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Manuel Alejandro
.
Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz, 1933. The composer behind the great successes of Raphael, Julio Iglesias and Rocío Jurado returns to his 88 years just turned.
He has just composed a song for Alejandro Sanz and is promoted for the Princess of Asturias Award.
Due to a broken arm, he began to compose.
Yes. I was studying piano to be a concert player, I was 16 years old, but I had an accident, emulating a goal from Zarra.
I fell, broke my elbow, and couldn't play the piano for three years.
So, I studied composition, the counterpoint ... That led me to understand the song and get into it. In Jerez, during the day, his father played Beethoven sonatas and at night, flamenco.
Men!
My father, a huge musician, devoted himself to symphonic and classical music.
In the morning, it would play Beethoven, Brahms Bach ... and at night, as we lived in the gypsy neighborhood, Santiago, the flamingos would pass by our door with the last glass of wine they had had in the tabanco and they stood by our balcony.
From the bed, those martinetes and seguiriyas sounded.
That gave me the pinch of the right word of flamenco, which so many poets used such as Machado or García Lorca.
He lived flamenco since he was little.
Yes, it made me look around.
Also, I always wanted to sing flamenco.
The litmus test was to sing an arrow.
In front of the house, we had the church of Santiago, from where the Brotherhood of the Gypsies comes from, which is the Arrest, for them, familiarly, the
Prendi
.
I remember that every year I proposed to sing an arrow when Our Father Jesus came out of the Arrest, but I never dared, thank goodness!
There are certain things for which you have to be born and one of them is flamenco.
Lola Flores was born in Jerez, like you.
Yes, I was born in the San Miguel de Jerez neighborhood, like Lola Flores.
For this reason, in my first 5 years, I listened to the flamingos of this neighborhood.
Later, we moved to the Santiago neighborhood, where he also listened to flamenco.
The pinch that many songs of mine have is very flamenco;
the one that makes us break our shirts when we get excited.
His wife, Purificación, is the first to hear his songs.
Is it very critical?
Always an absolute review.
It has been like this since 64. She is the one who decides if the songs pass the veto.
How will it be? These days, there is a song that I have written to Alejandro Sanz, to my godson, to celebrate our meeting.
He has already recorded it, but I am not going to hear it until my wife can listen to it.
Alejandro knows her and knows that she commands a lot. He is Alejandro Sanz's godfather, but he never composed anything for him.
Up to now.
Yes, that is why we wanted to celebrate the anniversary in a special way, which I am not saying.
And Alejandro has done it phenomenally because he has taken the song to his ground. When will he publish his song?
Very soon.
Several years have passed without an artist singing a new composition of his.
The last album he composed is 'Reencuentro', by Raphael from 2012. Why wasn't there more? Every time less is being composed.
The world of song has changed a lot with everything digital.
Neither the CD is CD, nor the vinyl is vinyl nor the
pendrive
is the
pendrive
.
Now you write more lightly, thinking more about two or four months than a lifetime. You no longer write like you used to.
No, that of sitting down, writing and looking for which word is the most beautiful or which grade is the best ... That is no longer done.
Alejandro Sanz told me that they are composing in the studio and one of them arrives and says 'look, put this chord in' and another comes with something else.
And so the songs are built in a different way.
I am not saying that beautiful songs do not come out, that they come out, because whoever has the pinch inside will have it now and 2,000 years from now.
But who gives you goosebumps?
His career as a songwriter began with Raphael in 1965 and the song 'Yo soy eso'.
I have written more than a hundred songs for Raphael that are all known and are out there rolling around the world.
He has interpreted them very well and I have discovered what he meant.
Do you still have the pen that you dropped on the jetty at Julio Iglesias' house with which he wrote all his songs? Yes, I have it here.
I have written all the songs of my life with him since 67. The Domecq de Jerez winery in Mexico paid tribute to Raphael and me, and they gave me a set of gold or gold Parker pens, I don't know.
Although at that time, gold was more common.
I dropped that pen on the jetty at Julio's house in Miami and I have lost it several times, but I always find it.
Julio Iglesias called a team of divers to find the pen.
That was an event.
The news that morning in the United States broke the news about a team of divers, of 10 or 12 people, who had gone to Julio's house.
And since the chalets are so big, they had to put the tires from trucks ... The diver who found it said is this what you are looking for?
And he would say to himself, is this what we have come for?
He he.
Julio Iglesias' first hit was' Manuela ', composed by you.
Manuela opened many doors for him.
Julio was born to succeed and my 'Manuela' was another wild card.
He has been, is and will be a phenomenon;
one of the greats we have in Spain.
In 2014, he received the Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, but he has been recognized more on the other side of the pond than in Spain.
It is that the American people are something other than the Spanish and European people.
The Spanish-speaking one has a great love for authors.
When someone sings, they ask 'who wrote that'.
