Videos, phrases, songs of the artist are reviewed over and over again. The desperate cry of her “If you want me, go away» is already part of the Spanish popular heritage; decorates t-shirts and mugs for sale inside and outside Spain, and there are those who even have the face of the Jerez woman tattooed somewhere on their bodies.
In January 2021, 25 years after his death, the Cruzcampo beer brand launched an advertising campaign starring a deepfake of Lola who put her back on the screens. “Do you know why the whole world understood me? because of the accent.”
I am Lola gentlemen
La Lola, what are you waiting for?
With a suit or bata de cola
I am Lola gentlemen
From Jerez de la Frontera
And it’s my gypsy head
my arms two monuments
And in the fringes of the shawl
I take enreao
a sigh of passion
Some of the most prominent appearances of La Faraona on television are used in content that circulates daily on social networks. Lola Flores, is even considered a precursor of the crowdfunding, for the solution he proposed to deal with his debt to the treasury: “If each Spaniard gave one peseta.”
Lola Flores we can like it or not. We can try to keep distance with that intensity that she, as one of the most famous folklore, puts into her art; and, nevertheless, it will be impossible not to recognize that María Dolores Flores Ruiz turned Lola Flores, a century ago, into one of the most relevant and interesting personalities in Spain and the Spanish-speaking world.
Lola in the sentimental memory of Spain
The famous Barcelona writer Terenci Moix and the professor Alberto Romero Ferrer, among other important researchers and essayists, maintain that Lola Flores was one of those exceptional cases where, in addition to music, flamenco and copla, a very significant part of history and the sentimental memory of post-war Spain and the theater and cinema of the forties, fifties and sixties.
The artist satisfies a whole system of emotions, images, voices and sounds that, thanks to the scene, the radio, the vinyl, the big screen and the media repercussion of the character, will help to build a certain and unequivocal imagery and a certain self-iconography. of identity about Spain and the Spaniards with a notable presence in the most diverse spheres, including the most domestic spheres.
Over the years, Lola Flores «would become an extraordinary reference of the time, a contradictory icon of postmodernism –Lola Nacional, Lola de España–, as some of our postmodernists were able to portray, who always knew how to see the qualities of the copla. and its interpreters, beyond its ironclad and self-interested appropriation by the Franco regime, with special attention to our flamenco from Jerez”, highlights professor Romero Ferrer in his essay Lola Flores. Popular culture, sentimental memory and history of the showawarded the Manuel Alvar Prize for Humanistic Studies 2016.
Pemán has said about me
whirlwind of colors
There is not a flower in the world
let the wind move better
What moves Lola Flores
And in case you didn’t know
I tell you sir
Come on, come on that applause right away
How happy my heart
I, I am Lola, my soul.
In addition, he points out: «Given her social and cultural protagonism, (Lola) became an effective interlocutor of this 20th century time line, in a sequence always capable of adapting to change – like most of the Spaniards of her generation –, without for that reason abandoning its exceptionality and truth in the world of art and entertainment.»
Lola and Celia
Lola’s proximity to Cuba has been the subject of various articles published in books and magazines. When in 2005 her eldest daughter Lolita appeared on the island, she highlighted that link between La Faraona and Havana. Here, in addition to rubbing shoulders with the creme de la creme of the Cuban show business, Lola had an affair with a pimp allegedly named Jorge Leme (or Lesmes). In the four-episode documentary series Lola, produced by Movistar+ in 2021, the story of that turbulent affaire between the gypsy and the Cuban.
«He was very handsome with his white guayabera. Without exaggerating anything, just like Marlon Brando. I was in love with him because she was a beauty, but he came like dizzy. I knew that cocaine existed, but I didn’t know about marijuana. He gave me two “puffs” and I felt like Marilyn Monroe. We go to the pool and I see a stab wound from the neck down to the bottom of the back and I stay dead, “she said.
As far as New York, they say, this Jorge traveled in search of Lola, threatening her with death for continuing with that romance that, logically, did not come to fruition.
What did last was the friendship between the interpreters of “Limosna de amores” and “Yerbero moderno”, respectively. The origin of that endearing affection and mutual respect can be found in the Spanish woman’s first trip to Havana in 1952, says Omer Pardillo Cid, executor of Celia’s legacy and president of the Celia Cruz Foundation.
A friendship for life
Lola’s debut in Cuba took place on August 4 of that year at the Teatro América, accompanied by bailaor Francisco Manzano Heredia «Faíco», guitarist Paco Aguilera, her sister, also bailaora Carmen Flores and the backing of the Cosmopolitan Orchestra. .
