Abel, Antonio ‘El Gaditano’ and the chef Ricardo at the chip shop. /
It is an immense joy after the years to meet good people with whom at some stage of life you have shared work, joy and friendship. For me it was a luxury to meet a friend who meets all these conditions and some more. It was on the occasion of the celebration of the Rosario festivities in the sister city of La Unión, in which, together with a group of friends from Badajoz, we were taking a walk through the mining and singing city and enjoying how much it has to offer. enjoy, seeing the horizon of the Mining Park where the Camino del 33 route begins to Portmán and visiting the unique chapel of Cristo de la Mina, a replica of the crucifixion of Gerique, which descends each year on the way of the cross, winding through the slopes of the mountain range to La Union. And it is that strolling through the Sierra Minera between ochres and almagras, next to the old chimneys from the glorious era of mining, most of them with women’s names -Trinidad, Vicenta, Montserrat…-, moving around and knowing the anecdotes and curiosities of tombs and burials of its cemetery, valuable exponent of pantheons and funerary sculptures of the modernist era.
The walk through the heart of the city, among its modernist buildings, where one is dazzled by the magnificence of the great portal and dome of the Cathedral of Cante, the Old Public Market in stone, iron and glass that remained open as a square of supplies until the middle of the century, the work of the architects Pedro Cerdán and Víctor Beltrí.
Tour Flamenco Avenue, where in August you can hear the tarantas in front of the footprints of the inscriptions on the pavement of the greatest figures of flamenco, from Enrique Morente, Mercé or Vicente Amigo to venues such as Encarnación Fernández. Go past the imposing building of the Casa del Piñón, headquarters of the La Unión Town Hall, to end up in a great gastronomic and flamenco forum, such as Bodega Lloret, which takes us back to the aesthetics of barrels and tiles from a hundred years ago, with some tapas of michirones, some potatoes with homemade garlic, a good glass of wine and the flapping of wings in freedom. Ending in the largest photographic exhibition of the Festival, in the Mining Tunnel that takes you to the Patio de la Guitarra, in the Vinagrero, an obligatory step for all the artists to greet Fernando and enjoy the textures of his market dishes, which he masterfully prepares. Mamen.
The singer born in Albudeite and based in Cartagena won awards at the Linares and Córdoba festivals before triumphing at the Cante de las Minas de La Unión
And if after this delight for the senses, you greet a great cante, it’s the best thing that can happen to you, as it happened to me. After many years I met Antonio Castillo ‘El Gaditano’, whom I met in the professional world during my time at the long-awaited Tamar, an extraordinary welder in both the industrial and naval assembly sectors. In his welds there was no rejection.
Category Welder
Antonio went through nineteen companies in the sector and worked throughout Spain, in all the great projects of the time. He belonged to Camisa, Comain, Levivier, Felguera, Ibemo, Tamoin, Nervión… And he retired after 50 years as a professional welder. But if his professional career as a welder was brilliant, in the great hobby that he combined with his work, the successes were greater. Antonio was born in Albudeite, a town whose mayor has paid him a great tribute this year by inaugurating a park in the town that bears his name, as a son of the municipality. This is how tributes should be done.
At the age of 14, he moved with his family from his native Albudeite to our city. At the age of 17, he entered the Marine Corps, moved to San Fernando, where he met a beautiful woman from Cadiz, Pepi, today his wife, and from there came the stage name ‘El Gaditano’. Militaryly, he was transferred to Marín and Madrid, to return to San Fernando at the age of four and begin his career as a welder.
He loves to comment that since his wife used to sing sweets, he learned to sing the flamenco copla from her. He gets married in Cadiz, to return to his Cartagena and continue as a welder, and together with Pepi, they begin to do duets in the towns, with great success, singing things by Juanito Valderrama and Dolores Abril. Antonio’s love for flamenco makes him start studying flamenco, where he meets a great singer from Levante, Antonio Piñana Sr., at the same time that he appears at the Festival del Cante de las Minas, where he obtains a minor prize. He continues to study flamenco and enters the Linares Contest, where he wins the prize for granaína, taranta and seguirillas. He continues studying and triumphing, at the Córdoba Festival, he wins by tarantas. And his star moment arrives, because in 1986 he appears at the International Festival of Cante de las Minas, accompanied on guitar by Rosendo Fernández and wins the precious Mining Lamp, which opens all the national doors and the best stages of all of Spain. He was the official singer together with the guitarist Antonio Fernández. He intervenes with the greats of the time, Camarón, Juanito Valderrama, El Cabrero, Rancapino Sr., Calixto Sánchez and Luis de Córdoba, among others. But he does not forget his origin and just as he is with the greats, he performs in cities and towns and small festivals in the company of a great guitarist such as Antonio Fernández ‘El Torero’. A brilliant career spanning more than 50 years, first singing Spanish songs and then good flamenco, in all his styles. And since he has cante in his veins, until recently he led a rociero choir in his senior citizens’ club, sometimes he sings in his Peña Melón de Oro in Lo Ferro and also in his town for his neighbors.
El Caditano is happy in his marriage, with his four children, eleven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. His son Pedro, who loves Camarón de la Isla, could continue the career of this great flamenco artist.
New chip shop
To close such a magnificent day, we ended up at the La Perdiguera friery, where Abel recommended a menu that we loved and surprised: starting with a bicycle of pickled mussels, to continue with a smoked sardine brioche bread, roasted pepper and petal jam. We moved on to some exquisite grilled roe, a good size and not oily, an octopus with a superb lime cream. We finished with an Andalusian marinade and a very well fried gallopedro, with some delicious poor potatoes. All washed down with a Verdejo wine, Juana la Loca. As a sweet point, a brownie rested in white chocolate soup and nougat ice cream, really good.
I end this Sunday with this reflection: “Whoever walks away a lot soon ceases to be needed.”
#Antonio #Gaditano #Perdiguera