Camarón de la Isla (pronounced ''Kammarone'' della-Iz-La''

Artist:

Camarón de la Isla José Monje Cruz. San Fernando (Cádiz), 1950 - Badalona (Barcelona), 1992. Singer. A truly emblematic figure in the flamenco art of our time, a living legend of cante. There had never been such massive manifestations in jondo matters as those caused by this unique character; neither Pepe Marchena, nor El Cabrero, to give two very notorious examples. He was, more than an artistic fact - which he was and very great -, a tremendously wide reaching social phenomenon. Indeed, thousands of people would crowd out any large auditorium where Camarón performed; they would go to hear him, to see him and nobody else, as they would not go back to a flamenco show until the name of their myth was on the program. He lived cante from his birth, as everything related to flamenco was familiar in his house. "Because cante is ours, cante belongs to the Gypsies", he used to say. "Everyone in my house has sung and danced, although they were not performers. My father, my mother, my brothers. My father was a blacksmith, but he sung siguiriyas and soleá very well... Macandé, Vallejo, Caracol, came to hear him. When a flamenco family came to my village, they stopped at my house. I used to wake up and they were probably there singing, and I listened and took note of things. The ones I really learned from were the old folks". When he started to become important and had evidently reached maturity, he began to introduce certain innovations in style in his performances, breaking the molds of tradition in a certain way; this was questioned, of course. But he was convinced that that might attract the youth and thus some would become involved in flamenco jondo. On one occasion he said to the author, "Flamenco has been made, but one may continue to create on top of what is made without deceit, without mystifying. Why do we all have to do the soleá exactly the same, as if we were a record? If I can add something of my own, improve it, without detracting from what it is to sing the soleá, why should I not do so? Camarón believed in the duendes of cante, although he could not explain them very well: "I believe that duende may arise in all trades, although perhaps more in ours, in that of the Gypsies. However, it cannot be explained. I, suddenly, do things in cante that I had never done, and which I will never do again, because I would not know how to repeat them. That may be". He performed in films. On his death, the singer Enrique Morente, terribly affected as were all the people of flamenco, declared to the author: "Neither before or now was there an echo like his. Where he placed his voice, there was gold. His ability to transmit was astonishing. He was a new sound in cante. He had a seal that will remain for eternity. Camarón has influenced all the singers of this time. He may possibly have influenced me as well, in some way, and I do not know how. Good things are always being received from artists like him, and although I have my personality, it is inevitable that José’s cante moved me, touched me. We were like brothers. We spent unforgettable times together. He hardly spoke to those he did not know well, although with the people he loved, he was amusing and had genial outbursts. He always appeared at my house with a smile on his face".