Antonio Chac\u00f3n Garc\u00eda was 17 years old when he first arrived in Seville, and when he was 18 he already appears in the city\u2019s civil registry as living on La Alameda de H\u00e9rcules, where almost all flamenco stars of that time also lived. We don\u2019t know for sure if the family settled in Seville, one of the cradles of\u00a0cante<\/i>, due to musical pursuits, or if it was just because they wanted to avoid Jerez\u2019s neighborhood gossip, as Chac\u00f3n was the son of two married people who were living a secret love story. What we know for sure is that the new star of\u00a0cante<\/i>\u00a0of that period, the mid 1880s, already lived in the capital of Andalusia when the old town was teeming with flamenco artists, either locals or arrived from other cities such as M\u00e1laga, C\u00e1diz, Jerez, El Puerto, San Fernando, Huelva and C\u00f3rdoba.<\/p>\n
There were caf\u00e9s such as the one of Silverio and El Burrero, the most important ones, besides the Filarm\u00f3nico and Sal\u00f3n Novedades, opened at the end of the century, which witnessed the closing of the other venues and was renowned the world over, besides being the launching pad for those who would be the flamenco stars of the following century. Half of the history of\u00a0cante<\/i>\u00a0in Seville would be written in this celebrated caf\u00e9 in La Campana district, which stayed open for a quarter of a century, from 1898 until 1923.<\/p>\n
Chac\u00f3n\u2019s style was that of Jerez and C\u00e1diz, but the influence of Seville was essential, particularly that of Silverio Franconetti, one of his mentors. It\u2019s important to have in mind the story that Pepe el de la Matrona wrote in his memoirs, when Chac\u00f3n was in a party and sang a\u00a0seguiriya de Silverio<\/i>, amazing everyone. Pepe, who at the time was a young and very curious flamenco aficionado, asked Chac\u00f3n if Silverio really sang that\u00a0cante<\/i>\u00a0the way he did. Chac\u00f3n answered: \u201cMuch better than me, Pepe\u201d. We can only imagine how well would Silverio sing, when no other than Chac\u00f3n said such thing.<\/p>\n
We can measure the importance of Don Antonio, as people called them in that town to differentiate him from the others, by the fact that ninety years after his death, which happened on January 21, 1929, we\u2019re still talking and writing about him. Already in his days, when he was alive and very much active, a lot was written about him in all newspapers of Spain and beyond. Yet, after his death he started to fall into oblivion, something which often happens with flamenco\u2019s big stars. When I started to become interested about\u00a0cante<\/i>, Chac\u00f3n was almost unknown among the young people. It was thanks to Enrique Morente and Jos\u00e9 Blas Vega, each in their own way, that Chac\u00f3n\u2019s works became known once again among artists and average flamenco aficionados alike.<\/p>\n
We will always be indebted to this genius, to his contributions, and to all he did to make the art of\u00a0cante jondo<\/i>\u00a0become highly regarded in society, something very hard to achieve in those days. Today is the 90th anniversary of his death and, thankfully, his school is more alive than ever.<\/p>\n
Translated by P. Young<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We will always be indebted to this genius, to his contributions, and to all he did to make the art of\u00a0cante jondo\u00a0become highly regarded in society, something very hard to achieve in those days. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":7580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-archivo"],"yoast_head":"\n