José Mercé: "I cry on stage, but I like to do it because I think it's something I wanted to get out of myself and tell my people"

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José Mercé (Jerez de la Frontera, 1955) learned to live from day to day.

It is not, in this case, a set phrase: life dealt him such a hard blow - his son Curro died 28 years ago at just 14 - that he felt he was running out of air.

He had to spend a lot of time for the cantaor to turn his pain, but also his love, into music in his new "work", which he decided to title

.

In calé, it means dawn.

Those that he likes to see so much in his house in Chipiona.

For him, this is a new beginning: the riskiest jump he has taken in his career.

He says so, but it is not necessary, because the illusion and desire to get on stage is in his blood.

"Right now I'm with

like when Los Reyes brings gifts to the children," he admits.

His best gift today is being able to bring out, and sing to his audience, what he kept inside for so long.

On July 10 he will step on the stage of the Teatro Real, at the Universal Music Festival, and without hesitation, he assures: "The public will see a José Mercé that he has never seen."

QUESTION

.

RESPONSE.

for me

is an autobiography.

What I do is tell my life, what I have lived since I started with this.

With Antonio Orozco, who is the producer, we worked for almost three years.

I think he was worth it.

It's very emotional, there's a lot of sensitivity in all that and I really enjoy doing it.

For me it is the most important project I have done so far.

P. You have collaborations with artists such as Mala Rodríguez or Lang Lang.

Is it his most avant-garde work as well?

A.

Without a doubt.

I've always liked flamenco to be very open, that we don't get stuck in the same thing.

And in this case, I think it's the riskiest job I've ever done.

Being there with one of the best pianists, such as Lang Lang, with Mala Rodríguez rapping, Pablo López with the taranta or Tomatito and Dorantes playing wonderful songs for me.

There is a lot of music in this work and, to be honest, I think it is something that is going to be a before and after in my career.

P. In this new project, as you said, you sing your life.

Undress the healthy soul?

R.

I think so, that it is a very good therapy.

I always say that music heals people.

What I had inside me wanted to get it out.

Antonio has a sensitivity very similar to mine and I think he was the only person who could get that out of me.

Fortunately he did, because these things arise.

When it is like this it is more beautiful, it has another flavor.

Q. And how much did you have to bare your soul so that Antonio Orozco could compose these eight songs?

A.

Very much.

Antonio has had to investigate my life, asking me, my wife, my daughters, my grandchildren, everyone.

It was the only way to be able to do this work and to achieve what we have achieved.

Q.

R.

I feel a lot of pain and joy at the same time.

The title already says it: what never leaves never disappears.

I say that for my son, who has never left.

My son is with us from the time we get up until we go to bed.

It is a phrase that I say to Antonio and he grabs it very strongly.

From then on he began to write and do this lyrics, which is very hard.

Sometimes I drown singing it.

I cry on stage, but I like to do it because I think it's something I wanted to get out of myself and tell my people, tell them a little about my intimacy, about my life.

What it expresses is so great.

I understand that it is very harsh but what it says is true.

P. How has that connection with the public been in these cases, in these songs that are so autobiographical?

R.

It is a connection that I do not know ... [thinks].

It seems to me that instead of t-shirts, I'm going to have to wear cliffhanger.

When they turn on the lights of the theater I see that people cry, they get very emotional.

It feels like that.

The play

really, is to be seen on stage.

He has a lot of sensitivity and that gets to you.

Q. Why did it take so long to sing what you have experienced?

R.

Because I'm as old as I am and that's when I had to do it.

I think that everything has its place and that it was time to be able to throw out everything that was inside.

P. What do you think about for the last time before going on stage?

R.

I do not think, but I entrust myself to my son Curro.

Whenever I go on stage I entrust myself to him and he is the one who makes me feel good.

Before leaving I cross myself and ask him to help me and he's done.

That is my ritual of every concert.

P. Oripandó means sunrise in calé.

What are your favorite sunrises like?

R.

If he catches me at my house in Chipiona, those sunrises are not seen anywhere else, they are wonderful.

That area of ​​San Lucas is something incredible.

