JASON ENGLUND: How did you come to flamenco?

PACO SEVILLA: I first picked up the guitar in my mid-teens. A couple of years later, in the late '60s, I went to Spain for a year. I lived on only $250 for the whole year. It was an amazing time to be in Spain. Everyone was so warm and friendly. There hadn't yet been the massive invasion of foreigners learning flamenco, so we were a novelty and the guitar was an automatic invitation into family settings and fiestas. Guitarists wanted me to teach them Sabicas material (he was just becoming known there) and gypsies wanted to know if I knew any rock music by Pink Floyd. Those were magic times. I feel sorry for people going now, although I am reminded of Ulysses S. Grant's comments when he returned from a trip to Sevilla in 1878 and complained that, since his previous visit in 1876, the city had been ruined by tourism!

              When I returned home I was a flamenco guitarist, and have continued working to this day. I have never been a star or a great virtuoso, just a hard-working and dependable guitarist. I don't much enjoy playing, or even listening to, solo guitar, but have had to do a lot of it to make a living. I have worked mostly in the USA, in major theaters in almost every state, and in Canada and Mexico. For a long time I returned to Spain every two or three years for a month or two and have worked there also.

JASON: Tell us of some of your favorite experiences while playing the guitar.

PACO: I can't think of a particularly momentous occasion at the moment, but it is always a high to work with top Spanish artists. I recall a night playing for a fiesta with José Salazar and La Cañeta in their bar in Madrid. My greatest thrill is going out on stage with high quality dancers and singers without rehearsal. That is when you feel so alive, competent, and free—carried along on a wave of rhythm. It usually comes out well. But I have noticed that, if you do a second show it is often a letdown, because you try to remember what you did the first time, instead of living in the moment. Also, I find it very hard to do that if there is a second guitarist; it takes away the spontaneity and freedom. For me, flamenco has to be one dancer, one singer, and one guitarist. As soon as you have more than one of any of these at a time, you have choreography, not creativity.

JASON: What's the best guitar you have had the pleasure of playing?

PACO: I don't think I can name a "best" model of guitar. Guitar preference is so individual that even a great maker cannot build predictably for any one person. Out of ten identical guitars, only one might be suitable for a particular person. One man's dream is another's nightmare. I like to say that, if a top builder completes a lot of five guitars, one will be great and go to a celebrity, two will be very good and go to local hotshots, or maybe someone on the waiting list who happens to be around to pick it up, two will be okay and be shipped to someone on the waiting list, and one will be a dog and will go to a music store in the USA, or will be sold to the general public in the builder's shop. So, I don't care who makes my guitar. As long as it has a low, soft action and all the strings have equal volume, and it has wooden tuning pegs—for ease of changing strings and as a novelty for the audience—I don't care much what it looks like or how loud it is (God gave us microphones to take care of that).

JASON: Jaleo was a great magazine that covered the flamenco scene with correspondents from all over the world. There were interviews, reviews, articles, and more. Someone should scan each and every page of that mag and archive it digitally. Tell us about the magazine and about being the editor. How long did it run? What are some of the best articles you can remember? Can we order back issues of Jaleo?

PACO: I am down to one complete set of Jaleo, so there are no back issues available. I get frequent requests for them and I have given permission several times for others to archive them on a web site, but I don't know if it has been done. If not, it isn't much of a loss, because Jaleo was a product of its time:1978-1990. It was inspired by an earlier effort, in the 1960s, by Morre and Estela Zatania in New York. Their FISL Newsletter was very foksy, with handset type, but had excellent articles. We started very crudely with Jaleo, cutting and pasting typewritten text, and taking photos out to be screened into dots before gluing them in under headings made from press-on letters. By the end, we were laying it out on an early Macintosh computer. Jaleo was followed by Greg Case's Journal of Flamenco Artistry (Los Angeles) and, finally, the superb and polished Flamenco International Magazine, out of London. All of those efforts were doomed to failure by one glaring fact: flamencos don't read. That was brought home to me once after I had just finished giving a guitar performance and a fan came up to me and said excitedly, "Have you heard that Paco de Lucía is coming? I can't wait. He is my God!" I replied, "If you like him so much, you might be interested in his biography that I just published." The guy's eyes glazed over as he mumbled, "Nah, I don't read much!"

              It's not really a loss that Jaleo is no longer available. Much of the content is quite dated. At least half of it dealt with local parties and performances in California. Another quarter was translations of current events in Spain. That leaves one quarter of general information that was often quite good. I am trying to collect the best of those articles as part of my next book. It's very slow going, as I am a very slow typist.

JASON: What are the difficulties in writing about flamenco?

PACO: I think being a participant in flamenco has helped me to write from an inside perspective. Too much writing by non-performers just skims over the surface. How many interviews with flamenco artists have you read where you knew no more at the end than you did before you began? So I try to write about things that would interest me, and I try to get to technically interesting things.

