When I returned to Madrid, from Vienna and Cuba, a total of ten years away from Spain, I was totally disconnected from my country, except for my family and the Galician paradise where I now live. But, in truth, there was nothing that connected me to Spanish music. My friends from the seventies, in their lives. My friends, a quarter of the same. Only my first job, director of Deutsche Grammophone at the record label Universal (then PolyGram), allowed me to have contact with the world of so-called classical music, a somewhat nerdy and conceited elite that had nothing to do with my, let's say, proletarian relationship with the musical life of the Austrian capital. I was already very inclined to flamenco and I was preparing to study it from the perspective of musicology, which was then not in its infancy, but in its incubation. I never missed a concert in the Johnny (CM Saint John the Evangelist) or in Patas House, whose manager, Rufo, I was a countryman and I used to sneak in every day to listen to Chano, Sore muscles, Paco Valdepeñas. Antonio Benamargo I was the programmer and the fun was immense. In those environments I always saw a couple who, in my opinion, were the ones who stood out: the bachelor Gamboa and the gentleman Juan VerdúAnd I wanted to get closer to them.
At first it wasn't easy; they were quite inaccessible, and a Galician musicologist recently arrived from Vienna must have seemed to them nothing less than an opportunistic intruder. But heaven would have it that I met Dying, as I have already reported in this forum, and enter the Candle with the brilliant Granadan things were made easier. Little by little the always missed Miguel He let me go down to the cave and enjoy the festivities that were taking place there. An unforgettable pleasure. There I heard Camarón, Gerardo Nunez, Enrique y Pepe Habichuela, to the Ketama, there I met the great Joaquin Grilo. Paco, who recognized me from our encounters in Vienna Manchega WineryLittle by little I was getting into that nightlife, until, given my insistence on joining the group, one day Gamboa invited me to La Rosa, a bar in Plaza del Dos de Mayo, and I never left their side. It was the Malasaña National OrchestraThe captain was Gamboa, his wife Marise, Juan Verdú, Carlos Herrero, Nicolás Dueñas, Cristóbal Montes, Salva Del Real, Juanmi Cobos, Pedro Calvo, and of course Isabel and our remembered Vicente, Enrique and Pepe, and the children: Star, Pitingo, ArchangelThe group moved around where Vicente worked, and one day we ended up in The magician, a bar on Velarde Street, in Malasaña.
"For example, when I compared the minimal services during the general strike with the size of the Mago's restroom, which barely fit one person, or the lyrics I wrote dedicated to the tar spill they told me was chanted at the PCE celebrations. We had a great time. It was a ritual, and I never missed a Wednesday."
We were at El Mago for several years, and I learned to leave the French way. At first, before leaving, I would say goodbye one by one to those present, until I realized that people were leaving without saying anything. And Fulanito? He left. A lesson I've cultivated since those long nights at Los Magos, as they began to call us. When Morente arrived, he would always see me and say: "Don't leave!" How could I leave, Enrique? I thought. Listening to the maestro with Gamboa's guitar, or Pepe's if he was there, was a ritual. The only thing, Enrique, was that almost everyone wouldn't start singing until he left, and you could have had the best of the day. Now, the recitals he gave us will stay with me forever.
I was already a regular at the Cadiz carnival, and I knew all the couplets of the Selu, Yuyu y Juan Carlos AragonAnd in those evenings, there was always a moment for me. I'd pick up the guitar and they'd burst out laughing with their Cádiz wit. But I started writing my couplets and pasodobles dedicated to the staff, and that habit lasted for a few years as well. Every Wednesday, which was the day we met, I'd bring a couple of sheets, written before leaving (I have a certain talent for rhyming) and sing, reading, those current occurrences. For example, when I compared the minimal restrooms of the general strike with the size of the Mago's restrooms, which barely fit one person, or the lyrics I wrote dedicated to the oil spill that I was told was sung at the PCE celebrations. We had a great time. It was a ritual, and I never missed a Wednesday. There I learned a lot about how to accompany the guitar. cante, with the trial and error method that Gamboa imposed on me.
One day we went to the studio Musigram to record the first of the two albums of the Malasaña National Orchestra, with the repertoire we performed there: Sitting Bull's Blues, Fandangos of Isabel of the Reyes Brothers, The Donkey by Marisé. In the second disc We already did two issues for the centenary of Atleti de Madrid (The Magicians were from Atleti, I was from Celta, but we had to hide it). Based on the Corraleras de Lebrija of Isidro Munoz For Saura's film, I wrote The Sevillanas Colchoneras, and we recorded them, although, due to the difficulty of performing, I had to provide the voice and the choir (which was joined by John Louis Cano y Salome Pavon) that made the uyyyyyy, and other rackets. We also recorded the colchonero tanguillos de Nicolas Dueñas, our beloved Nico who left us in 2019, with Carlitos announcing: We are not doing well, “poro” of motorcycle!
«I went to live in Cadiz and I began to realize the general animosity that existed in Andalusia towards the flamencos of Madrid. I will never understand why, given that “Madrid Flamenco"was essentially Andalusian"
The original Mago was closed, and we ended up in another bar on Velarde corner of Dos de Mayo, the Austere CowAnd from there we went to the railway, the tavern of Paco Carvajal, which had a spectacular cave. Word had spread, and what was happening there wasn't normal. It was packed. Pitingo, who was a kid, asked me to go out to Bravo Murillo with him because the taxis wouldn't stop for him, the little pore.
Los Magos was a flamenco university. I only have good memories from those years, and I truly miss those Wednesdays. Things dispersed, and although they continued for a few years, moving from one venue to another—Fun House, El Barco, Me Encanta. With the death of Vicente, who, after all, was the group's driving force, Los Magos came to an end.
Afterwards I went to live in Cadiz and I began to realize the general animosity that existed in Andalusia towards the flamencos of Madrid. I will never understand why, given that “Madrid Flamenco”, in addition to being the name of a popular radio show, was essentially Andalusian. The things.
