{"id":612,"date":"2024-02-18T08:13:48","date_gmt":"2024-02-18T07:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/expoflamenco.com\/revistanew\/grandpa-and-la-alameda-de-hercules\/"},"modified":"2024-02-18T08:13:48","modified_gmt":"2024-02-18T07:13:48","slug":"grandpa-and-la-alameda-de-hercules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/expoflamenco.com\/revista\/grandpa-and-la-alameda-de-hercules\/","title":{"rendered":"Grandpa and La Alameda de H\u00e9rcules","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

-Grandpa, who decides whether a flamenco artist is honored or not? For example, who decided not to have anything in memory of Silverio in Seville, but to have a statue of Antonio Mairena instead? I\u2019m not saying Mairena didn\u2019t deserve it, but why isn\u2019t there any statue of Silverio, who should have a memorial in every city of Andalusia? <\/strong><\/p>\n

-I can explain this easily. At the time of Silverio, in the 1800s, flamenco artists weren\u2019t much valued by society as they are now. Silverio was the greatest of his generation, and he was also an important entrepreneur. He was loved and respected in Seville not only by the aficionados, but also by fellow artists, Gypsy or not. Yet, when Silverio died in 1889, the caf\u00e9s cantantes<\/em> were discredited in Seville, including his own. Indeed, his caf\u00e9 had already closed down when he died in 1889. So he fell into oblivion. In those days, no one put monuments in honor of flamenco artists, or named streets after them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-Yet, grandpa, eventually the time came when artists started being honored, but no one in Seville lifted a finger to acknowledge Silverio as one of the pioneers of flamenco like he was. Why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

-Because that\u2019s how things are in Seville. Silverio should have a statue at the plaza of La Alfalfa, where he was born, but the reality is that no one has taken the initiative, and monuments happen when the aficionados lobby the authorities until they get the green light. Antonio Mairena has a statue in Seville because his admirers, the mairenistas<\/em>, made it happen. The same goes for Ni\u00f1a de los Peines and Caracol. No one has done anything to erect a memorial honoring Manuel Vallejo, who was perhaps the most important cantaor of Seville and was awarded the first Golden Key of Cante of the 20th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-Someone once suggested filling La Alameda(1) with statues of flamenco artists, but that never got started and it\u2019s now all forgotten.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/strong>-Lorca once dreamed with having a statue of Manuel Torres in La Alameda, featuring real hair. Manuel had a very handsome black hair, beloved by half of Seville.  He was La Alameda de H\u00e9rcules\u2019 king of cante. Yet, one day he was performing in a party and he couldn\u2019t finish a seguiriya he was singing, because he was dying of tuberculosis. Tom\u00e1s Pav\u00f3n was in that gathering, and the genius of Jerez told him \u201cTomasito, finish it up, because I can\u2019t\u201d. That\u2019s how, that day, Tom\u00e1s became La Alameda\u2019s new king of cante. Juan Lafita, the painter from Seville, was there that night, and he wrote about that scene, which in his opinion was the moment when Torres passed cante\u2019s<\/em> baraka<\/em> to Tom\u00e1s.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-So, grandpa, about filling La Alameda with statues, I guess isn\u2019t happening? <\/strong><\/p>\n

-That would be a barbarity, besides being unfeasible. There would have to be so many statues, for so many artists. Yet, they could make one single monument honoring all the artists who were born or worked in that corner of Seville. Did you know that Silverio also lived at La Alameda? Not just in the neighborhood, but in the actual La Alameda de H\u00e9rcules street. In 1870, this genius was living in that street because he was already managing a caf\u00e9 cantante close by, and he used to live near his caf\u00e9s, I supposed because he wanted to keep an eye on them. Then he moved to Potro street, which was also in La Alameda district, where many years later Pastora Pav\u00f3n and Manuel Escacena lived as a couple.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-How important was La Alameda de H\u00e9rcules for flamenco?<\/strong><\/p>\n

-Look, Manolito. Nowhere in the world there has been such a concentration of flamenco artists as at La Alameda de H\u00e9rcules from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s. Nowhere. There were whole tenements (\u201ccasas de vecinos<\/em>\u201d) where only flamenco artists lived, such as the number 8. Every flamenco artist, from the very origins of this art, has lived or visited this place. The quality of singing at La Alameda was unlike anywhere else in the world. It was the best school of cante in history, and also of baile and guitar, of course. Yet, is there any memorial about any of this? Nothing. Well, two badly located statues, those of Pastora and Caracol, besides the statue of the bullfighter Chicuelo.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-What would you do, grandpa?<\/strong><\/p>\n

-I would put up a monument, just one, honoring that place and those who made it great and flamenco<\/em>. I would also create a flamenco archive center. Say, in the house where Silverio lived, which is still standing. If Seville wasn\u2019t shameless, which it is, this would have been done many years ago. Yet, although Seville is one of the main cradles of flamenco, it shows very little interest about the history of this art. Odd, isn\u2019t it? But that\u2019s just how it is.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-\u00bfWhich artists, among the oldest ones, performed at La Alameda?<\/strong><\/p>\n

– Miracielos and El Raspao, Ram\u00f3n Sartorio and Jos\u00e9 Lorente performed there in the mid 1800s. Mar\u00eda la Andonda gave birth to her first son at La Alameda in 1864, when she lived with El Fillo hijo. In those days Maestro P\u00e9rez was already the most important guitarist of La Alameda. The Parrala sisters, from Huelva, came later and, from the 1870s on, the place was teeming with artists who had come from all over Andalusia and beyond: La Carbonera, La Juanaca, Paco la Luz, Frijones, La Chata de Madrid, El Canario, El Perote, Enrique Ortega, La Mejorana, Josefa la Charr\u00faa, La Macarrona, La Malena, Chac\u00f3n, Manuel Torres, El Gloria, Currito el de la Jeroma, los Triano de \u00c9cija, AntonioMoreno, La Moreno de Jerez\u2026 It\u2019s an endless list.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-You\u2019re a complete encyclopedia grandpa.<\/strong><\/p>\n

-That just goes to show how old I am, Manolito.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nowhere in the world there has been such a concentration of flamenco artists as at La Alameda de H\u00e9rcules from the mid 1800s to the mid 1900s.<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"author":7,"featured_media":613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"pmpro_default_level":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_bookmark_settings":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_review":[],"enable_review":"","type":"","name":"","summary":"","brand":"","sku":"","good":[],"bad":[],"score_override":"","override_value":"","rating":[],"price":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[227],"tags":[195],"class_list":["post-612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bordonazo","tag-flamenco","pmpro-has-access"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"link","format":"url"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/expoflamenco.com\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/expoflamenco.com\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/expoflamenco.com\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expoflamenco.com\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expoflamenco.com\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/expoflamenco.com\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expoflamenco.com\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/expoflamenco.com\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expoflamenco.com\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/expoflamenco.com\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}