That's for living, right?

And the truth is that very calm, because now I also like it, I get up early.

And do you know the greatest thing about it?

That doesn't cost money.

P. Do you think that many times we live without living?

R.

Yes, I think so.

More than many times.

Life is already complicated by itself, but we make it more complicated.

I have to tell you that I live from day to day.

It is my way of being after what happened to me happened.

I don't think beyond it because I think it's a nice and pleasant way of living.

Get up today, tomorrow and that's it, not think beyond it, because I don't think it's worth it.

Q. How many times have you had to start over?

A.

Many, because, as I say, you live in the moment.

Surely when a couple of years go by I'm going to start over again, because what I do will be totally different from

.

And that is so, what one cannot do is rest on one's laurels and say that everything is done.

Every time I do something new I think I'm starting.

Right now I'm with

like when Los Reyes brings gifts to the children.

At my age, after so many years, I have an illusion and a desire to do it;

to be on stage, to transmit to people what I have inside, which makes me a new person and makes me start over.

P.

R.

It did not take many springs.

Actually, it was in the spring the first time I saw her and I stayed... it was a crush [laughs].

We met in the seventies, we were very young and when they ask me if I'm married, I say I was born married.

We've been together all our lives.

There are fifty springs and another thousand that I would like, because it really is like that.

They are even more because we have been married for 48 years and dating for five years.

She is a charming woman, a wonderful mother, a super-grandmother and the truth is that if today I am something – a little, a lot or whatever – I really owe it to her.

Q. It's been 54 years of experience.

Is this like wine, the more years the better?

R.

I think so, that one matures and becomes more traditional, like wines.

I feel right now in a very happy moment, with a lot of desire.

When I was growing up and singing, my father already said: 'My son José is more settled'.

And I think so, that the years give you that seniority, that experience, but you cannot rest on your laurels, you have to be living in the century you are living in and constantly learning, without a doubt.

Q. You arrived in Madrid in 1968. How do you continue to identify yourself with that 13-year-old boy?

R.

In everything, even in the illusion and in the desire to go on stage to sing.

With much more responsibility, of course.

But I think I'm still the same child who arrived in Madrid.

P. Do you think that you could have developed the career in the same way in another place that had not been Madrid?

A.

I think not.

I am a lot to believe in what happens to you.

If I hadn't come to Madrid, I don't know if I would have dedicated myself to this.

Q. Why is flamenco not in fashion but it doesn't go out of fashion either?

A.

Roots music is never in fashion.

Sometimes we will be higher, other times lower.

But root music is eternal.

Flamenco will be eternal, but it has the right to evolve like all music and you can't stay in the 20th century because we're in the 21st century.

You have to refresh it, you have to make young people understand the lyrics.

And I started doing that in

, then with

.

All those albums put a lot of people in the basket of flamenco, young people and even older people who had never heard it.

That is important.

What I can't do is always play Jack, Knight and King.

No, I would have been bored.

Q. Why is it important for you that young people listen to you too?

R.

Because they are the future of all music.

I really like that young people come to listen to all kinds of music.

The one you feel the most, the one you like the most.

I don't like those who know everything.

I like people who feel and if it feels to them, reaches them and fills them, they will worry later about knowing what that music is.

P. Which José Mercé will the public meet next July 10?

R.

The public is going to find a totally new José Mercé but also the same as always.

I have to say that this work is wonderful: the staging, the audiovisuals, the lights, everything.

You will see a José Mercé that you have never seen before, of course.

And he is going to see a work that has never been seen before, which is something very new and very avant-garde, in which all the styles of flamenco are present but in a different vein.

What do I advise people?

Buy the

I understand that you have to listen to it a lot and that it is a long-playing album, that I don't know if it will be understood today, in six months or two years.

Q. What lessons does this new dawn leave you?

R.

The teaching that the new dawn leaves me is that you have to be very positive in life, that you never have to come down and that the family is the most important thing there is.

The family is what fills one.

It is the one that lets you see many more sunrises together.

Because I think that if you don't have a family to support you, none of this would happen.

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