-Grandpa, today I’ll ask you to talk about a really thorny subject. You do it always, but we’ll have to thread carefully with this one, because our job at ExpoFlamenco is at stake.

-So what do you want to talk about?

-I want to talk about creators and copyists or parasites. Is that OK?

-You’re always getting me into trouble, Manolito. Fine, then, let’s see what comes out of this topic.

-First, what is a creator in cante, and what is a copyist, imitator or parasite? Straight talk, grandpa. Don’t sweeten it with ojana.

-A creator in music, and that includes cante, is a composer. Composers invent music working with the sounds in an imaginative way with the goal of creating their own music, they are able to talk using sounds.

-OK, but besides what you read in the Wikipedia, what’s your opinion? 

-I think that there are not as many creators in cante as people think, considering there are so many credits: seguiriyas del Planeta, El Fillo or Curro Dulce; malagueñas de Chacón and La Trini; fandangos de Cayetano el de Cabra; tarantas del Tonto de Linares… One thing is to compose and quite another is to recreate something that’s already done, an existing pattern. Let me give you an example, Manolito, so you can learn something, because you seem distracted. Was Chacón a composer? He was a cantaor with a great talent, which allowed him to create, recreate and improve his own cantes and whatever he heard in Jerez when he was a child, or in Seville in his early years as a cantaor. There is an interview of Chacón by Galerín where the journalist points out he wasn’t too impressed with one of Chacón’s malagueñas. The master answered: “Yes, but I wrote its lyrics and melody”. Galerín didn’t object to it and said nothing, and he was the most renowned journalist in those years, the 1920s. So we have to ask ourselves, were Chacón’s malagueñas really created by him, or were they re-created from existing compositions?

-What do you think?

-I think that Chacón did what everyone did in those days, and also do now: get inspiration from what they listen to. Yet, since he was so talented and was an amazing natural musician, he improved on everything he sang with his prodigious voice: the malagueña del Canario (“Viva Madrid”), the seguiriya de Frasco el Colorao (“Están tocando a misa”), the granaína de Loriguillo de Coín (“Engarzá en oro y marfil”), which was originally a cante abandolao from Málaga’s hills, or the tientos del Mellizo, one of the first references of this genius from Jerez.

-Yet, he created the caracoles, right?

-No, he made a wonderful version which became the standard model that was the base for everything that followed. In fact, Chacón’s caracoles were originally a cantiña de Tío José el Granaíno (that is, a cantiña that Tío José El Granaíno used to sing) which was later performed in Madrid by Francisco Ortega Díaz El Cuco(one of the brothers of Enrique Ortega El Gordo, from Cádiz). He was a bullfighter’s assistant, lyricist and cantaor. Chacón later sang that cantiña when he was no longer in top shape, coming up with an amazing flamenco version. That is, he improved on something that already existed, as he improved almost everything, because he was a genius.

-Grandpa, why did Fernando el de Triana considered Tomás Pavón a “copyist”, if we was another genius? 

-People have only recently been referring to Tomás Pavón as “genius”. In his days, he was just one great cantaor admired by Chacón and Manuel Torres, by his sister and by his brother-in-law El Pinto, and later by Mairena and Caracol. He was also admired by rich aficionados who often hired him. Tomás’ case is like that of Mojama, who was only referred to as a “genius” after he died.

-Yet, Tomás was a creator, right…? There’s his debla “El Reniego”… 

-I don’t mind when a cantaor is referred to as “copyist”, because even as this term is seldom used and has a negative connotation, a copyist is someone who faithfully follows the music sheet, at least in classical music. That was what Tomás did, achieving unsurpassed quality singing the cantes of Enrique el Mellizo, La Sarneta or Manuel Cagancho.

-Since you menitioned Cagancho, grandpa, was his amazing seguiriya de Triana influenced by El Reniego?

-Apparently, the music from that seguiriya was originally by Frasco el Colorao and was later refined by Curro Dulce, Antonio Cagancho, Chacón and Manuel Torres. Tomás did his own version, because he lived in Triana when he was a kid and may have listened to Manuel Cagancho, who died when Tomás was 20 years old and was already performing as cantaor. Yet, this seguiriya was first recorded by Manuel Vallejo, another genius from Seville.

-What about that debla? 

-There is no proof that this toná was created by Tomás. His father, El Paíti, was a cantaor and was outstanding singing a palo seco, that is, tonás. He was a blacksmith in the Léridas’ forge in Triana, where he was renowned as a crusher, because of his great strength. Tomás brother, Arturo, was the one with the widest repertoire of these cantes, in his days. Marchena once said that one day he listened to Arturo sing martinetes in Madrid, in a mano a mano with Chacón, and in two hours he never repeated any lyrics. Thus, Tomás would have been familiar with those cantes, and the debla was a cante from Triana which had been around for many years, until Tomás recorded it, turning it into a jewel with his own style of linking the verses.

-Summarizing, grandpa, because the rice is almost done, was Tomás a creator or a brilliant performer?

-He was a brilliant, traditional performer who had so much talent that he applied the last layer of varnish to many cantes. In my opinion, he was as much a genius as someone who creates a new version of soleá or ten new fandangos, like Valderrama did, although I don’t mean to compare them.

-There’s so much to talk about this, grandpa.

-Indeed.

Translated by P. Young