Interview with Caroline Plante, guitarist

A recent recording of flamenco guitar, foreigner, and a woman to boot.  You couldn’t find a braver person.  Nor anyone more determined or more flamenco than this thirty-something woman from Montreal.  A story of comings and goings that has only now brought her to one of her goals, historic at this point.  Once again it’s taken outsiders to come and show us how it’s done, and still there are those who turn their noses up and deny the evidence.  Well the girl can play.  Galactic.  And she lives in Móstoles, Madrid.  In 2010 she initiated the history of women’s recorded guitar-playing.  It was high time.  Welcome to the fold Carolina Planté.

You said that a son of Niño Ricardo’s lives in your city, Montreal…
Yes, he’s a taxi-driver.  Actually, he was an old friend of the family, but until five years ago I didn’t realize who he was…and he’s not the only flamenco in town.  My city is full of Spaniards and places where you can hear flamenco guitar.  The Centro Gallego, the Club Español de Quebec… And let me tell you, I had my life all set up there, with my house and everything.  There’s work in Canada and many guitarists there who would surprise you.  I played a lot, four or five recitals a week, and everything went fine, and continues to go fine.  It’s incredible for any guitarist over there.  But it was clear that I had to come to Spain in order to develop artistically.

But your father is a guitarist, you had a good teacher.
Yes, he goes by the name “El Rubio” which his guitar teacher gave him.  My father is a real character, physically he looks like Manitas de Plata, a bit of an oddball.  Like I was saying, he had me start playing at the age of six.  And I listened to the records he played for me, which were of Niño Ricardo and people of that level.  But even so, he knew that if you don’t get to Spain, and you just soak up everything there is around you, you won’t go very far, he knew what needed to be done.  My brother is a musician, but he’s into electronic music, he didn’t need to come.  The furthest I ever got from flamenco was when I played bass for a rock group.  I never was without playing an instrument, I even learned some piano.  But guitar is my thing, and especially flamenco, there was no escaping it.

Didn’t you study anything else?
Plenty.  I was always an avid student.  Both in school and with the guitar.  And it wasn’t easy, because my parents were divorced and I could only see my father every two weeks, so I had to take advantage of my time as much as possible.  I had to repeat the falsetas again and again, from ear and by memory, and then return after two weeks with everything perfectly polished in order to continue learning new things.

I also studied French literature, but by that age I had perfectly clear that I needed to come to Spain.

So you came without much of a plan, ready to play it by ear…
Well, the first trips, yes and no.  I actually came with grants from Canadian institutions, first, for a few months, afterwards for longer periods, but I always had to return to Canada.  And you can’t imagine how much is lost when you stop studying and go back, you realize you play much worse than when you were in Spain, and you’re dying to return.  I was mostly in Seville, taking classes with all kinds of people, some of them very prejudiced at first, but always learning as much as I could.  Imagine, the typical “guiri” who comes to Spain to dance and play guitar.  Although I tried at all costs to avoid that stereotype.  I wasn’t interested in hanging out with foreigners.  And it was great, because I met terrific people.  Then, I crossed paths with Mariano Cruceta and we started working together, I came to Madrid.  The grants were used up by then, I’d squeezed out all I could and had to start down another path of my own.  Madrid is a city that does me good, it’s more appropriate for my specific line.  I love Seville, and I have a lot of friends there, but Madrid is more cosmopolitan and you have contact with other kinds of music.

You fell in love and put down roots in Madrid.
And working and rehearsing non-stop.  And not only in Madrid.  I went back to Montreal for a while to teach and do some shows.  Always working seriously, with not as much margin for learning more.  Because Mariano is very demanding, he’s a musician and won’t settle for just anything.  We went around Toronto and France…finally returned to Spain.  We did a flamenco version of Othello, and a show called “Invernadero”.  That was a crucial point, because that show is really the basis for the creation of all the compositions on the record, and I work them.  It’s what gave me the impetus to make the record, the material was already in my head, and it was a viable project.

