Special report: TWENTY YEARS WITHOUT CAMARÓN

Pablo San Nicasio

20th anniversary of his death

“Leave me to my madness and let me die happy”
José Monge Cruz

 

For some things, two decades feels like an eternity.  Since that fateful day, July 2nd, 1992 flamenco has felt each moment of his absence and the legacy of its greatest icon.

Twenty years without Camarón de la Isla have allowed for putting musical, aesthetic, philosophical and even economic things in perspective, for an artist who died already a legend in his own time.

Camarón with Tomatito

THE CAMARÓN WHO SANG, AND THE ONE WHO DIDN’T

José Monge Cruz had been born to sing.  Despite his bullfighting inclinations, the young man’s strength was always one of his natural resources, the kind usually belonging to those who can’t help but add kilometers to the age-old road to flamenco.

Camarón was fine pitch and flawless compás.  But most of all he was the aesthetic and the guiding light for an entire generation, and which successive generations longed to find.  Artists yearning to be free from the stale odors that no longer had much to offer.  It was the right moment, but not everything was worthwhile.  José’s offering clearly was.

With everyone following the lead, José Monge’s singing reached the heights and pulled along a cart that didn’t always carry the best merchandise.  His was the voice of the seventies and half the eighties until his small physical presence could no longer cope, not even after a long sabbatical.

But the job was done.  The renovation that many had been waiting for was chiselled on a handful of records that could only bear his revolutionary gypsy signature.  The flamenco to come would have its heritage.  Thus was it written.

Twenty years later the impetus of renewal provided by Camarón, especially among militant gypsies, is undeniable.  He gathered together the most traditional flamenco, hybrids and even decidedly rock elements.  He put it all at the service of flamenco in ways that hadn’t been tapped.

His appeal brought together seemingly incompatible musical forms.  That it was him, and only him, is something we now see clearly when perhaps things are returning to the source and musical mixtures are evaporating all too soon.

Camarón with La Perla de Cádiz

 

THE INTANGIBLE HERITAGE…AND THE OTHER KIND

At times like these of declarations and tributes, the Camarón guarantee is vital in the process of an art-form which, with a couple of stars like him is enough to cast a shadow on any attempt at labelling or pigeon-holing.  Flamenco, and everything it has today become, inevitably passes through Camarón, especially through the good timber, the early material.

At the same time, José Monge defined a philosophy that has been embraced by as many imitators as the market has been able to bear.  The powerful yearning of flamenco-followers to remember the singer, gave and gives many artists a living, even clinging to certain defects of his.  This is obvious.  And it’s because Camarón was there first.  And human weakness tends toward nostalgia.

Perhaps that imitated distortion from what were, quite frankly, his worst years, is the greatest injustice that time and heartless mercantile interests have perpetrated against José.

It’s clearly easier to favor the mundane over the superhuman.  Easier to remember a histrionic Camarón than the superb singer who, for example, was shown in black and white, amidst his friends’ smoke in “Rito y Geografía del Cante”.  That Camarón had the key that today opens all the doors of theaters and musical studies.  A key made of a kind of metal whose rusting from life and admirers would tarnish right through until the end, but whose relevance is evident twenty years later.

 

CANTE IN HIS HANDS

We know that Camarón sang straight through until the bitter end when physically he could no longer do so.  Not a breath of cante was left in him.  The illness squeezed his throat empty, just as he had always approached his interpretations.  Nevertheless, his premature death left the second half of a genius unresolved.  The singer with the breakthrough aesthetic and superhuman abilities was already more than famous.  So, can we possibly imagine what Camarón would have had to do in flamenco in order to adapt to the second part of his life with diminished faculties?  It’s possible we’re talking about yet another revolution within the revolution we all know today.  It’s not far-fetched to imagine a Camarón reinventing himself and bringing forth new concepts to continue to maintain his place within the profession.

He would have had to do it when we know that Quincy Jones would be behind him investing whatever resources it took, and with the imminent opening ceremony of the Olympics where he’d been promised a spot.

Camarón was going to continue, and only tragedy kept him from making even bigger discoveries.  The world of flamenco, until then limited to the sale of some three-hundred thousand records, would open up for once and for all to the shape of things to come.

Unfortunately, it took the posthumous tributes and re-releases of his recordings to put things in perspective regarding an artist who died when most legendary stars are poised for the ascent.  And others would come along to cover their short-comings, fatten their wallets and keep riding the tracks left by a race car that left behind a trail of goodies for the huge and insatiable army of flamencos. 

His final work moved in the realm of lots of rhythm and choruses, surrounded by the best in the business.  No one was oblivious to the uncertainty that was Camarón, but perhaps for that reason it was the best moment to really listen to him.

Camarón died with his boots on, and with lots of flamenco still swimming around in his head.  Enrique Morente picked up the gauntlet and followed his intuition to a common ground that both managed.  Knowledge, respect, bravery and good…the best company.

Twenty years later, in addition to having a grand time, they are surely debating who is the braver of the two…

Camarón with Paco Cepero

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