The Festival Internacional del Cante de las Minas has recognised the more than 40 years of extensive career of Carmen Linares with a new award that reinforces her link with La Unión.
Carmen Linares cantaora
To have more than 40 years in an art form such as flamenco is only for the big names. One such name is embodied by a woman whose voice is pure whine. In addition to his numerous awards and prizes, the Festival Internacional del Cante de las Minas has just awarded him a Gold Plaque.
“I have been fighting for flamenco for a long time, trying to take it to the highest level, and for you to have recognised it in this way is a great honour for me”, said the singer. And he dedicated a few words to the Festival, with the wish that “it will continue to open the way for artists so that the cante de las minas will never go away and will always be with us”.
New live recorded album
It was the journalist Juan Ramón Lucas who interviewed him on the occasion of the awarding of the Gold Plaque. Thus began a fluent conversation that reviewed flamenco and the more than 40 years that Carmen Linares has spent in this art form.
They began by talking about mestizaje, about how to mark evolution with a deep knowledge of flamenco. “I have a lot of respect for artists who want to stay at the roots, because they can’t let go because of the risk of going off the rails, but it is also necessary for artists to search and find themselves with a deep knowledge and love”, the cantaora said.
Recital by Carmen Linares at ALL FLAMENCO
He recalled his first appearance at the Festival in 1976 when he won a prize for performing a soleá, and alluded to the recent Princess of Asturias Award. It is “an important recognition of our career, but also of flamenco. The fact that three flamenco artists already have it means that a path has been opened, and that is very exciting”, he explained.
There was a sound preview of their new album, a work that will be released on CD and vinyl recorded live, “where things come up that don’t come out in the studio”. Whether in the studio or on stage, what Carmen always tries to do is to give what’s inside her and let people feel it. “When you manage to connect with the audience, you can feel it and if they are moved, you have fulfilled your mission, because that is what an artist wants,” he said.
Carmen Linares: “You need sensitivity to listen to flamenco”.
He emphasized the need to put soul and knowledge into flamenco and to make it sound from within as something of its own, in a genre that has “a lot of fatigue and also a lot of joy”. In the end, it shows “all that life is”. The lyrics of great poets such as Miguel Hernández or Juan Ramón Jiménez are also sung, with whose incorporation “flamenco is a winner”. “If poets would listen to what we do now out of respect for their work, they would be very happy,” he said. A world opened to him by the maestro Morente at the Café de Chinitas.
Carmen Linares gave a recipe almost without looking for it: to be able to listen to flamenco you have to “have sensitivity so that it touches your heart”.