On Thursday October 2nd the record “Territorio Flamenco” was presented at the forum of Madrid’s FNAC. A new musical adventure for the ten flamenco artists who took part daring to interpret rock, pop, ballads, Argentine tango and folk forms.
Under the guidance of producer Isidro Muñoz, Rancapino sings “Bésame
Mucho”, Carmen Linares “Se equivocó la Paloma”, José Mercé
takes off with Pablo Milanés, Miguel Poveda and Estrella Morente do their
version of an Argentine tango, Diego Carrasco gives his flamenco sound
to “Hello Dolly”, Remedios Amaya interprets “Maldigo tus Ojos
Verdes” and Susi and Ángeles, daughter of guitarist Tomatito, sing
Sting's songs. Three of these artists, Arcángel, Susi and Diego Carrasco
were in charge of showing off the fruit of this labor, offering this promotional
presentation, and they talked about the recording.
Arcángel with Juan Carlos Romero
“What I wanted was to get the flamenconess out of the song that I
knew was there” says singer Arcángel who knew he wanted to interpret
“La Bien Pagá” as soon as the project was proposed to him. “It's a
song I've always known. I remember when a bunch of us used to get together
in Huelva and we'd hang out, around midnight we'd sing that song. I've
always liked it a lot”.
Isidro
Muñoz had no doubts about Susi singing Sting, and when she heard “Roxanne”
the singer saw it clearly: “I said, this is for me, this is the one
I want to sing, I knew it was right for my voice, and there it is”.
For Susi it was an important challenge “because Sting is a genius and
I have a lot of respect for him, it's a good song, so I said to myself,
I'm a flamenca and I'm going to do it the way I feel”. Sting claims
to be a flamenco fan, and Susi would like him to hear her version.
“I think he'd like it since he's a musician and he can't help but like
it, because flamenco is music and he'll say 'hey, what's this?'. He might
like a lot, or not so much, but it's in a flamenco singer's voice and
he ought to be impressed. I actually wish they'd send it to him.”
La Susi
For Diego Carrasco it was a great pleasure to make this record and offer
his version of “Hello Dolly”. The man from Jerez says it's important
to always go one step further. “Somehow I was learning something new
every day, and I think this is the best thing we can do. When they come
around with something like this, you realize you start discovering Louis
Armstrong, someone I'd never dared to appreciate before. There are many
versions of “Hello Dolly”, but this one of Louis Armstrong comes from
a maestro I dared to imitate a little. Whenever I saw an opportunity I
added my own touch, not too much or too little, and I think this taught
me a lot of things I didn't know before”.
All the singers are convinced that what they've done is 'flamenco'.
“All I ask is that when people hear this kind of record, they don't just
take it at face value, but rather delve into it a little, and discover
what we flamencos were trying to show, which is that we like other kinds
of music” says Arcángel.
¿Do you think this kind of record brings people into the flamenco fold? “I'm sure that lots of people who never heard flamenco and then hear
this record, in a couple of years they'll be flamenco consumers” says
Arcángel, and Susi seems to be right with him: “kids who are fifteen,
sixteen, their parents told them about Susi, but they never heard me.
If they hear me singing reggae they say “hey, this is cool!”, so we
bring the young people in, and I think this recording will have that effect,
because in any case it's the young people who buy records”.
Arcángel and Susi sang their respective songs for those of us who had
come to the FNAC, and indeed it sounded very flamenco. Diego Carrasco
chose to do one of his little bulería dances and for the finale, he brought
up Raimundo Amador who had come to back up his pals. Raimundo started
out with bulerías and Susi followed. They all demonstrated just what their
territory is: art.