I spent a lot of time in America and dedicated myself to famous singers of the time, such as El Puma, José José, Emmanuel ... In Spain they did not give them a lot of ground, but there are about 150 songs of mine that are huge hits in America and they did not sound here .
In Spain, Raphael, Rocío Jurado, Julio ... those from here.
How is it possible that he does not already have the Princess of Asturias Award?
There is now a campaign for it to be granted.
Those of us who make songs have the Grammy Awards.
The great prizes of great literature and great music are something else.
I see normal that it does not have it, but hey friend! If the Prince of Asturias gives it to this phenomenon that is Leonard Cohen, there I am!
You play in that league.
Yes, it is my plot and I vindicate myself.
They also gave the award to another phenomenon like Bob Dylan, which I think is good that they give it to him, but that's where I am too!
In Spanish, of course.
But English throws a lot.
I had never thought in my life that it was feasible to receive that award, but with that background ... How many songs do you have on record?
I don't know, it could be 600 something, a lot.
But, counting that on February 21 I turned 88 years old, it doesn't even come out to song per month, so I'm a total bum.
Did your intuition already tell you that it was going to be success or a big hit and what not?
No, I have not written any tremendous pitch like 'Corazón partío', 'Macarena' or 'Despacito';
I have never done that.
Those hits come out, they can't be searched.
Are their songs not balls?
What are 'I am that' and so many others?
But they are not dance songs or much fuss.
That is why they last.
My songs are not big hits. And what about the mythical 'We broke our love' by Rocío Jurado?
They are graceful songs, with a story, where I respect the listener a lot, I look for the simplest and most pleasant words;
I don't mean to hurt
In reality, nobody knows how to write a song, you start to write it and there is a moment when you are more graceful than another and it comes out more pleasant.
But you have to work;
inspiration will surely come to you with the Parker pen in hand.
If I told you!
I study the piano every day.
I have my hours of reading a lot of classical music, usually, and after playing something very difficult by Tchaikovsky, a simple chord is left in a minor 'A' and from there comes a lyric and a nice little thing.
It is a non-stop and listen to all your colleagues, that there are so many good people.
Hear them and learn from them.
There have been, there are and will be very, very good people.
A lifetime among artists, I guess it will have a thousand and one anecdotes.
Yes, a lot.
Now I'm remembering, I don't know why, maybe because I want to have a glass of Jerez, one day in Acapulco.
Luis Miguel and I got together because I was going to write him an album.
We went to dinner at a Mexican, where there were tortillas and tequila, the same.
It is not so much an anecdote but a detail so that you can see how my dear colleagues and brothers, singers, have always treated me.
Before going to the restaurant, I said, isn't there something from Jerez around there?
No, there is only tequila.
You know what happened?
That Luis Miguel brought me a cooler with two bottles of Fino de Jerez.
How about?
Luis Miguel himself!
Yes, yes, and so with Julio, Rocío, Raphael and with everyone.
Of course those bottles fell whole.
Because you like it after the third glass of Jerez.
It's that I'm ashamed to say that I like it after the tenth.
Hahaha.
It is when it is already immense, so much that you do not want to let it go.
I am in love with the fine wine of Jerez.
In moderation, but I love it, and still, thank God, I take it.
Did you want to write to an artist today?
I would like all those who sing well.
But, either there is no chance, or there is no contact.
I can tell you 40,000 singers that I like, but almost all of them write their songs now.
That makes you quite off the subject.
Of the artists today, which one do you like?
Many, many.
Don't play with my memory.
But there is a singer who is very fashionable;
to be exact, Andalusian.
Pablo Alboran?
Yes, divine.
And Rosalía?
It has its tweak too, it's not all marketing.
It is a product that, as I say, opened a window and flew out, but it has its value, there is no doubt, and it does very beautiful and very good things.
You do not keep an audience two hours looking at a stage if you are doing something silly, that cannot be.
Is it true that in the sixties with Raphael I was earning more than the Beatles?
The day I said that I had taken a tremendous drunkenness.
I had drunk my friend Pepe Estévez's winery, sure.
Haha.
A Spaniard can never earn more than Anglo-Saxons, impossible.
They are many millions, with a more widespread language.
If it's sung in English, people go crazy, and I'm not calling you an announcer or a DJ anymore.
If even in the adjustment letter of the televisions and in the newscasts English is heard;
and like that, 40,000 more things.
Here we go crazy for a song in English.
How do you see the political situation in Spain?
Do you follow her?
I am very far from her.
And the leaders of the different parties?
They have the will to do well.
It is a lie that they come to take the money, that was in the past.
I have a good opinion of politicians, mind you.
They are people who get involved with a true vocation to help and to do things well, but then they stumble and do not do it so well.
So many things happen that are unfortunate for the people, but not by their will.
I don't think they want to hurt the people.
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Final interview
music
Princess of Asturias Awards
Cadiz
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Julio Iglesias
Alejandro Sanz
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