Interview with Paco Cepero.

The last prize Paco will be collecting is the Calle
de Alcalá given by the Caja de Madrid festival
on February 18th at the Albéniz theater and adding
yet another name to the list of flamenco artists who
have carried out the major part of their careers in
Spain’s capital.

“I owe Madrid everything. I came very young,
in 1962, and I was living in the capital for 35 years”
says Paco who returned to his native Jerez de la
Frontera a couple of years ago to add a little peace
and calm to his professional and private life. “I
left Jerez with lots of dreams and returned with many
of them fulfilled, and one dream I always had was to
be able to go back to Jerez to live nice and easy and
not have to worry so much whether or not I work”.

“Now, in Andalusia
I have the time, I pick up the guitar and realize that
something was missing all along, and it was playing
solo guitar”.

It
was upon returning to Andalucía that he felt
the need to take his career another step further. Having
left his unmistakable mark playing for the best flamenco
singers of the era, he is today considered one of the
great maestros of cante accompaniment.

“To play solo guitar you have to study much
harder and I confess I’ve always been a little
lazy about practicing, but now I have more time”.
This doesn’t mean that he feels more fulfilled
playing alone than accompanying cante, but rather it’s
a complementary activity in his professional career
where he has also been able to make ample use of his
important facets of composer and record producer. “When
I’m accompanying a singer, I have a great time,
because I’ve always been an accompanist, but now
I’m going through another stage of my life, with
more maturity. It’s been many years working and
I have only myself to blame if no one knows me as a
soloist, because I was involved in writing songs and
producing. Now, in Andalusia, I have the time, I pick
up the guitar and realize that something was missing
all along, and it was playing solo guitar”.

What instruments do you like
to incorporate for solo playing? “I’m
very very flamenco and I just use palmas and cajón
because I like the way it sounds for example in the
tanguillos, but I believe the guitar has to take center
stage”.

“Technique
has come a very long way,
but as far as creativity and art, very little I think”

Although he remains true to traditional flamenco, Paco
Cepero never turned his back on modern influences, as
can be seen in his compositions. “Thirty-five
years ago I started writing songs with a flamenco sound,
the kind that are so fashionable nowadays and they call
fusion. They said I was prostituting flamenco, but now
it looks like I was just ahead of my time, and you can
see how it is. I don’t think I was off-track.
You have to evolve in life, but I never lost my flamenco
roots”.

Nevertheless
he sees pros and cons in the current evolution of flamenco.
“Thank God flamenco evolves or else we’d
get stuck in a rut. Technique has come a very long way,
but as far as creativity and art, very little I think”.
And he adds “I hear things that don’t
sound like anything, and they don’t know what
they’re doing, that’s the one big problem
as I see it”. So
what’s missing? “Certainly not
preparation, because these days there’s much more
than there used to be, the knowledge is more readily
accessible. In my formative years I used to go to a
friend’s house, because he had the only radio
around, and I’d listen to a flamenco radio program.
Today’s youngsters have access to everything.
I remember my first guitar cost my father 525 pesetas
and he paid for it in installments. Today my son wants
a guitar and he has the best that money can buy, the
best tape recorder. Then they’ve got Internet,
a whole bunch of things, and that makes it much easier
to learn technique. They read music…we were never
so fortunate, but everyone wants to make it to the top
right away, and that’s not a good thing for young
people…you have to be very patient.”

“I’m delighted to receive the Calle
de Alcalá distinction, the Flamenco Hoy prize
for accompaniment and the Medalla de Oro of Bellas Artes,
because I think when you do a job and you believe in
yourself, you fight for what you believe and follow
your path, eyes front and wide open, creating your own
personality, in the end it’s worthwhile”.

Paco Cepero is one of the many guitarists who would
have liked to be a singer, but he didn’t see himself
singing. He recently encouraged Cádiz singer
Santiago Donday, who preferred his profession of blacksmith
to that of flamenco singer, to make his first recording.
“I think he’s one of the few we’ve
got left. Santiago Donday, Chocolate and Agujetas are
relics of the past and we must take good care of them”.
And his opinion is worth taking into consideration in
light of his extensive career sharing long nights with
the maestros of flamenco singing. “My first
steps, the singers who taught me to love flamenco, were
Tío Borrico, Terremoto, Sernita. The artists
of that era when I started out taught me to love and
respect flamenco, and that’s always stuck with
me, I like things that are done right. I admire the
singer who has a great voice, but I give less importance
to a technical singer than to one who sings from the
heart”.

Paco Cepero with Conde Hermanos guitar

Is there any singer in particular
who got to you more than the others? “I
caught Terremoto’s best years, when he was young,
I played a lot for Camarón in his best years,
Perla de Cádiz, Tío Borrico, and when
I was 17 I was playing for Manolo Caracol. And I could
never forget Paquera who was the first person to lend
me a hand, when she was already a top star. I was 15,
she tried me out and it was right for her. In the course
of my career I’ve been fortunate enough to accompany
the best of the previous generation, and the best of
the new people who were coming up”.

“In the course of
my career I’ve been fortunate enough to accompany
the best of the previous generation, and the best of
the new people who were coming up”.

Sharing the bill with these famous flamenco singers,
his guitar didn’t go unnoticed, but it wasn’t
only his playing that caught attention. “I
remember once when I was playing for Perla de Cádiz,
the theater, that was packed to the rafters, was in
complete silence and I played a falseta that triggered
an ovation. When the theater again fell silent, someone
from the audience shouted out: ‘Cepero, what a
great guitarist you are, and how great you part your
hair!’ because I always combed my hair with a
part, it’s sort of my look and that was really
funny”.

How about guitarists, who
have you been most influenced by? “Mostly
Melchor de Marchena and Diego del Gastor. That’s
my foundation. I had the good fortune to spend time
working with Melchor de Marchena at Los Canasteros tablao
and he was a guitarist with an incredible personality”.

Paco de Lucía’s latest record just hit
the market…Paco Cepero has a look at the copy we show
him. “I once said to Paco de Lucía:
‘Everyone wants to be Paco de Lucía and
I’ve been very lucky. ‘How’s that?’
asked Paco. And I said ‘I stayed being Paco Cepero’”.
Cepero hasn’t heard his colleague’s new
recording. “Without having heard it I know
what it’s capable of being because Paco is the
greatest guitarist of the century and for me he’s
number one in admiration and respect and no small amount
of affection, because we spent years together with Camarón,
lots of tours. I think everyone has to follow Paco’s
model, because he took the guitar where no one ever
thought it could go. I wish him all the luck he’s
already had, because he’s a classic. What he needs
to do now is get his batteries charged and make lots
of records so they’re there for coming generations,
because Paco is a giant”.

“I
don’t know if I play better or worse, but I tell
you, you can recognize my playing from a mile away,
and it’s always pure Paco Cepero”

But he hastens to add that when it comes to singing,
Paco de Lucía has a tough rival in him although
for the time being Paco Cepero will leave recording
his cante for later on because his next recording is
in the works. “I’m extremely pleased
because I just made my latest record in December. I
did two bulerías I really like a lot, because
it’s straight-ahead Paco Cepero, but updated.
There are also two rumbas, a soleá, a seguiriya
that’s really beautiful, a guajira… I don’t
know if I play better or worse, but I tell you, you
can recognize my playing from a mile away, and it’s
always pure Paco Cepero”.

Interview: Sonia M. Pariente

Photos: Rafael Manjavacas

Interview
with Paco Cepero (Grenoble – 2003) – Spanish