Vigüela’s special sound

Vigüela was born in the mid-80s, like many other groups of young people who, after the Franco regime, sought in the popular manifestations of their land a way to channel their creative desires, without having to adopt musical styles that were alien to them.

However, Vigüela always sounded different. Why? Surely, the anecdote that Juan Antonio Torres explains in the booklet of the album A Tiempo Real will help us glimpse that why:

“When I was about 20, I went to Menasalbas (picture below), Toledo province, to visit Tía Chata, a great jota singer. I had brought my guitar and began to play but the lady didn’t sing… After some attempts, she said: ‘Dear boy, you don’t know how to play the jota. Wait until my husband comes from work, he will show you.’

When her husband arrived at dusk, he took my guitar, used a pencil tied with twine for a capo, set it on the first fret and began to play. His right hand played a rhythm, I didn’t know. It was the accompaniment Tía Chata needed to sing jota and that I was not providing to her. That way of playing seemed to be easy but, when I tried to make it for her to sing, I was unable. She had showed me that I didn’t know how to play jota even though I thought I did, from songbooks.”

For Juan Antonio this marked the beginning of a search for ways to perform like Tía Chata’s and earlier generations. He also encountered young people who could play jota ‘Tía Chata’s way’, which is necessary to convey the huge emotional messages of the songs. A musical legacy that does not need romantic or ethnographic justifications to be valued.