El Canario de Colmenar
Who is El Canario de Colmenar?
Manuel Blanco Játiva, known artistically as El Canario de Colmenar, was born on 11 September 1899 in Colmenar de Oreja (Madrid). A payo from a very humble family, he grew up working the land from childhood, and it was during those farming days that he began to develop the powerful voice that would later carry him to the stage.
His professional career began around the age of twenty, when he decided to move from spontaneous singing to paid performances, quickly earning a name among Madrid’s flamenco audiences.
Career
Throughout the 1920s he appeared on various Madrid stages: the Parque del Turó in 1924, the Teatros Novedades and Pavón in 1925, the Fuencarral and the Monumental Cinema in 1926, where he also took part in a competition in 1927. In these performances he was accompanied by guitarists of the caliber of Luis Yance, Habichuela and Ramón Montoya. In 1928 he arrived at the café cantante El Tronio in Seville, where he was billed as “the pope of cante jondo,” and he also traveled to Latin America alongside Paco El Americano. Local tradition also records a challenge he issued to Niño de Marchena over which of the two had greater gifts for cante.
Palos and discography
He specialized above all in the malagueña breva, the palo on which he built his fame, though like any cantaor of his era he also mastered other styles of the traditional jondo repertoire. No records of any studio recordings by him have survived.
Legacy
More than for ambition of fame or money, he is remembered as a cantaor who, in words that have endured in his town, “was not born to sing for pay, but to live singing.” He died in his native Colmenar de Oreja on 20 October 1951, where he remains much loved and where his remains rest in the local cemetery.