Valeria Vegas, pop folklorologist: “Isabel Pantoja is the last of her kind. We have to take care of her a little more” | Culture | EUROtoday

As a superb popular culture anthropologist, Valeria Vegas (Valencia, 40 years outdated) collects all types of kitsch artifacts. In her home, an Almodovarian-style condominium within the middle of Madrid, there are Barbie dolls of Cher, Joan Collins and Gloria Estefan; pictures of muses by John Waters; both merchandising of Elvira, queen of darkness. The journalist and author additionally has framed photochroms of Carmen Sevilla from that splendid interval through which the artist starred in movies corresponding to Nobody heard scream, The glass ceiling o The wolf and the dove. “I’m a bit folkloric: I don’t look at my bank accounts and I’m going to die working,” admits Vegas, who has spent her whole life finding out Lola Flores, Rocío Jurado, Isabel Pantoja and the remainder of the forged of nationwide dismo. The results of that analysis is So flamenco: Life, work and miracles of our folkloric artists (Aguilar), a piece that vindicates the good stars of Spanish folklore. “Tina Turner doesn’t have an emoji. Liza Minnelli doesn’t have a refrigerator magnet. Folks do,” he says.

Ask. What is your first reminiscence of folklore?

Answer. In my home they weren’t something folkloric. My mother and father listened to Ana Belén and Víctor Manuel, Paco Ortega and Isabel Montero, Lluís Llach, Massiel… I found the folkloric ones by watching Marifé de Triana on tv. He fascinated me due to that dramatic factor he had. I used to be shocked to see a girl nearly crying and singing Maria de la O. I additionally bear in mind María Jiménez. There was no Spotify then. My mom visited all of the markets to get a cassette that included the music at daybreak. I nonetheless have it as a result of it has huge sentimental worth.

P. Of the 27 artists she writes about in her guide, solely seven are nonetheless alive. Is folklore on the best way to extinction?

R. Flamenco and copla nonetheless exist. There is a brand new era of fantastic singers like Diana Navarro, Pastora Soler and María Peláe, however, fortuitously for them, we don’t see them on the door of the AVE shitting themselves on the whole lot like Rocío Jurado or making their life a novel by chapters like Lola Flores or Carmen Sevilla. The folklore with the bata de cola, the comb and an excessive life is on the verge of extinction, to not say that it has already disappeared. We solely have Pantoja left. It is the final of its sort. There are moments in Pantoja’s life which can be extra fascinating than some seasons of Stranger Things. Her husband died within the bullring in entrance of everybody, she turned the widow of Spain, Encarna Sánchez appeared in her life, then the mayor of Marbella, then she ended up in jail.

P. Do we deal with her as she deserves?

R. We do not deal with her as she deserves, but it surely’s true that she hasn’t had a lot of a left hand with the press both. But, as I instructed you, it’s the final of its sort. You must maintain it just a little extra.

P. Did pop kill folks music?

R. At the tip of the 80s, {a magazine} requested Lola what had ended the folklorics and he or she responded: “It’s the bingo’s fault.” I actually like that phrase as a result of it truly signifies that something might put an finish to the folkloristics. It may very well be bingo, Telecinco or video shops. They had an expiration date. Folkloric animals, like dinosaurs, had been doomed to vanish. The historical past of music needed to transfer ahead. That kind of folklore solely managed to endure for many years as a result of Franco disliked the Beatles.

P. Many ended up poor or forgotten. Have we been ungrateful to them?

R. We bear in mind them once they can not step on stage. Then it is too late for them to monetize the reminiscence considerably. Almost all of them started to have issues within the 80s as a result of at the moment music opened as much as different genres: disco, rock, pop. For a long time they had been the one choice as a result of American music was not marketed in Spain. The finish of Francoism and the Transition had been dangerous for the folklorics. In the eighties they stopped reigning. With exceptions, like Pantoja or Jurado, who turned melodic, all of them had been left with out a document firm. They have been handled with some disdain as a result of they’ve been intently related to the regime. That took a heavy toll on them.

P. In reality, many had been very near the Franco regime. Some, like Imperio Argentina or Estrellita Castro, had been even associated to Nazism. Do folkloric girls essentially must be fachas?

R. I do not assume they must be fascists, however they needed to reside in a time with fairly a lack of know-how. They lived very nicely off, they’d favored remedy they usually stated great headlines like: “We owe a lot to Franco.” With the arrival of democracy, they need to have had just a little extra class consciousness and realized that not everybody lived by the dictatorship like they did.

P. Are there progressive ones?

R. I’m going to get entangled with two: Rosa Morena, who beloved faggot, and Martirio, who has been tremendously progressive by his lyrics. With tremendous clever irony, Martirio talks concerning the housewife, the one who’s separated and has no pay, the one who’s fed up together with her husband not doing it proper for her…

P. Almost all of them have humble origins in widespread. Is that a vital situation to be a real folklore?

R. Folk music has to return from beneath. There are exceptions, like Juanita Reina or Carmen Sevilla, however the one who comes from beneath spends half her life managing that story and rubbing it on a regular basis.

P. Some had been lesbian or bisexual, though they by no means admitted it. Is homosexuality nonetheless taboo in folklore?

R. I’ve sensed a couple of. Above all, all these with some reference to Encarna Sánchez. At that point, popping out would have meant vital public ridicule.

P. However, all of them have legions of homosexual followers. Why does the group like folkloric music a lot?

R. Because it’s the closest factor now we have to the drag queens. They are hyperbole personified, they’re exaggeration and drama to interpret and to reside. Folklore is a lifestyle. That connects very nicely with the LGTBIQ+ public. We extremely worth these extremes.

P. Many have a repute for being unfriendly or haughty. Were there pleasant and shut ones?

R. We find it irresistible when the folklores lose their mood or get indignant. But, watch out, I do not assume they’ve been extra haughty than different gents on this nation. Men are extra allowed to lose their roles than girls.

P. Why did they select their companions so poorly?

R. Many selected males who had been married at a time when divorce didn’t exist. So they had been “the other.” Marifé, Estrellita Castro, Concha Piquer, Imperio… all had been with males who had been married and had households. I feel they selected poorly as a result of they did not have a lot to select from both. They fell into the businessman or the bullfighter, into the stereotype of the profitable man, when in actuality they had been rather more highly effective than any man. They had been those who introduced the bread residence.

P. Some had severe issues with the Treasury, like Lola or Pantoja. Would nearly all of them be canceled immediately?

R. Today they might be very cancelled. The reels by Lola Flores makes us snigger as a result of we see it previously, our mind assimilates it because the previous. But many issues, in the event that they had been stated immediately, could be judged in another way. We would cancel them for being smug, for advocating medicine or for selling poisonous love. The folkloristics had been very static, stereotypes, however there was a variety of reality in them. his lies. That’s the fantastic thing about them: there was a variety of reality of their artifice.