JASON: Why are your books important to the understanding of flamenco culture and history?

PACO: My concept for the Paco de Lucía book was to let him tell his own story, in his own words, as he has told it in interviews during his long career. As far as I know, Paco has never collaborated directly in any biography until, perhaps the most recent one published in Spanish. Other biographies have tried to give the impression that Paco collaborated by using the same quotes I did, but without giving the sources. Also, since Paco's story could not be complete without including the biography of one of the most important singers in flamenco history—Camarón de la Isla—I used the same technique to try to capture something of this almost god-like figure. The underlying theme of the book is the transition from the tradition-based flamenco of the 1960s to the experimental era of the 1980s and 90s.

              Carmen Amaya's story speaks for itself. If Camarón was a god, then Carmen was a goddess. So many important modern flamenco dancers call Carmen their idol and their most important influence, when in reality they know nothing about her and have never seen her dance. Almost as interesting as Carmen were the many dancers who influenced her, those who came before her or were her contemporaries. These were truly colorful characters who molded Spanish dance, and whose stories had in many cases not been told. So I tried to weave together all of those lives, often using material published for the first time. And I included as many anecdotes as possible, trying to present flamenco information that is generally not available to those who do not read Spanish or do not have access to obscure flamenco documents. In the broader sense the book tells the story of flamenco's theater period, the first half of the 20^th century, when Spanish and flamenco dances were molded into their modern forms. Ironically, much of that development took place outside of Spain—in France, South America, and the USA. And guitarists aren't left out in this book. I included biographies, some appearing in print for the first time, of legendary figures such as Sabicas, Ramón Montoya, Manolo de Huelva, Niño Ricardo, and Mario Escudero, among others.

JASON: Tell us about the research process for Queen of the Gypsies.

PACO: I have always written. Twelve years of publishing Jaleo magazine gave me a lot of practice in writing and also helped me to amass a great deal of research material. An amazing amount of the information found in my books came from those magazines. And I have always been very analytical. Teaching guitarists, singers, and dancers for so many years forced me to get to the essentials of technique and artistic communication. If I have any special talent, it is the ability to analyze a lot of scattered information, identify the important points, and bring it all together to form a conclusion. Research is like detective work. I think my most important contribution to Carmen Amaya's biography was the hours and hours I spent in library basements going through microfilm of major newspapers from around the country, searching for flamenco information from 1910 to 1964. All of that history of Spanish dance in America might have remained buried if someone with my passion for the hunt hadn't come along to dig it out.

JASON: Carmen Amaya is a legendary figure who is transcending time. Carmen passed away forty years ago and is still having an amazing impact on people. What do you think it is about her that fascinates each generation?

PACO: I think the legend of Carmen Amaya was a phenomenon created by the convergence of many factors. Her gypsy personality and lifestyle really captured the popular imagination. Her fame was created largely outside of Spain, where nothing like her had been seen. The outstanding feature of her dance was her intensity. That is really the impression that one came away with. It was mostly personality. One of my brothers, who had no interest in flamenco, fell in love with her from reading my book, from reading her words. Technically, she amazed people with her speed and her turns, but if you analyze her dance you see that she was pretty limited, repeating the same few moves over and over. And her footwork, although fast and powerful, was quite simple by today's standards. She is credited with being a revolutionary but, in fact, she borrowed a great deal from others, including the idea of dancing in pants. But she was proof of the fact that what matters in flamenco, above all else, is what comes from inside.

JASON: Can you share with us a yet unpublished fact or legend about Carmen or Paco?

PACO: Once I finish writing about something, it is over. Burn-out. So I haven't given much further thought to either of them. The way I write, I focus on the page I'm writing. The previous page is forgotten, the next page is a mystery. Writing for me is like reading: I'm just as interested as my future readers to find out what will happen on the next page. When a book is finished, I remember very little of its content. If you ask me a question, I have to look up the answer.

              There is an interview with Carmen that came to light after I finished my book, in which she speaks at length about her early life. But no great revelations, and lots of inconsistencies. Paco de Lucía was of greatest interest to me in the 1970s and early '80s, so I don't follow his doings much these days.

JASON: Flamenco first moved out of the streets and into the cafés. Now the art is evolving through international expansion and experimental fusions. Do you see a new chapter or age on the horizon?

PACO: I hate to join the list of mistaken flamenco critics who have predicted the demise of flamenco over the last century or so, but I just can't see a good future for flamenco. It is still hanging in there for now, and maybe by some miracle it will find a way to survive. After all, everyone thought it was a goner during the "opera" period of the 1930s and '40s, but then it snapped back with the severe traditional renaissance of the 1950s and '60s.

JASON: Do you think flamenco is becoming more popular internationally, and what are your thoughts on flamenco in today's emerging global village?

