It’s logical to think that a singer with a biennial festival named in his honor, a notable event featuring exhibitions, workshops, and various activities this year celebrating its fifth edition, could not be considered "forgotten." However, the name Canela de San Roque doesn’t circulate as much as it should.
You start listing the great figures who are the bricks and mortar of flamenco - singing, dancing, guitar - and it's a long list of names that evoke various memories. Say "clavito" and the sorrowful voice of Torre echoes in your mind. Say "Paco," and the internal record player opens the vast playlist linked to our genius from Algeciras. Or the image of Carmen Amaya helps us visualize that unmistakable stance of the Catalan dancer with her arms bent in a crab-like posture. But who or what does the name Alejandro Segovia Camacho, Canela de San Roque, remind us of?
I saw and heard him for the first time more than two decades ago on the television program Puro y Jondo. How had I overlooked this singer, once described by Félix Grande, poet, flamencologist, and critic, with these words: "he sings with fervor, with bravery, with the intensity of someone bullfighting for the first time, and with the mourning, the sadness, and the suffering of someone bullfighting or singing for the last time"?
«The First Art Biennial Flamenco Canela de San Roque It was in 2016. The new edition will be held from September 14 to October 19, 2024 at the Palacio de los Gobernadores and the Juan Luis Galiardo Theater. Let us contemplate for a moment the underestimated capacity of Alejandro Segovia Camacho, Canela de San Roque, born in 1947, leaving us too soon in 2015 at the age of 68"
A member of the Jarrito and Perico Montoya families from San Roque, I met him personally in his maturity one afternoon at the venerable Sociedad del Cante Grande of Algeciras. A few years earlier, at the Baluarte de la Candelaria in Cádiz, I had been struck by the moving authenticity of his pain turned into art, his communicative power, and the warm sincerity of his singing. An impressive and profound singer, with an honest and noble delivery. His soleá was expansive and majestic, with an interpretation of Paquirri el Guanté that gave you goosebumps; siguiriyas as tender as they were painful; and soleá por bulería with brilliant phrasing - not just rhythm, though that as well, but phrasing, which is often neglected despite its potential.
Canela de San Roque always laid all his cards on the table with overwhelming communicative power and a refined taste in everything he interpreted. A follower of Antonio Mairena, but with his own personality, in the best sense of the word, he knew how to tap into the depths of flamenco without theatrics. The distinctive tone of his voice and his expressiveness projected forms of singing from an earlier era without seeming outdated. My mouth fills with praiseworthy adjectives when I speak of this singer. His power, more spiritual than physical, the kind that raises goosebumps, reminds us that in this region, there’s much more than festive singing.
Life becomes more bearable when tinged with flamenco sensitivity such as that delivered by Canela’s voice of old velvet. Not because his singing was superficial or light, but because he wallowed in the pain, broke it down, chewed it up, and gave it back to us, digested and soothed.
The First Biennale of Flamenco Art “Canela de San Roque” took place in October 2016. The current edition, number five, is being held from September 14th to October 19th, 2024, at the Palace of the Governors and the Juan Luis Galiardo Theater. Let’s temporarily pause the intense pace of promotion and take a moment to reflect on the underestimated talent of Alejandro Segovia Camacho, Canela de San Roque, born in 1947, who left us too soon, in 2015 at the age of 68. We’re left with the memory of his voice through that of his son, José Canela.
