Manuel Vega Garcia The Charcoal (Seville, 1906-1937) was born on Sol Street and died on Don Fadrique Street, both in Seville. He was a child prodigy of the cante flamenco, being one of the most popular of his time, in the so-called stage of the Flamenco Opera, between 1926 and 1936. He stood out above all in the fandango, with his own style, although he sang many others very well. palosHis lyrics immortalized him, all of them about love or heartbreak, heartbreaking. He left behind a great discography, considerable for having died at only 31 years old..
Letter to the Charcoal
They called him Carbonero,
failed to sing.
All of Seville cried
the death of the fandanguero
when God took him.
Dear and admired teacher:
My name is Manuel Bohorquez Casado and we don't know each other, although I have always thought that in a previous life we were friends and that I was able to enjoy your cante in private in some tavern in Alameda de Hércules, perhaps in La Europa, where you used to sing with Tomas Pavon, The Moreno, The Glory y Juan MojamaI was very young when one morning I heard my mother sing while she was washing in the basin in the yard, a little song that moved me:
That the kisses of a mother
There are no kisses that are so sweet.
That the kisses of a mother.
Since mine died
Nobody has known how to kiss me
like my mother did.
My mother lost her mother, my grandmother Carmen, a year after you died and right next to the street where you stopped seeing the beautiful light of Seville forever, in the Central Hospital. My mother hummed this fandango with a touching tenderness and knowing that she sang it The Titmouse, a singer from the Macarena, I always wanted to know who you were, as well as a famous singer. I was interested in knowing things about your life, your parents, your grandparents, siblings... In 1978, Pepe Carrasco put a collection of records on the market, The Aces of Flamenco, and in that collection there was a whole LP with your cantes. I listened to that record day and night and always ended up crying like a child. It wasn't just your lyrics, which were like darts stuck in my soul, but your voice, that pitiful sound wrapped in a veil of sorrow that broke my heart.
"I have come to see you to tell you, Manuel, dear teacher, on this cold and leaden autumn morning, that nothing would have been the same without you, without your cante and your memory"
In 1980, at the XNUMXst Biennial of Flamenco from Seville, the winner of the Giraldillo, Calixto Sanchez, sang one of your fandangos and Seville woke up from a deep lethargy. It was a fandango of your friend and teacher Pepe Rebollo, the one from Moguer, at whose funeral you were with Pepito the Pinto, the Sevillian and the guitarist Antonio Peana.
Through tears he leaves
the great pain that is cried.
Through tears he leaves.
The great pain is the pain
that you can't cry.
That one isn't going away, it's staying.
The maestro from Mairena sang that fandango as if you had entered his body, with a force and emotion that made all of us in attendance stand up suddenly, excited, many with eyes full of tears. That night, Calixto Sánchez made you return to Seville and at that very moment, shocked, broken, I decided that I had to look for you to tell you that you changed my life. That if what they told me was true, that the cante jondo It was an emotion, I felt it for the first time that night in the Lope de Vega from Seville. Without being a writer, I decided to write your biography and I started looking for people who knew you to tell me what you were like, apart from the cante. Who was Manuel Vega Garcia, that boy who was born on Sol Street, in 1906, son of Manuel Vega Villar The Charcoalman, from the Sevillian town of Benacazón. You sold coal on the streets with your father, and that's why they called you El Carbonerillo throughout Andalusia, from La Macarena to La Cava de los Gitanos in Triana and from Almería to Ayamonte.
Manuel Bohórquez, in front of the tomb of El Carbonerillo. Let's see if we can learn to fold space-time so that two people from different eras can shake hands.
One day I looked for your sister Anita, who lived in Pío XII, to tell me what you were like as a brother and as a son, and I found her. She was already a woman of many years, although well carried. And beautiful as can be. She was sitting in a rocking chair, with her hair in a bun and a bun of fresh jasmine pinned to the bun with mother-of-pearl pins. She told me that when she worked in the Marquis of Pickman's textile factory she would take you with her so that you could learn a trade and that at snack time she would put you up on a table so that you could sing, and that the employees would cry with emotion down their faces. You were only 8 years old and she says that you were already embroidering fandangos in gold thread.
«Ricardo, Pastora, Pinto and Tomás welcome me as if they were jealous of the love I feel for you. Sometimes I think that at night, when in the cemetery there are only cats and shadows, you come out of your graves and spend a little time cante and chat. That consoles me, Manuel, because it torments me that you are no longer with us.
Your father took you one Sunday morning to the Coffee News, who was in the Bell, so that they could hear you next to the Child of Marchena and Pepito el Pinto, your childhood friend. The Pinta boy, do you remember him? That morning another stage of the cante flamenco, which would bring years later another highly criticized one, the Flamenco Opera, but which forever changed the art of singing, dancing and playing the guitar.
In 1983, Diary 16, from Seville, published a whole page with your first biography, thanks to José Luis Ortiz Nuevo, who was then writing about flamenco in that newspaper. You can't imagine how important I felt that day, because I received congratulations from all over Andalusia. Nobody knew almost anything about your life, only those things that were said about you, almost always hoaxes, about your drunkenness and public altercations, the reason for your lyrics and your tormented life of the last romantic of the canteIn 1996, already dedicated to writing about flamenco in a newspaper in Seville, Andalusia Post Office, I finally published your biography, a simple book, without many pretensions, which we presented in the courtyard of the Provincial Council of Seville, the old Cuartel del Carmen, do you remember? Hundreds of people attended and artists such as Luis Caballero y Manuel GerenaThe books were sold out. People took them by the dozen to give to friends and even today, twenty-four years later, I still receive requests from different countries around the world.
I have come to see you to tell you, Manuel, dear teacher, on this cold and leaden autumn morning, that nothing would have been the same without you, without your cante and your memory. You can't even imagine what you mean to tens of thousands of people around the world, because your slate records, for which you were paid four fat ones, reached beyond the walls of the Macarena, where you played as a child. You even have a peña with your name on Torrijiano Street, the one where you dreamed of being as good a singer as Antonio Chacon o Manuel Torres.
«If you want one night, look for my mother, Josefa Casado, who is not far from where you sleep. Tell her that I love her and sing to her, if you don't mind, that fandango about how sweet a mother's kisses are»
Sometimes I come to see you at the Seville Cemetery and I shed a few tears looking at your tombstone, courtesy of your nephews. I sit in a flowerbed and spend a while chatting with you, telling you things about the past. cante current. Then, once relieved, I visit Ricardo, Pastora, the Pinto and Thomas, who greet me as if they were jealous of the love I feel for you. They are just a few meters from your grave. I have often thought that at night, when there are only cats and shadows in the cemetery, you leave your graves and spend a little time cante and chat. That consoles me, Manuel, because it torments me that you are no longer with us, the lovers of cante, to help us find a happiness that has been sold at a very high price these days.
I'll leave you until another day, master, reading a poem by a poet from Seville, Juan Sebastián, who dies with you. I will come another day to tell you more things. And if one night you want, look for my mother, Josefa Casado Rodriguez, which is not far from where you sleep. Tell her that I love her and sing to her, if you don't mind, that fandango about how sweet a mother's kisses are.
YOUR BROKEN HEART
There is a funereal veil in your gaze
that covers her like a presentiment.
A murmur of cypress swaying in the wind,
is your warm desperate voice.
The bitterest and driest breath
of air the feeling passes through you
and little by little you reach the moment
where there is nothing left of your voice.
In a slow, agonizing beat,
your broken heart, Charcoal,
is stealing blood from itself cante.
The hands and the hammer have fallen silent,
and your voice in death, already triumphant,
She has taken the fandanguillo with her.
