Augustin Castellon Campos You know (Pamplona, 1912 – New York, USA, 1990) was, until the emergence of Paco de Lucía, the guitarist flamenco of greater international projection thanks to the indisputable quality of his playing and, it is worth remembering, to being based in the United States, where the recording industry has always been very powerful. Thus, the catalogue of records recorded by the Navarrese maestro is difficult to cover. It is analysed exhaustively Jose Manuel Gamboa in the essential The correspondence of Sabicas, our uncle in America. His work touch by touch (The Flamenco Live, Madrid, 2013).
The first –as far as I know– who wrote a broad profile of the guitarist was Ferdinand of Triana, in his famous book Art and artists flamencos (Imprenta Helénica, Madrid, 1935). It is worth reading the whole thing, because much of what has been said later about the first years of the brilliant guitarist comes from that text (with information that Sabicas himself must have provided to Fernando de Triana). It says:
"East infant prodigy, which is what I think they must have called him from his first artistic manifestations, is a unique case in the extremely difficult art of the guitar. At the age of five years He conceived the idea of painful learning, being even rarer that this happened in Pamplona, his hometown, where unfortunately for Sabicas There was no teacher flamenco that he could teach him the first few bars of this touch, which was the one he liked the most, from what he heard on the singing machines.
In front of the house where Sabicas lived, there lived a man who spent hours and hours playing the guitar, although he always played the same thing. And as many hours as that man spent playing, Sabicas spent just as many listening, to the point that the boy knew by heart everything that his neighbor played with more or less ease. "If I had a guitar, I would play all that and more!" he said. One day he was going with his parents to spend the afternoon in a downtown café, and as he passed in front of a music store, among other instruments that were in the window the boy saw a small guitar, but with six courses, like the big ones. It was priced at 17 pesetas.He asked his parents to buy him the small instrument, and as they thought the price was too high for a toy, they tried to get him to give up on his claim, and little Sabicas went so far as to say that he would not leave that place until they bought him the guitar, promising at the same time that it was not for playing but for learning many things that he knew by heart. His parents consulted and what had to happen happened. Who's upsetting him! Let's go buy it for him! They went to the shop and bought the tiny instrument, which for the aspiring guitarist represented a world of dreams.
When he found himself in possession of the guitar he had been longing for, he lost all desire to go to the café and asked his mother for the key to the house, which he would ensure no one entered. Once he had obtained his wish, he left alone, while his parents continued on to the café, where they spent the afternoon. They were surprised to see, on their return, that Sabicas was playing some sounds on the guitar that were related to a popular song: the "Spanish Flag"! He taught himself to tune the guitar, and in view of his excessive enthusiasm His parents bought him a gramophone, which he made march very slowly, and so he began to copy everything he heard. When Sabicas was seven years, on the occasion of the swearing-in of the flag in Pamplona, a brilliant party was organized by the military, in which the party took part a captain who, they said, sang very well flamencoBut he was faced with the difficulty that there was no one in all of Pamplona to accompany him on the guitar.
Someone said that There was a boy, the son of a friend, who played very well., and a committee went there to ask his father for permission for little Sabicas to take part in the festival as a guitarist. They succeeded, not without great effort, because his parents believed that the boy would be frightened by the public and would not play a single note that would fit in the canteBut it was quite the opposite, because since the captain sang what he had learned on the gramophone and Sabicas knew it by heart, the number turned out very well, and Sabicas, after receiving a nice gift, was congratulated by all the attendees, who were delighted.
This brilliant performance assured the parents of the tiny guitarist that he was on the right path to becoming an artist, and they provided him with all the means within their reach, until they finally achieved what they did, because At the age of ten, when he was still wearing shorts, he performed in none other than Madrid, at the El Dorado theatre, as a concert artist, achieving resounding success.. We all know the brilliant course of his artistic career until today, which counts twenty two years old and occupies a very high position among top-class guitarists."
It is worth pausing to consider what is highlighted in bold. It seems clear that little Agustín was a child prodigy. It is also clear that his parents could afford to buy, without breaking the bank, a guitar for 17 pesetas. We are around 1917, when the average annual salary of a worker ranged between 780 and 1680 pesetas. If we assume that the figure is around 1280 pesetas per year, that gives us around 3,5 pesetas per day, which means that The price of the guitar would be equivalent to the full salary of about 5 days of workThey also bought a gramophone, a new device that was affordable for very few people. At the time it cost about 60 pesetas, which would be the entire salary for a little more than half a month. This indicates that Sabicas' family had some financial freedom. What's more, they could afford to have a maid, as can be seen from the interview he gave in 1986 to Angel Alvarez Knight:
«When I was little, in Madrid, my mother would send the maid out to do the shopping and, when she came back, I would put my hand in the basket, take out the beans and eat them, shell and all. Then, my mother would look at me and say: «“But, my son, you are only eating beans. I am going to give you beans and beans and beans, beans. And from the beans, the-s-beans, I got Sabicas.»
