Manuel Alejandro: "That man has to be wonderful in bed"

• Testimonies: the last tribute to Rocío Jurado
• Interview: "I made more money in the sixties with Raphael than the Beatles could earn"

Miami, 1986. A team of divers emerges from the waters under the jetty of the Julio Iglesias mansion, after days of searching. "This is it!" One shouts as he takes off his diving suit and holds up his finding: a golden ballpoint pen. The same with which Manuel Alejandro (87) has written all his successes since 1966. The economic effort of such a deployment, Julio will explain decades later, is more than justified: "He is the greatest pop musician and author in Spanish of the 20th century" , he maintains. In equally hyperbolic terms they refer to Raphael ("The most eminent Spanish-language author who ever lived"), Alejandro Sanz("The most important composer of all times") and a very long list of stars who have sung or drunk from the work of this man who shuns the spotlights and who defines himself as "songwriter". And he explains it: "We are not composers. And the dictionary of the Spanish language says, succinctly: 'Writer: bad writer'. Because, in fact, we are very bad writers. There is no doubt about that."

And just like this ('The force of the seas. Manuel Alejandro: the songwriter') is how the documentary for the series 'Imprescindibles', which premieres this Sunday in La 2 on TVE, about the author of 'I try to forget' is called . Written and directed by Álvaro Zancajo -ex news presenter of TVE and Antena 3, former director of the channel 24h of the entity and current news director of Canal Sur-, the production brings together the Olympus of the Spanish melodic song. Thus, in addition to those already mentioned, Jeanette, El Puma, Marisol, Emmanuel, Armando Manzanero and Manuel de la Calva (Dynamic Duo) appear , among many others. And Manuel Alejandro himself, which is news in itself, since the times he has been in front of the cameras are very rare.

Born Manuel Álvarez-Beigbeder Pérez, he grew up in the Jerez neighborhood of Santiago. His father was Germán Álvarez Beigbeder, a classical composer with abundant symphonic production and sacred music. "During the day," he recalls at one point in the documentary, "our father shagged us with Beethoven's sonatas. And at night he revealed to us the flamenco of a gypsy who passed under the balcony of the house. One night and another and another. All impregnated with those soleares and seguiriyas ".

With that leftover Manuel Alejandro built his style, which he himself defines as almost a lack of style, due to his ability to adapt to the interpreter. Or, as Julio Iglesias says: "He is a great tailor who makes you a suit that you don't even have to try on. You do it like that and it is perfect. That no longer exists."

The most significant case is his relationship with Rocío Jurado . "She is the singer who has given me everything," confesses the composer. "All I have done is watch her write a song. I knew everything about her without telling her." Thus, he made 'Se nos tebreakas' when he detected that his marriage to Pedro Carrasco was beginning to run. "I already figured things out," he would say.

And not only that: for the author, the case of the Jury was paradigmatic, due to the dichotomy between the impetus and the outward and inward temperament: "He was a fragile, helpless, fearful person."

"I study the singer," defends Alejandro. "Not as it is, but the image it gives the public." That is why he points out that, although they bear the signature "M. Alejandro", in reality the songs that the Chipionera sang "are hers, because she has given me the chewed thing".

This is especially noticeable if we compare the repertoire of La Más Grande with that of Jeanette. For her she changed her skin after the Spanish-British turned into a hymn 'I am a rebel'. But in this adaptation to the singer he always drops his passions, especially classical music ( Bach's 'Inventions' , Ravel's 'Concerto for the left hand' ) and his many readings (hard philosophy, mainly; not fiction) fictional).

"What you like about others is what agrees with what you already have inside you," says Manuel Alejandro in another moment of 'The force of the seas'. And Jeanette (who previously left a reflection-bomb: "That man has to be wonderful in bed" ) then evokes a phrase that she said to her with her most remembered album: "When I finished composing all your songs from 'Corazón de poet ', I ended up a total ladybug. Because I had to put myself in the shoes of a woman . " To which he laughs, "I transform when I write a song. And when I write a woman's song, I think I speak as a woman truly feels."

But it is his union with Raphael that has best brought out the personality of both of them. "Manolo, for me, represents everything. Without him not imagine that I would have had this very good race" , proclaims Linares. "He is guessing my future and writing about it."

"In general, the critic in Spain found it difficult to assimilate the style and form of Raphael. And, perhaps, the style and form of my songs", at the end of the film, drops the brain behind 'I am that one' and 'Nobody knows'. "Raphael was a young, red-haired boy, who sang some very, very serious songs. And who says 'say what they say' in them", he argues about that first misunderstanding that gave way to a monumental success in Latin America.

And that's where Julio Iglesias plays a crucial role, too. He had already stolen a song like 'Manuela' , which Alejandro wrote for the Basque Koldo and that the author of 'Life continues the same' turned into his first international success. And the one from Jerez had written with his second wife, Ana Magdalena, 'Así nacemos' "because Julio's father was a gynecologist . " But it took a few years for the two to work together again on an album that was a turning point in their career: 'Un hombre solo' (1987). There were 'The best of your life', 'Don't let the night break' or 'Evading myself', arising from the observation of the supposed 'Latin lover' in its Miami ecosystem.

"There is a lot of talk," reflects the composer about Julio, "about what people think of him: infatuated, flirting up, I don't know how much ... Well, half of half." Julio, like all the people "who get to where Raphael, Luis Miguel or Rocío Jurado arrives, is a person of absolute discipline".

Because the documentary especially affects the work of Manuel Alejandro to drain the water between both shores of the Atlantic, at a time when El Puma or José José were some "Sudacas" who came to Spain. "It was a tremendous time of an absolute rejection of the Spanish American. It had nothing to do with that Anglo-Saxon invasion that all the Spaniards sucked so much. All that youth that was pure copy, from Elvis to Pink Floyd . "

The documentary ends with a "pending hug" with Alejandro Sanz, of whom Manuel Alejandro was a godfather at his christening (and where his first name comes from) and with whom he has never collaborated. Almost better, says the writer: "Because I have taken the best of the life of the singers."

"Manolo is a lot of meat"

Manuel Alejandro wrote 'Amores a sollas' for the Jury. "It's a masturbation on the beach. Clearer than water," he says. "And yet she dares to do it, even when she had tremendous modesty," he says. "Manolo is a lot of meat," she would say.

In accordance with the criteria of The Trust Project

• LOC
• music
• Stay at home
• Julio Iglesias
• Raphael

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