Maria Fernandez Granados She was born in Utrera in 1922, and from a very young age she showed the incredible talent she had as a flamenco singer. The bitch, as it is known in the world, led gypsy art and flamenco as a flag throughout his life although, for different reasons, he did not dedicate himself to it professionally.
In the Descartes of history This week, Silvia Cruz Lapeña focuses on the life of this artist so little known outside the world of flamenco and whose name has not transpired, but who played a pivotal role as an artist and as part of a talented family.
Listen Descartes | María Fernández, La Perrata: The hidden voice of flamenco in Play SER
To deepen and shed light on the history of the Sevillian cantaora, we have had the participation of someone who knew her very well: his grandson, the pianist Dorantes, with whom he had a very special relationship: “My grandmother was a person with the truth in her mouth while she sang, something that is extremely difficult. That backpack full of experiences and gypsy culture that she carried on her back helped her,” she says.
Dorantes affirms that, despite the time that he was, her grandfather was never an impediment in La Perrata’s career, but for her flamenco was her escape valve: “She was capable of enduring the cante, of letting it travel that distance between her entrails and her throat … She waited until that cante arrived”recalls the pianist. In addition, his grandson has not missed the opportunity to highlight the relationship that La Perrata had with his children, among which stands out The Lebrijano, Without whom the recent history of flamenco cannot be understood and who made his work a revival of gypsies and their culture. It was her children, precisely, who insisted that María record her music to maintain that legacy.
“My grandmother listened to everything from the Rolling to Pavarotti, she was never scared when I told her I was going to be a pianist,” recalls Dortadores. “She would go into the studio where I was, fixed her bun with hairpins and played some bars with me on the piano”.
The life of María La Perrata has been the last of the stories rescued by Silvia Cruz, editor-in-chief and journalist at Vanity Fair, in this Descartes season, those women who did not appear in the history books and who remained in the margins.
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