What did Sabicas' parents do for work? From what Fernando el de Triana wrote, it could be inferred that the father was a soldier when the anecdote about his son Agustín occurred, around 1919, since among the military people speak of the "son of a comrade." I can't find any news on the subject, so it's most likely that it was a mistake by Fernando el de Triana, or maybe he changed his profession, something that I see as less likely. Sabicas' father was called Augustin Castellon Gabarri and was born in Zaragoza in 1884. Therefore, when the anecdote occurs he was already 35 years old, which rules out the possibility that the hypothetical connection with the army was due to the fact that he was performing military service.
Sabicas's mother was Rafaela Campos Bermudez and was born in Madrid in 1886. In the biographical data that is scattered about Sabicas it is said that his parents were dedicated to street vending.
In the biography of Fernando el de Triana it is insisted that Sabicas was self-taught and that he learned from the gramophone that was bought for him. But was he completely self-taught? The question is pertinent because there can be degrees of this. For example, a case of a child prodigy of the flamenco guitar that is much better documented, because it is more recent, is that of Paco de LucíaIn the family of the Algeciras native, his father played the guitar, Antonio Sanchez Pecino, And his brother Ramon, almost ten years older than Paco. What happened is well known to everyone: Paquito left all the members of the family with their mouths open when he remade what they taught him. Self-taught? No and yes. We must not lose sight of the fact that the environment flamenco that existed in Algeciras in the 50s cannot be compared with the practically non-existent one in Pamplona in the second decade of the XNUMXth century, which undoubtedly increases Sabicas' merit.
In the interviews he gave throughout his life, Sabicas insisted that he had no teachers. For example, in the book Queen of the Gypsies. The Life and Legend of Carmen Amaya (Sevilla Press, San Diego, California, USA, 1999), written and edited by Paco Seville, these words are collected from the guitarist (I transcribe the translation that appears on the page Flamenco World «Sabicas, Ramón Montoya, The Boy from Huelva.»):
«I have never had any teachers in my life. Proof of this is that I have a brother to whom I have never been able to play a single variation. I don't know how to teach, that's why I don't give lessons, because nobody ever taught me. I don't know where to start. I don't know music.»
But a year before Sabicas died, he gave an interview to Mona Morlasky. It was published in English in the magazine Guitar Review a few months after the teacher died. Augustin Castellon says (I take the translation from DeFlamenco):
«My father played the guitar, but only a little. My uncle sang the falsetas or musical variations, and I copied them on my guitar. Nobody ever taught me anything.»
Taking all of the above into account, some comments and questions are in order:
1ª) We don't know anything about this guy from Sabicas. Were the falsetas he sang the same ones Sabicas' father played on the guitar? Returning to the military environment in which the first performance of the boy Agustín takes place, could it be that this "son of a comrade" of the captain was, in fact, a "nephew of a comrade"? In that case, it cannot be ruled out that Sabicas' uncle was a military musician, as was, for example, Tomatito's father. So many assumptions and no proof.
2nd) From what can be deduced from what Sabicas said, it seems that When he was a child his father already played the guitar. It is quite likely that there was already one at home. If so, little Agustín's guitar was not the only one they had.
3ª) Did Sabicas exaggerate? Perhaps Fernando from Triana? It's hard to know, but perhaps he took on the status of being "absolutely self-taught" (that is, without anyone teaching him even the slightest thing) in order to cause greater astonishment, which is what a 22-year-old needs to make his way in the turbulent world of art.
4th) Would we be facing a case similar to that of Paco de Lucía? I suspect that Don Agustín's guitar playing level must have been below the knowledge of Don Antonio Sánchez and, obviously, that of Ramón de Algeciras, a great professional guitarist. Furthermore, we insist: Algeciras is not Pamplona. Even so, Agustín Castellón Gabarri had enough skill to state years later that his profession was that of "artist".
In the documentation referring to migratory movements that are collected in the Spanish Archives Portal (PAIRS) we found this card of Sabicas's father.
The photographs are included by Gamboa in the book mentioned above (page 15), as well as the place of birth (Zaragoza). This card was issued on December 26, 1939 at the Mexican consulate in Havana. It is said that he is 55 years old, hence the date of 1884 as the year of birth that Gamboa gives and that appears in the immigration form that we find on the website.
It is also detailed that his profession is "artist". It is curious that As a race it is said to be "white", when Sabicas' father was a very dark-skinned gypsy. The things!
When he arrived in Mexico from Havana, he did so via Veracruz, on December 28, 1939. The new document issued upon arrival in Mexico is dated January 31, 1940, and two more photographs were taken. It states that he is «theatre artist». Francisco Hidalgo Gomez in his book Carmen amaya (Ediciones PM, Barcelona, 2013, pp. 113-114) already points out the status of Agustín Castellón Sr. as an artist when he writes about the dancer:
«Her siblings Paco, María, Antonia and Leonor, along with Sabicas, her boyfriend at the time, Antonio Triana, Jesús Perosanz, Pelao el Viejo, Lola Montes, Diego Castellón and her father completed the company that would present a 12-act grand show at Carnegie Hall on January 1942, 15, produced by Hurok Attractions, Inc.».
We know, therefore, that Sabicas' father performed on one of the most emblematic stages in the world just at the time when Carmen Amaya began "her definitive consecration as one of the world's leading figures of dance" (Hidalgo Gómez, on. cit. pp. 113-114).
* To be continued.