Were you aware of being the first woman to record flamenco guitar?
Years ago in Montreal someone said, ‘imagine if you were the first female flamenco guitarist to make a solo record’.  I didn’t pay much attention because my level was low, and I just didn’t see it.  Then they asked me to record something, the material I was working on, but, well, it didn’t really come together until a few years later.  And yes, now years have gone by and no other woman has recorded!  So, like I say, it began to become clear.  And it’s not that I consider it some kind of feat, it’s just that I dared to do it, I worked hard and there it is.  I don’t feel like I’m at the top of the heap, nor anything like that, even more so considering how shy I am.

How long did the recording take?
Well, the guitar was recorded in two studio days.  But of course there’s lots of work behind that.  The rondeña for example I did when I was nineteen, and the bulería “Pájaro Viajero” took many months of work, in fact I was stymied for three years.  I don’t like to create falsetas one after another.  If I couldn’t see what was needed for that bulería, I preferred to put it on the back burner.  There’s no point in playing for the sake of playing.

That’s a concept Manolo Sanlúcar also supports.
Yes, of course, that’s why I like that guitarist so much.  I defend all composers, but my line is more in the way of giving coherence to a piece, as opposed to a string of falsetas.

And you’ve got good people on the record.
I can’t complain.  The fact is, Falo was always nearby, he worked with Mariano and me for a long time.  Duquende also was interested in me, there’s a good story behind that.  And then, all the novelties Mariano added, electronic music, the rappers we met thanks to our sound engineer…I’m sure the classic flamenco people will want to kill me, but it’s what I liked and how it came together.  Also, Paco Ortega helps you to be fearless.

But at this stage of the game, do you still have fears?
No…at this point… half naked on the cover, being a female guitarist…if I were concerned about what people would say, it wouldn’t do me any good.

Tell me about Duquende…
Well, in a certain sense we sort of knew each other already, from Myspace.  He wrote me a few times, and I thought it wasn’t really him.  Why would someone like Duquende be interested in my guitar-playing?  Well, it was him, and he told me I played soleá well, with plenty of substance…and I was delighted.  That’s all there was. Just think, an artist like that telling me I play with substance.  Then, while we were recording, Mariano said why don’t we call Duquende, but I didn’t have the nerve, so he called.  I was so embarrassed, you have no idea, but it turned out he was delighted, and he recorded siguiriyas and bulerías, although the latter was not included because of a change of tone, but we’ve got it safely filed away.

Who are your favorite guitarists?
Paco de Lucía, he goes to Montreal a lot.  I’ve seen him in live performance about twelve times.  Manolo Sanlúcar, Vicente Amigo and Riqueni.  I didn’t mention Riqueni before, did I….well, I love him.  But since he hasn’t recorded in a long time…it seems like we’ve forgotten him, this mustn’t be.  And then, Diego del Morao…when he puts out a record, look out!

What’s your opinion of the current scene in flamenco guitar?
I don’t think it’s possible to advance any more technically, what they’re doing now is amazing.  Perhaps what’s needed is more attention to composition, and that will be resolved by listening to music from outside, not just flamenco.

Yeah, but then they tell you “your playing doesn’t sound gypsy”, “you’re not flamenco”.
Well, the main thing is to have a personality, to play the way you want.  And if someone has flamenco inside, whatever is played is going to sound flamenco, like it or not.  I listen to Pink Floyd, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Peter Gabriel, Pat Metheny…and I’m no less flamenca than many others.

Why do you think women don’t play flamenco guitar?
I suppose it has to do with women’s traditional roles, normally related to other tasks.  And also I think they never had role models to follow.  If no woman records, no one was brave enough to try, not even if they saw their mothers playing, and there wasn’t even that.  And of course, women took to singing and dancing, but guitar was off-limits, which is still the case today.  Even my father had problems in Montreal when he brought me out to play guitar. 

I guess if you’re not closed to new things or limited by the tradition, things will change.  With the rhythm the women have here…  You have to fight for equality, it’s not about feminism or machoism, both of which are bad extremes.  The only sensible thing is equality.