PACO: I'm not sure that flamenco is gaining in popularity around the world. It is hard to top the passion for flamenco that existed in the 1960s and '70s, when even local drugstores sold flamenco records, and hard-core cante anthologies could be purchased in music stores here. The Gipsy Kings style of flamenco and other fusions are certainly very popular. As a player of another era, I may be a bit biased, but it seems to me that flamenco is losing a lot. It is becoming homogenized like so many other aspects of culture. The loss of cultural identity around the world is symbolized for me by those ubiquitous white plastic chairs that are seen in every corner of the world—even Tibetan monasteries!

              With the guitar, if you take away traditional tonalities or keys, invent new chord progressions, create all new melodies, and disguise every rhythm under a rumba syncopation, what's left? I think it has become even more difficult to identify the different toques and audiences are left even more confused than they used to be. It all sounds the same. And we don't often hear really good falsetas anymore. It used to be that if someone came up with a really good variation everybody else copied it and made his own version. Now it's more harmony and improvisation, and not so many good ideas that make you want to learn them.

              But, on the other hand, we can't go back. Once you have experienced the tension of modern chord colors and the uplifting energy of counter-rhythm, you will be bored to death by the monotony of four basic chords and a predictable, plodding rhythm. It seems to me that there is a desirable middle ground, as exemplified by the best modern accompanists—modern playing grounded in tradition. Some good examples we have seen here in California in recent years include Antonio Jero and Paco Fernández. I think we could make the same observations about the dance and cante.

              The other problem is the gradual loss of the flamenco environment, the source of the art. Flamenco is in danger of becoming an academic art form like ballet, without the nourishment from people who live a flamenco life. If you went to Triana as recently as thirty years ago, you were immersed in flamenco; it still existed on the streets, in the bars, and in the family patios. Now Triana is all upscale shops and condos. I know the flamenco environment still exists in other places and in certain families, but it is less and less every day. Another problem is that the technical level of the art now requires dedication to hours of study. Thirty years ago almost anyone could learn to play the guitar at a professional level. It just wasn't that hard. What was hard was getting the knowledge, but the technique was not so difficult. Now, the information is everywhere—too easy to get, really—but the technique is impossible unless you dedicate your life to it. [An interesting aside: some scientists have recently studied excellence and written a book, in which they say that excellence in anything seems to be achieved only after 10, 000 hours or 10 years of intensive study.]

              Mario Maya once summed up the modern situation when he said something about how, in the old days, when you met up with a dancer in the street, you would go off to a bar to smoke, have drinks, and hopefully enjoy some spontaneous flamenco. But now, when you encounter a dancer in the street, he is eating an apple and says he has to get to the studio to work out!

JASON: Besides giving us two biographies in English, of two of the most important figures in flamenco, you also made tapes that you sell. Tell us about those.

PACO: Back in the 1980s, I made a series of 90-minute tape programs on different flamenco topics. They were intended to simulate jazz radio programs, with a little banter and music from all sorts of sources. Flamenco music was not widely available at that time, so it was a useful service. People subscribed and received a program each month. It went on for about three years. The appearance of CDs and the digital age made that sort of thing obsolete.

              Ritmos Flamencos was made at the request of some local dancers who were frustrated because their dance teachers weren't really explaining the rhythms and how to do palmas for them. So I put together this little tape with explanations of the basic styles and samples of music to practice to. It caught on and has been selling for years. It was primarily aimed at lower level students, but many intermediate dancers have found it useful. Then I realized that it could also be helpful to guitarists, so I included a sheet with cejilla placements and chords for the music samples. It also turned out to be of use to non-performing aficionados who want to enhance their enjoyment of flamenco. A few years ago I put it onto CD with some enhancements and it has continued to be popular.

JASON: What's next?

PACO: I have two books in progress, whose futures are uncertain due to time and money. One is a historical novel based on the life of the great singer Antonio Chacón. The other is a kind of "flamenco reader," a collection of all sorts of flamencobilia. It will be part encyclopedia, part collection of best articles form past publications, part how-to-do-it manual, part controversial opinions and quotes, and some things just for fun. Let me leave you with an example of the latter. It will either make you think, make you laugh, or make you angry:

The Five "E"s of Excellence in Flamenco Dance

Here is how I judge a flamenco dancer. I ask myself, is this dance:

1)    Entertaining: creative, original, surprising, holding my attention?

2)    Exciting: energetic, dynamic, rhythmic, keeping me on the edge of my seat?

3)    Emotional: intense, exploring a variety of emotions, drawing me in?

4)    Erotic: the man is masculine, the woman feminine; movements and dress are sensuous?

5)    Ethnic: costume and movements are essentially true to Spanish or Gypsy tradition?

I assign a score of 1-10 for each category and add them all together. Over 40 is a good score. You would be surprised by how many well-known dancers do poorly on this test. Examples of those who have performed in California in recent years and done very well are Juana Amaya and Andrés Peña.

JASON: In your mind, what makes flamenco "flamenco"?