Interview with Emilio Maya. Flamenco guitarist. Granada

In Granada’s flamenco history the surname
Maya shines brightly in the person of Juan Maya
“Marote”, the guitarist who transformed
the panorama of flamenco guitar in the nineteen-sixties
with his extraordinarily flamenco and personal
style. In an interview with Marote shortly before
his death I asked him about currently noteworthy
Granada guitarists. He named but one, Emilio Maya,
with whom he shares no family ties despite the
name.

Emlio Maya was born in the coastal town of Molvízar
in Granada province near Motril and Almuñécar
into a gypsy family of itinerant merchants. At
the age of 8 he began to play guitar and at 12
won his first contest in Lanjarón where
he was the youngest contestant. In his lengthy
career, in addition to performing at Spain’s
most noteworthy tablaos and flamenco clubs, he
has accompanied Enrique Morente, Marina Heredia
and Estrella Morente as well as the dancing of
Antonio Canales, Carmen Ledesma, Juan Andrés
Maya, Juan de Juan and Carmen Montoya among many
others.

There have also been collaborations with musicians
from other fields such as Jorge Pardo, Rubém
Dantas, Frank Holder and the Orquesta Andalusí
from Tangiers, important influences that have
enriched the musician without altering the innate
flamenco quality of his artistic personality.

Following the release of his first recording
“Temple”, the Deflamenco team went
to Granada to interview Emilio Maya in the Andalamúsica
recording studios located in the Albayzín
where the work was recorded.

See
CD

Emilio, what was your
childhood like and how did you learn flamenco?
I learned from my cousins, the family, all my
sisters sing, and really well, very flamenco,
songs from Marelu, Amina, material you don’t
hear any more…I learned by accompanying
them. There are a lot of flamenco artists in Motril,
wherever you find gypsies, we’re doing flamenco
[he laughs], because it’s how we express
ourselves, it’s how we communicate with
the world. When I was a child we went through
a lot because I had twelve brothers and sisters…I
made some money selling cologne by the liquid
measure and little bars of soap, door to door.
For me the thought of having a banana was like
a dream come true. My mother always reminds me
of this anecdote from when I was small…my
father had gotten drunk one time and he fell sound
asleep on the couch, you know how you sleep like
that, really passed out, and I whispered to my
mother “Mom, mom! Now that Daddy’s
dead, why don’t you take some money for
bananas?!” My mother won’t let me
forget that! So when you say how I started playing
guitar…I played because I had no choice
if I wanted to get by. Now my family’s doing
very well…I’m the worst of the lot!
[laughter]

“A lot of people are coming on strong from
Granada”

Have
you been living a long time in Granada?
Eight years I’ve been living here in the
capital, I’m from the coast of the province,
the tropics [he laughs]. I came here because my
girlfriend, the dancer Ana Calí, was studying
law here…she’s on the record by the
way, dancing the zapateado, really nice, I had
this idea I wanted to revive the old custom of
those records with dance made by Carmen Amaya
and Antonio Gades, they don’t do that any
more you know, we have to bring back the old things
or else they’ll be lost forever. Then I
had a friend, Juan Santos, who had opened Eshavira
[a hangout for Granada’s flamenco artists],
I saw the scene there was and liked it. I lived
in Seville for seven years, the guitarist Quique
Paredes got me in the tablao El Arenal. He’d
seen me playing in Nerja and said “hey,
what are you doing here boy?…come to Seville
with me”. That was in 1984 when Carmen Montoya,
Lalo Tejada, Carmen Ledesma, the whole Fernández
family, Ana María Bueno, all important
artists were working there. Later on I went to
London for three years to see what I could learn
about music. I returned to Granada in 1993 and
the maestro Enrique Morente was the first one
to call. I recorded with his daughter Estrella
on her second record, and also worked with a lot
of other people, Marina Heredia, Chonchi Heredia,
Canales…

What do you think about
the place Granada occupies in the current flamenco
scene?
It didn’t used to be very good, but now
there are a lot of people all coming on strong,
just like in Sevile or Cádiz or anywhere
else…before, it was just the maestro Enrique
and the maestro Habichuela… Marote was in
Madrid for many years and I was always dying to
spend time with him… In his later years,
thank God, I got to know him personally. In any
case, nowadays people are beginning to realize
that here in Granada there’s quality flamenco.
Nevertheless, mostly outside artists work here,
and that’s very stimulating as well…we
give them their place and know how to value them,
and they also learn from us.

How would you evaluate
the overall state of flamenco?
I think it’s very good, it’s always
a good time for flamenco because the music is
constantly becoming enriched…we can’t
be listening to the same thing all the time, I
mean, the history of flamenco is there for everyone
to listen to and learn from, day after day, but
we can’t lock ourselves up in that. I’m
42 years old and I like modern flamenco, but I
respect what went before, and I also know what
today’s flamenco is about, the paths it’s
taking, and they’re good because a great
deal of culture is coming into flamenco from some
very good music which is enriching it. You have
to consider the entire product that’s come
out, both good and bad, it’s all been responsible
for opening flamenco up to the world, the people
who went before weren’t able to accomplish
that, it’s something the present generation
has done. The old maestros are there in the recordings
and we’ve learned from them.

