“Since I found that recording in a cardboard box in my house, it was clear to me that it was not mine… I just happened to pass by there by chance.” On September 13, 1991, Javier García ‘Boby’ had been hired by the Oviedo City Council, as on other occasions, to work as a sound technician at the concert that was going to be held that night at the Buenavista Bullring. That week the city was more lively for the San Mateo festivities, but that day thousands of gypsies had arrived from Galicia, Santander, Cantabria and Castilla y León to see their “God”. Boby did not imagine that this was going to be a of Camarón de la Isla’s last performances before the singer interrupted the recording of his album ‘Potro de Rabia y Miel’, together with Tomatito and Paco de Lucía, to go to the United States in search of a cure for the lung cancer he had just been diagnosed with. «I saw him arrive from the mixing console and his health was already very deteriorated. I remember that my employees and his manager had to help him get onto the stage via the access ramp… The man could no longer be alone,” the technician tells ABC. When he appeared in Oviedo for that last meeting with the fans of northern Spain José Monje Cruz – the singer’s real name – was only 40 years old and had a lot of life behind him. Almost everything was already known about the genius. From his beginnings in Venta de Vargas, in San Fernando (Cádiz), when he barely lifted a hand’s breadth off the ground and sneaked into the kitchen to eat before singing. Of his admiration for Manolo Caracol, who appeared from time to time at his house, when he was a child, to listen to his father playing the beat of the anvil. Of his adventures with Paco de Lucía in the best creative duo that flamenco has ever produced. Also about his additions and his happy union with Tomatito, who accompanied him that night in the Buenavista Bullring. Standard Related News Yes Ten years without Paco de Lucía | They find the lost recording that anticipated the flamenco revolution Israel Viana«The people on his team asked us not to turn on the lights until he had sat down in front of the audience. However, when he began to sing, it was surprising to me that the man who had to be carried to the stage was taken away by that torrent of voice, that energy. “It was amazing!” emphasizes Boby, who upon discovering the recording in a box lost in his garage, along with other poor quality tapes, was so surprised that he immediately called Tino di Geraldo. The giftThe Asturian percussionist, a former collaborator of Paco de Lucía and other great flamenco figures, helped him contact the family to inform them of the discovery and offer it to them for free. «It was the first thing he told us, that he had no financial interest. “Everyone usually wants to take advantage of these situations, but he is not that kind of person,” Camarón’s eldest son, guitarist Luis Monje, confirms to this newspaper. The coach, for his part, adds: «I told them that they should not miss the opportunity to offer this historical document to their followers and that, of course, I did not want money, nor a percentage of the royalties or anything. That that recording was his, because he knew that the family had had a hard time when Camarón died and his widow, La Chispa [Dolores Montoya]he had to raise the four children as best he could. “I was clear that it was not mine.” This November 29, more than three decades later, this live show will be released under the title ‘Oviedo, San Mateo 1991’ (Universal). A small miracle that was recorded by Boby “almost by chance”, on one of the first digital tapes that came on the market that same year. «At that time there were no schools and we technicians used to record the concerts on a simple cassette, with no intention of pirating them or making a profit, just to listen to it carefully later at home and correct the equalization errors for the next job. It was very common. That night, however, it so happened that the first generation of DAT tapes had just arrived at my instrument store and I took one with me to try out. Thanks to that, it was recorded with much higher quality and has stood the test of time better,” he clarifies. “Well, gentlemen, good evening. I’m going to start by singing a little for joys and then you can ask me for whatever you want. Thank you,” were Camarón’s shy words of welcome, before bursting into joy with ‘I am that smuggler.’ «That night my father did some tangos and bulerías worth listening to and songs that he had never performed live. For example, he finished the tangos with ‘Soy gitano’, which he recorded on disc but never sang in front of an audience. He also changed the lyrics. He always improvised… Always! He met Tomatito the same day of the performance and whatever came into his mind, he did. That’s why it always surprised. Tomatito had to be very attentive because he never knew where he was going to come out. If you listen to their recordings live, you will never find two alike,” says Luis Monje, who has been in charge of the production. From C. Tangana to RosalíaThe album has been mastered by Greg Calbi and Steve Fallone, renowned engineers who have worked with the Beatles, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Patty Smith, David Bowie and Nick Cave, among others. This special edition also includes a 33-page booklet written by Nacho Serrano, in which the ABC music journalist analyzes the singer’s influence on the history of music. To do this, it collects the opinions of such prominent and disparate names as Carmen Linares, Enrique Bunbury, Javier Ruibal, Antonio Arias from Lagartija Nick, Manolo García, La Zowie, Antonio Carmona, Estopa, David ‘Indio’ García from Vetusta Morla, Omar Montes , La Mala Rodríguez, C. Tangana and Rosalía. «When I was 13 years old I spent the afternoons in the park with my friends listening to flamenco. One day Camarón played and his voice was as if an arrow pierced my heart. Discovering him was one of the great epiphanies of my life, because as a result of being such a follower of him, the desire to become a cantaora grew in me. Whenever I listened to him, I thought: ‘Camarón knows something that the rest of us don’t know.’ It’s like there’s a precious, well-kept secret in his voice. “You cannot understand current flamenco without it,” the author of ‘Motomami’, currently immersed in the recording of her fourth album in the United States, tells Serrano. «Camarón continues to bring tears to my eyes like the first day. Many mornings I put it on when I drive to the studio. Sometimes I wonder what he was like and if he would have liked my car, a black Hellcat, as much as I did,” he adds with a laugh. The concert at the San Mateo festivities was one of the last he gave before he died. After that evening he offered a brief performance, on October 10, 1991, on the program ‘Primero Izquierda’, presented by Carlos Herrera on TVE. Afterwards he gave at least two more recitals: on December 21 at the Teatro Andalucía in Cádiz and, in January 1992, the famous concert at the San Juan Evangelista college in Madrid. The latter was published in 2010 and, eight years later, ‘Montreux 91′ was released, which is to date the last release of a live album by the Cádiz singer. Death«It seems impossible to me that someone with lung cancer sang like him that night! –exclaims Boby–. It is something amazing that escapes my understanding. We didn’t know he was going to die so soon, although we knew it was bad. At that time there were already rumors that linked his condition to drugs. When he died shortly after, I no longer remembered the recording. He had hundreds of recorded concerts, boxes and boxes full of poor quality tapes. During the pandemic I began to listen to them to order them and, when I discovered Camarón, I was very surprised. Cancer took him on July 2, 1992, at the Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital in Badalona. Three days later, Tomatito and Paco de Lucía struggled to keep their friend’s coffin in their wings, before the more than 50,000 fans who gathered at the San Fernando cemetery. In the Cadiz town they had not seen so many people since General Varela’s funeral in 1951. Tomatito cried a lot that day, after having accompanied Camarón across the five continents to Oviedo. «After him… leave it! “I didn’t want to touch anyone anymore,” he recalled years later. “The last conversation I had with my father was in the car on the way to my grandparents’ house, in La Línea de la Concepción, where they were going to leave us to continue towards Badalona.” and enter it. He told me to be very careful and to take care of my mother and my brothers, that I was now the man of the house. He was 13 years old and he was not aware that he would never see him again,” says his son.
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