A Great Artist, and the Love of His Life

Born on this date: flamenco star Camarón de la Isla. As reported by T. Rivas:

"José Monge (or Monje) Cruz, known as Camarón de la Isla (1950-1992), was one of the greatest flamenco singers of the 20th century and he still has many followers today.

"What is less known about flamenco singer Camarón is that, in 1976, he married a gypsy girl, Dolores Montoya, whom he nicknamed La Chispa (The Spark). He had first met the girl about a decade before and he asked for her hand in marriage when she was only fourteen.

"Together they had four children. On a range of websites, La Chispa is mentioned as the love of his life and she is also mentioned as his viuda (widow).

"The Reportaje de TV del entierro de Camarón (TV report on Camarón's funeral)* consists of a video about Camarón, his funeral, and La Chispa. In it she says he 'was a very good person and a very good husband and artist.'

"According to other sites, the often deified Camarón turned out to be human after all, because he really smoked too much, which brought about the lung cancer he died from at a very young age. He also did some drugs. The most negative thing I read about him was that for some time he wanted to be a bullfighter, something which unfortunately is not all too uncommon in flamenco circles, for historical reasons.

"On a more neutral note, he could be quite capricious about expensive beautiful cars, while at the same time being callado (introverted) and raro (eccentric).

"I haven't found anything bad about his relationship with La Chispa (as such) though. I did find: 'La Chispa, que lo adoraba' (La Chispa who adored him).

La Chispa also used to visit (or still visits) his grave for years after his funeral. For four years she mourned for him ('ella estuvo cuatro años llorando') and she became so depressed that she did not eat enough. She simply did not know what to do without him and their children were being looked after by her father and sister. Dolores was saved from her depression when her children told her that if she stopped eating they would too.

"•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10wxc1Fou9g

See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdTwIWSfc5g. In this show we see Camarón, La Chispa and their children."

Unfortunately, Rivas' book Positive Memories, from which this account is taken -- and which also includes nearly two hundred other such happy "March/September" stories in all gender combinations, as recounted by the younger partner -- is no longer available from the IPCE site and soon will not be available from lulu.com either, because of worsening censorship laws in his home country of the Netherlands. But, for anyone who's interested, I'm in possession of a PDF copy.