Do you rehearse many
hours?
As much as I can, some days more, some less…

“A great
deal of culture is coming into flamenco from some
very good music which is enriching it”

What guitarists have
inspired you?
I’ve always admired Paco de Lucía
very much…I take from anything, Cádiz,
Jerez, Sevilla, that’s how I am, and I adapt
it to my own personality. I like Tomate, Sanlúcar,
Vicente Amigo, Gerardo…and of the old guitarists,
Ricardo, Sabicas, you have to look to the past.
But Paco is the reason I play guitar today…when
I was a little boy and his record Entre dos Aguas
came out, I bought it three times because the
grooves got worn out from playing it, and I drove
my mother crazy, “that kid! always with
the same guitar record!”…and I just
kept playing it and playing… Paco has always
been the mirror I look into to find myself. I
also remember when I was six or seven, every day
at one o’clock, when my mother was making
lunch, I knew there was flamenco on the radio
with the big knobs…you didn’t hear
Camarón yet, so I listened to all the old
singers, and to Ricardo and Melchor… But
I never paid as much attention as when Paco came
along, that completely changed my musical sense.
And now they’ve given him that prize, they
should have given it to Camarón too, poor
guy, because those two are the ones who are responsible
for putting flamenco where it is today. Camarón
had this thing, that he combined the old and the
new, and for today’s youth he’s the
old master.

Being from Granada,
do you feel more at ease with tangos and rumbas?
I feel good with anything that’s good…well,
rumba, that’s something else. I like taranto,
soleá, siguiriya…those are things
that make you hurt, that’s where I have
to find myself and bring out the good stuff, a
weighty strum applied at the right moment…
On the record there’s minera, rondeña,
alegrías, tangos, rumba, bulerías
and zapateado. I don’t do pop or anything
wierd, I do flamenco. When something doesn’t
feel right, or if I feel uncomfortable with it,
I distance myself from it…I just want my
guitar and to do what I know how to do, which
is play it.

How long have you been
preparing the pieces on this record?
Years. There are some things there I’ve
been working for eight or nine years, material
I’ve been playing live in performance, and
now I’ve updated it…but it’s
all mine, and many years it’s taken to see
that each composition has its own identity and
history, you can’t do that in one day.

The
zapateado is unusual…
Yes, in zapateado you’ve always got two
rhythms going, three fourths and four fourths,
so there are moments when it sounds like tangos,
and others when it sounds like bulerías,
and it’s in the flamenco cadence of E-F…only
at the very end I go into the more common tones
for zapateado. Me and Ana are going to do this
zapateado in London next month at the Festival
de la Guitarra, we’re going to break it
in live…then on to Melilla, La Unión…

Is there any story behind
the piece you call “Eshavira”?
We incorporated a cello, this Basque woman who
lives here in Granada, Arantxa Hernáiz.
The composition is a rondeña I’ve
worked a great deal, never forgetting the maestro
Montoya. I tried to evoke everything I’ve
experienced here Granada, I often went to the
monastery, that inspires me to create. I think
the end result shows all the tender loving care
that went into that piece.

Then there’s the alegrías… Since
I’m from the coast, once in a while that
smell of salt spray would reach us and that’s
a powerful childhood memory, of the boats, that
smell stuck with me and that’s why the piece
is called “Salitre”. The record contains
many different influences, the wind from the Levante
is there too…

The bulerías
is 100% pure Jerez…
Yes, the singers helped a lot, there’s one
who sounds like Borrico, another like Zambo…that
was my idea, to put together a fiesta as if we
were in Jerez, but with a Granada feel. There
are sounds of Lebrija, Morón, Jerez, Granada,
whatever you want to find is there. We put the
whole thing together in one night, lots of art…the
bottle of whiskey, the olives and jam on the table,
we were all feeling right at home and the recording
speaks for itself…it’s the only piece
on the record that wasn’t prepared ahead
of time, we just went and did it.

You don’t sing
there, do you?
[He laughs] No…there are a few takes where
I’m singing, but I didn’t like it
at all…I had thought of sticking on a short
bit, maybe next time.

Are you a cante fan?
All my life. I like singing more than playing
guitar…like all flamenco guitarists, I’m
a frustrated singer [laughter]. But yes, I’m
crazy about cante.

Is there such a thing
as Granada-style bulerías?
Well, we’ve got this thing we call “bulería
corría” which is very fast bulerías
with lots of ‘jaleo’, for dancing,
like they do in the caves here.

“Nowadays there’s
lots of technique, they devour the guitar, but
there’s no depth, no definition”

What does the immediate
future hold for you?
What I’d love to do would be to work with
my group from the recording, as a soloist, but
the market is very tough, and since I also accompany
cante and baile, I’m always involved in
things, a good guitarist has to know how to play
everything in flamenco. That’s what’s
lacking in today’s young guitarists…they’ve
got lots of technique, they devour the guitar,
but there’s no depth, no definition. When
a guitarist connects with his guitar, he’s
looking for himself, and finally you say ‘now
he and the instrument are one’. Sometimes
the guitar gets the better of you, your picado
doesn’t come out, one thing or another doesn’t
sound right…the good thing when you’re
playing is to be on top of everything, the sound
comes and you enjoy yourself. I’ve reached
that point and I’m delighted to have achieved
this. The years put everything in order, it’s
about maturing, like the best serrano hams, you
smell them and “mmmm, fantastic aroma!”
[laughter].

Do
you enjoy accompanying or do you prefer playing
solo?
I love accompanying when it’s someone I
feel comfortable with, but not if I have to suffer,
and I have just as much fun playing solo as accompanying.
In order to be a good flamenco soloist you have
to have played for 30,000 singers. Now I’m
going to start playing for Rafael de Utrera, a
tour of the U.S. starting Septemer 6th, with dancer
Rafael del Carmen as well. In November I’m
going to Japan, then Belgium… I’ve
been playing since the age of eight, and now finally
things are coming together on a more decent level…you
have to sow in order to reap.