La Niña de los Peines, then adorned with a gospel choir, with drums... And in passing, people are listening to a cante of hers. Tomorrow the flamencos might come out with an electric guitar, who knows? Everything has progressed so much...”.

-Is it also a matter of changing the image projected by flamencos?

	"In the big department stores they’re putting the album in the pop section. To me, it’s great, because you reach a different kind of public"

“Of course, people say I don’t seem flamenco. The other day they were saying in the company that in the big department stores they’re putting the album in the pop section. To me, it’s great, because you reach a different kind of public. And the campaign they’re doing is more of a pop artist than a flamenco artist. It’s great if the record sells; I’m not leaving flamenco. There are more commercial songs, you have to sell, but there’s also flamenco. The record company did want me to remove the soleá and all that, but I said no, I wouldn’t dream of taking it off. If not, it wouldn’t be soulería, it’d be gospel or soul or flamenco. Flamenco has to change for the better. That things get lost, maybe the savagery singing, personality, well yes, but there are a lot of records now... Before, when there didn’t use to be any records, each one had to do his style, they had no other choice in order to reach people and to distinguish themselves. Now people work as long as they have rhythm. A cantaor for dancing, anyone who has rhythm. Even if they don’t know the cantes, all of them know how to sing a soleá, some alegrías for you... Even if its one and starting in Cádiz and finishing in Alcalá, which there are a lot of. But oh well, it’s a soleá”.

‘Killing me softly with his song’

“At first, we were going to do it por bulerías, but I saw that it was better to respect the time, as por tangos. More than anything else, so that people could absorb it, so they can dance to it. We were going to make it slower, then we knocked it up a notch and the truth is that it turned out really well. It’s the version by Roberta Flack, her way of singing from beginning to end, but adding little flamenco details to it”.

‘Silencio’

	"There are many parts of the album I’m really happy with because even though they’re not very well sung, they’re very heartfelt"

“They’re fandangos de Alosno. At first, we wanted to stick in a normal chorus from Alosno, but we dared to give it a different angle. Tere Bautista, Ángela Bautista and I stuck in the choruses, which are also very soul-style, without leaving the rhythm of the fandangos de Huelva. And nor is the guitar, which goes through all of its chords, detracted from at all there. The lyrics were done right in a period of personal problems and it’s one of my favorite cantes because of the moment it was recorded at and because those lyrics were composed with a lot of trouble. I think the way it’s sung is one of the best things on the album as far as feeling goes. There are many parts of the album I’m really happy with because even though they’re not very well sung, they’re very heartfelt. And I’m happier with that than with having been able to do something really difficult. Look, it hurts me here, and you can see the bad time I’ve had of it. You can also see the good times, but if you listen to the bad ones closely, you can appreciate them more. I sang the tientos, for example, three times. Of course, there were other harder takes, but I chose those because I like the way in which they’re uttered. And in the fandangos de Huelva, exactly the same. The tientos and the fandangos were recorded on the same day. If you listen to them closely, you realize that besides the color of the vocals being exactly the same, they’re sung in a very similar way”.

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