She came out on stage all dressed in black, with a silver maxi belt shining around her waist. A stylized image of a 70 year old woman. Brown hair moving. And he said: “Long time no see, huh? I have missed you a lot… But we are here again, stronger than ever, with more desire than ever and with more love than ever. And I am loving you madly and I will continue to love you madly.” He was on the stage for 12 minutes. He sang, and above all danced, three songs: Asingara, I don’t want to think anymore y I’m loving you madly.
Carmela Muñoz, survivor of the sister duo Las Grecas, reappeared last night, after 25 years, at the Pilar Miró Cultural Center in the Madrid neighborhood of Vallecas in the Miradas Flamenkas cycle (until December 8). The festival celebrates its fifth edition, paying tribute to Las Grecas in the half century since their first album, a howitzer called Gipsy Rock (1974). “My voice doesn’t come out, my voice doesn’t come out,” said Carmela, nervous, in the dressing room before her brief performance before a packed house, 200 people. But when he stepped on stage the voice responded, sometimes tremulous, other times with force. Carmela was emboldened by the family warmth. His presence was the final act of an hour and a quarter of a show where his two sons performed, who are the flamenco percussionist Julio and the urban music singer El Greco; and his nephews, all singers, Salvador, Tamara and Tania. These last two, two of the five daughters of the other part of Las Grecas, Tina Muñoz, who died in 1995 at the age of 38 after years of mental health and drug problems.
Five decades ago I’m loving you madly, that song performed with flamenco self-confidence by two little gypsy sisters and driven by rock fury of electric guitars and thumping drums. A song that animated the revels of a Spain that lived with hope the death rattles of the dictator, a composition that inspired no less than Between two waters, Paco de Lucía’s most popular piece.
The first Las Grecas album was celebrated last night, Gipsy Rockan album that even heard today moves the listener. The Sevillians Smash paved the way for the fusion of rock and flamenco, but what happened with these two girls raised in the Madrid neighborhood of San Blas exceeded expectations. Carmela was 20 years old when the album, Tina 17, was released. The record company considered it a success to sell, in 1973, 10,000 units of the single. I’m loving you madly (con Amma Immi on side B) and reached 500,000 copies. The song, which raises spirits at fairs and meetings, was integrated into a robust rock album with flamenco voices, Gipsy Rock (1974). Producer José Luis de Carlos, a rock fan who had been at the 1969 Woodstock Festival and amazed (who wasn’t there) with Jimi Hendrix, played a key role in its development. That was their goal: to create a psychedelic hard rock album with Hendrixian guitars to accompany the sisters’ rumbero audacity. Triana had not yet debuted (The Courtyard was published in 1975) and for the premiere of Leño, with some donkey guitars probably inspired by Gipsy Rock, even more was missing (1978/79). Topics like I’m loving you madly, Pride, Achilipú o Bella Kali, contents in Gipsy Rock, They sounded perpetually in a Spain that was beginning to see the deceptive party of the Transition just around the corner.
The gypsy sisters Carmela and Tina Muñoz had listened to flamenco since they were children, since their father was a great fan and would start singing when the meetings got heated. The family traveled from Valladolid to Madrid (Tina was already born in the capital) and settled in the outskirts, the San Blas neighborhood. In the mid-sixties, with the sisters about to enter adolescence, they moved to Argentina in search of better job opportunities for their father, who worked as an upholsterer. Upon returning to Madrid, Carmela and Tina, convinced of their potential as a musical duo (“look how well they sing, the girls are artists,” they listen to at family parties), “they filled themselves with paint to appear older” and They came forward to ask for an opportunity against Manolo Caracol at the tablao he ran, Los Canasteros. The singer auditioned them and hired them.
Months later, El Pesacaílla and Lola Flores upped the ante: they tripled their salary if they sang at their venue, Caripén. “They were two gypsy girls, flamenco, beautiful and with a lot of style. That mix was a scandal. And on top of that they exhibited a great personality on stage. The word spread and that’s where it all started,” Emmanuel Losada Muñoz comments by phone before the Vallecas concert. El Greco, 30 years old, son of Carmela and musician. In these tablaos they were discovered by Camarón de la Isla and Paco de Lucía. Also the producer José Luis de Carlos, who called his musician friend Felipe Campuzano and they began to put together Gipsy Rock for the most powerful record company of the moment, CBS.
They were modern, cheeky and also an aesthetic reference, with their satin shirts tied at the waist and showing their navel. They represented, in short, freedom, in this case from the female perspective. But Carmena and Tina’s career with Las Grecas was brief, just six years, from 1973 to 1979. In 1980, the champions of modernity dictated that their music was out of fashion. They released four albums, with disparate qualities, and their lives derailed down the slope of misfortune. Carmela’s son, Emmanuel, tells it: “They were tricked and that’s why they didn’t last long. They were very young and they were taken advantage of. It was the time it was, and they were surrounded by wolves. And then my aunt’s illness came, which made everything worse.” Tina, indeed, lived the last years of her life immersed in misfortunes caused by schizophrenia and substance abuse. He lived on the street and died (“of AIDS”, as his daughter Saray confessed to this newspaper in 2017) in a shelter in Aranjuez (Madrid). Carmela, strapped for money, tried to revive Las Grecas with other groups, but it didn’t work and she stopped trying in 1999. “I see her with great enthusiasm, and on top of that she sings that you die. I hope he resumes his career,” his son says today.
The idea for last night’s show at Miradas Flamenkas began to take shape, according to Tania Muñoz (Tina’s daughter), 43, when she showed up at the musical talent space. Factor X last May. “Since my appearance on the program, the figure of Las Grecas was put on everyone’s lips again, and from there we moved forward until the festival proposal arrived,” he comments to this newspaper. Tania’s case portrays the eventful last stage of the life of her mother, Tina. Tania was put up for adoption with one of her sisters when she was four years old. It was not until she was 36 years old that she learned that she was the daughter of one of Las Grecas. “In 2017 my sister was going to get married and we had to request the birth certificate. It was when we started investigating and found out that our mother was Tina,” says Tania Muñoz (or Marta Hidalgo until 2017), who works as a portrait painter, but also has “some gigs” as a singer. “My mother had the heartbreaking voice, the passion and the strength. And my aunt Carmela’s sensitivity. It was a perfect combo. Since I am also a singer, I see that they defended very high tones. Within the world of pop they could be compared to Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey,” explains Tania. In 2019, Rosalía discovered the duo to new generations by performing I’m loving you madly in high-profile festivals such as the American Coachella or the Argentine edition of Lollapalooza.
Last night’s small recital by Carmela Muñoz ended with an improvisation of clapping and singing with her in the center remembering her characteristic dances when in the seventies the duo provoked the admiration and sympathy of thousands of people. As he left to applause on one side of the stage, a shout was heard above the applause: “Long live gypsy wisdom.”
