Enrique Morente
| Enrique Morente | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Enrique Morente Cotelo |
| Born |
25 December 1942 Granada, Spain |
| Died | 13 December 2010 (aged 67) Madrid, Spain |
| Genres | Flamenco |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter |
| Years active | 1960s–2010 |
| Website | http://www.enriquemorente.com |
Enrique Morente Cotelo (25 December 1942 – 13 December 2010), known as Enrique Morente, was a flamenco singer and a controversial figure within the world of contemporary flamenco. After his orthodox beginnings, he plunged into experimentalism, writing new melodies for cante (flamenco singing) and jamming with musicians of all styles, without renouncing his roots in traditional flamenco singing, which he kept on cultivating. In spite of severe criticism from the most "purist" amongst the critics and public, he was perhaps the most influential contemporary flamenco singer, who not only innovated, but it could also be said that he created tradition: some of his cantes have been performed by other singers such as Camarón de la Isla, Mayte Martín, Carmen Linares, Miguel Poveda, Segundo Falcón and Arcángel. He also is the father of flamenco singer Estrella Morente.
Enrique Morente, born in the traditional quarter of Albaicín in Granada, started to sing as a seise (a member of a group of children who sing, dance and play castanets on certain religious festivals). He started to feel attracted to flamenco singing as a child, and had the opportunity to learn at family gatherings and to listen to established figures from Granada like Cobitos, the family of the "Habichuelas", or Aurelio Sellés (Aurelio de Cádiz):
"The cante begins inside you when you listen to the villager’s singing, to people in their birthplace. Groups of people that meet in a tavern and start singing, and then you listen to them and start singing as well: you learn that at family parties where everybody sings and everybody drinks, and everybody dances and... Apart from that, it turns out that, of course, you need a technique, you need a school, you need to learn. In order to achieve this, what you need... the main help you can get is to have a liking for it; and then the skill to know who to learn from, and from what sources, where to find the good. Then you are on."
However, this appreciation for the popular side of flamenco does not mean that he considers flamenco as just "an art of the people". A flamenco artist, for him, needs technique and dedication:
"It is us, the professional artists of flamenco, who have to make cante flamenco, and nobody else, Flamenco, like any other art, is an art of professionals, although there are many people who peer at us, with a look as if to say: What interesting little creatures! or maybe: Oh! What music the people are playing! and so on. And people often think that maybe you have to have fingers swollen from picking potatoes to be able to play the guitar with feeling. Look, picking potatoes is every bit as worthy as playing a guitar. But I can tell you that a man -with fine, sensitive fingers is not going to be able to make a go of picking potatoes: and I can also tell you that a man with fingers swollen from picking potatoes is not going to be able to play a guitar because he hasn't got the manual dexterity and he hasn't got the dedication. This is a profession like any other which you have to dedicate yourself to completely. It is an art of professionals."
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Wikipedia