Juan Carlos Calderón: the man who is unable to say no | Culture

Juan Carlos Calderón (1936-2012) was everything in melodic pop: composer, arranger, producer. He was a huge success, both in Spain and in Latin America; he marked an era in the years of plenty in the music business and he did not take well the withering away of that lavish industry. He declared that his great love was jazz, but, although that fondness filtered subtly into his work, he barely developed that vocation. Like Walt Whitman, he could affirm “I am immense and I contain multitudes.”

Everyone has their own Calderón. A right-wing bohemian. An elitist who claimed that the best whisky was branded DYC. A dictator who put himself entirely at the service of the artist of the moment. A very lively libido that fed a repertoire that was both romantic and erotic. A perfectionist who accepted deplorable commissions. The progenitor of a golden formula that he refused to modify.

The book Juan Carlos Calderon. Who are you? (Editorial Milenio) is the distillation of the doctoral thesis of musicologist Mar Norlander, carried out in complicity with the children of the protagonist, Jacobo and Teresa Calderón. Its scope is exhaustive: it even covers the soundtracks made for Pedro Masó and other filmmakers between 1966 and 1981, with extra attention to Carola by day, Carola by nightJaime de Armiñán’s frustrated attempt to sublimate Marisol’s life story in a tale of international intrigue. For Calderón, cinema is a license to experiment, taking advantage above all of the otherness inherent in horror films.

His first notable works position him as a skilled tailor for the emerging singer-songwriter scene: Serrat, Aute, Massiel, Alberto Bourbón and, later, Víctor Manuel and Ana Belén. By then, he had discovered the goldmine of vocal groups, exemplified by the formidable Mocedades (and their satellite pair, Sergio and Estíbaliz, plus the later reincarnation as El Consorcio). Disciplined people, who need compositions, arrangements, an orchestra conductor and producer. Roles that Juan Carlos Calderón gladly assumes, endowed with perfect pitch and a will to succeed.

Calderón’s flexibility allows him to compete with emerging stars (Miguel Bosé, Ricky Martin) and to provide content for Luis Miguel’s transition to adulthood, materialized in half a dozen albums. He is motivated to promote the complicated career of the “children of”, under the shadow of figures such as Lola Flores (Lolita), Enrique Guzmán (Alejandra Guzmán) or Dyango (Marcos Llunas).

One suspects that Calderón embraced all the assignments that fell to him. He puts effort into the so-called unearthedalbums that conjure up duets between current artists and some deceased ones: Nino Bravo, Cecilia, José Alfredo Jiménez. It is presented as a technical challenge, unrelated to moral or aesthetic questions. These are obvious shortcomings: for the David Bustamante special that TVE recorded in Santander in 2002, Calderón composed Cantabriasupposedly “to do something for my land”: a somewhat original salsa song (yes, the Spain of Triumph operation (I was that geeky).

Apart from the thorough musical analysis, Mar Norlander focuses on Calderón’s lyrics. Impossible loves are emphasized (from Secretary to The party is over) but the descriptions of passion, even sadomasochistic, also shine: remember Break me, kill meby the trio Trigo Limpio, later taken up by Siniestro Total in the key of Latin rockMarital conflicts are an inexhaustible vein: they, the singers, stage the most tortuous stories, generally related to infidelity.

For many creators, song festivals are radioactive territory. Sure of his powers, Juan Carlos Calderón accepts the risks and is lucky: the sumptuous It’s youdefended by Mocedades at Eurovision 1973, is his most universal creation. But he is becoming disenchanted. At Eurovision 1985 he plays with Paloma San Basilio and wonders if all countries have juries as crazy as TVE’s: twelve famous people, from Emilio Butragueño to Francisco Umbral, none of them particularly music lovers.

Twenty years later, he attacks the image of the country that Prado del Rey spreads. In a letter to the newspaper ABCasserts that “the popular music that is being made now is nothing more than vulgarity and a farce; we have gone from pseudo-flamenco, already so widely used during the dictatorship, to a caricature of Arab music. In other words, we are making music that is worse than in the post-war period.” The reason for his fury would certainly not be the most shameful thing sent by TVE: Witchcraftby Son de Sol, simply followed the pattern of Las Ketchup.

Although Calderón mastered digital technology, he preferred to work with large orchestras and the best basic instrumentalists, in first-class studios, until the end. But there were no longer any funds for such displays. That same year, 2005, he gave a lecture entitled My musical adventurewhere he revealed his tricks of the trade. Although incomplete, this confession is reproduced in the final pages of Mar Norlander’s book. Don’t miss it.