“Since then a friendship arose that would last a lifetime. When Celia began to visit Madrid frequently in the 1970s, Lola was always the one responsible for the Spaniards getting to know her. The best reference is to see the tribute to Lola in 1990 that is on YouTube when Celia speaks to her at the end of her presentation, “explains Pardillo Cid to OnCuba.
Centenary of LOLA FLORES unique and unrepeatable She will live ALWAYS pic.twitter.com/MuUb2tbNYD
—Celia Cruz (@CeliaCruz) January 18, 2023
Certainly Lola Flores was key in the promotion and dissemination of our Queen, although it should be noted that since 1956 the privileged voice of Celia Cruz was already heard in Europe. The researcher Rosa Marquetti in the book «Celia in Cuba (1925-1962)» quotes a report from the Cuban magazine Radiomania and Television in its April 1955 issue:
“The records of the popular Cuban singer Celia Cruz have obtained the favor of the public in Rome and other European cities, since they are in great demand by record vending houses.”
During those years in Spain, explains Marquetti, the radio broadcast his recordings with La Sonora Matancera and this is evidenced by the billboards inserted by the main newspapers such as The Spanish Vanguard and short programs with recordings by Celia and La Sonora Matancera on Radio Nacional de España.
In the video to which Omer Pardillo refers, Celia publicly thanks La Faraona for her tireless interest in promoting and helping different Cuban artists. Praise to which is added the great bolero singer Olga Guillot.
Burundanga and the stars
In front of thousands of attendees at the famous tribute that was offered to Lola in the city of Miami in 1990 and in which Julio Iglesias, Rocío Jurado, José Luis Rodríguez “El Puma” participated, among others, an emotional Celia recalls how Lola once After finishing his performances at the downtown Caripen restaurant in Madrid, he would go to the “Nueva Romana” night club where the guarachera would perform with the firm purpose of publicizing the value of Cuban artists.
As a record of that Iberian and Antillean fire, we have the recording of “Burundanga”, which Celia became a success from its first recording on June 15, 1953 and covered by both stars with more contemporary sounds at the suggestion of Tony Muñoz, then president of Sony Discs.
Many years later, the song by Oscar Muñoz Bouffartique plus the attractive personalities of Celia and Lola would serve the playwright Luis Enrique Valdés to write the play “Burundanga” which was staged by the Matanzas group Las Estaciones directed by the playwright and National Theater Award winner. 2020 Rubén Darío Salazar with designs by Zenén Calero and choreography by Liliam Padrón.
When Lola Flores physically disappeared in 1995, “her Cuban sister” could not come to Madrid to say goodbye to her. A schedule of shows that cannot be postponed all over the world prevent Celia from being by the side of family and friends of the Gypsy Queen.
On May 16 from Los Angeles, Celia sends her condolences:
«Dear Antonio, Lolita, Antonio Jr., Rosarito, Carmen and the entire Flores family: Pedro and I are sincerely affected by the disappearance of our beloved Lola, for this reason we join your pain and the pain of all of Spain and the class world artistic. May God welcome our Pharaoh into his bosom ».
«They were very sad days and as soon as he was able to travel to Spain he went to the Almudena cemetery and there paid homage to him in his mausoleum. Whenever she was in Madrid, Celia would come to the cemetery, which shows that Lola remained the bottom of her soul », recalls Pardillo Cid.
The most universal Cuban woman managed to live until 2003. During that time she recorded the song “Canto a Lola Flores” (Ángel “Cucco” Peña/ Guadalupe García García) for the album “Mi vida es cantar” (1999) and covered it together with Lolita Flores the classic “Ay pena, penita, pena” (Quintero, León and Quiroga) with arrangements by Alain Pérez for the album “Regalo del alma” (2003). Weeks before her death and during the tribute of the Telemundo Rosario network, the smallest of the Flores clan, she would interpret the well-known “Burundanga” in front of La Reina.
The world got to know the culture of Spain and Cuba largely thanks to the talent of these women. The two, with a very particular way of seeing life, defended the musical essence of each nation to the end. Celia was a worthy representative of son, of rumba… Lola raised the flag of flamenco, of cante. None was born in a golden cradle. They chiseled their careers, albeit in different ways.
Lola’s centenary is joined this year by the twentieth anniversary of Celia’s death. Omer Pardillo tells us that a live album is planned to be released and the autobiography will be reissued on July 16 Celia. My life by Ana Cristina Reymundo, which will include new photos and an account of her legacy in recent years.
A century after her birth, we talk about Lola in the present, like Celia. They have not gone. They remain and influence the girls who, like them, were born with an “elf” and defend their “accent”; those who are currently working to achieve their goals.
Lola is also Spain, as Celia is Cuba.
