Raphael: “I don't want to continue being that one. I have to upgrade”

“How is Julio Iglesias?

Do you know anything about him?” asks Raphael (Linares, 79 years old) just before starting this interview.

He is worried about who, according to the press and urban legend, has been his historical rival.

Without realizing it, or perhaps on purpose, he has just put an end to one of the most insistent rumors in the music industry of our country, that of his enmity with the other great world star of the song in Spanish.

That rumor was unleashed in 1988, when Raphael declared: "I find it very strange that a person who does not know how to vocalize has been able to take root in a nation where music is a queen."

The interpreter of

, who was conquering the United States at the time, replied: "I should just open my mouth to sing... I'm succeeding everywhere and he doesn't eat a cake."

Three decades later, Rafael Martos continues to accumulate

millionaire sales and

The artist is celebrating 60 years of career and almost 80 years of life with a tour of North America.

On November 24, he will begin a tour of Spain to promote his new album,

, number 84 in his career, written, arranged and produced by Pablo López.

For his part, Julio Iglesias, who is also going to turn 80, has been away from the stage for almost three years and nothing suggests that he will return to the spotlight.

Victory

(Virgin Music) is a very appropriate name for a self-made man's record.

The boy from Linares turned into a star who has sung in the best theaters in the world —from Carnegie Hall to the Olympia in Paris, including Madison Square Garden and the Fine Arts in Mexico—;

the son of a humble bricklayer who has fallen in love with several generations, but who only has eyes for his wife, the aristocrat Natalia Figueroa, with whom he has been married for 50 years.

The singer has beaten everyone, with 50 platinum and 335 gold albums behind him, and everything, including his death, since in 2003 he overcame hepatitis B thanks to a liver transplant.

“I see some people my age singing and it's unfortunate.

In my case, I have taken great care of myself and now I notice it.

It is the award for my perseverance”, he says in a rehearsal room of the Teatro Real,

before starting to describe his deprivation routine: he no longer drinks alcohol, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't go out at night and he gets up early every day to train his voice.

“The idea of ​​retiring makes me sick.

Naturally, one day I will have to leave, but that day is far away, ”he warns.

02:41

Raphael's Greatest Hits

Raphael not only has no plans to retire, but also aspires to conquer new audiences.

For that he commissioned Pablo López (Fuengirola, 38 years old), four decades younger than him, the task of writing and producing his latest album.

“The idea undoubtedly came from me.

I don't know how to compose, so I always have to take the initiative”, says the voice of Linares.

"It couldn't be any other way," adds López, who was born in 1984, shortly after Raphael won the uranium disc for over 50 million copies sold of his compilation album

.

He was the first Spaniard to reach that record.

Until then, only three artists had achieved it: AC/DC, for

, from 1980;

Queen, for his

, from 1981, and Michael Jackson, for

, from 1982. “The Raphael who gets on stage now is the same as he was 40 years ago, he doesn't have an ID.

You don't know what year he was born in or where he comes from.

I have never noticed the age difference.

I don't know if he should be proud of that or if I should be scared, ”Pablo López acknowledges jokingly.

“When we go to eat, we can spend hours talking,” he continues.

The complicity between the two is palpable in this room of the Teatro Real: they share jokes, they look at each other all the time, one finishes the other's sentences, one sits at the piano and the other begins to sing.

Raphael, who will be 80 years old in May 2023. Ximena and Sergio

Pablo López was born and raised with “raphaelite” music.

“It's a constant, a sound that's been in the air since I was zero years old,” he says.

Raphael, on the other hand, clearly remembers the first time he heard his new composer.

“It was six years ago.

I saw it on television and I thought: 'This guy has to make a record for me'.

It is the first time that he bets on someone so young to compose a work for him.

"I don't want to stay old," admits the interpreter of hits like

or

.

“That is one of the reasons why I looked for Pablo, a composer of today.

Someone else could have done it for me, but my instinct told me it had to be him, someone representative of these times.

I'm the one, we all know it, it's over.

I don't want to be that one anymore.

If I want people to keep coming to see me, I have to upgrade."

Victoria

is the first album that López composes for another artist.

“When he proposed it to me, I got so nervous that I only managed to tell him: 'Yes, but we do it at my house.'

It gave me a lot of vertigo, because I had to follow in the footsteps of two of the most important authors in our country”, he admits, referring to Manuel Alejandro (creator of hits like

,

,

and

) and José Luis Perales (who composed

,

,

and

, among other).

“It was a double responsibility: to make an entire album for Raphael and with the precedents that he has”.

For a year and a half, Raphael went to the composer's house, almost a rarity at a time when many singers do not meet in person or coincide in the studio with the authors of their albums.

The first time they met, they watched together the video of the legendary performance that Linares gave in Eurovision, in 1966. “I wanted to see that through his eyes.

I asked him what the place smelled like, how he got there.

I began to satisfy my curiosity about things that seem vain but are not.

Many stories of his childhood and anecdotes came from there”, says Pablo López.

The symbiosis was immediate.

“It was impossible to go out one afternoon without a song.

Raphael has the ability to appropriate songs at the speed of light."

"At no time have I noticed the age difference. I don't know if he should be proud of that or if I should be scared," says Pablo López. Ximena and Sergio

Victory

it is an album with a beginning, a development and an end.

Each song is like a chapter of a story.

The musical prologue is entitled 'From the beginning'.

“I imagined some lights going on and a hallway and Raphael going to his constant destination: the stage,” López explains.

The last song, the 11th, is called 'Onze' and is a duet between them.

"This album is a clear example of Raphael's constant ability to reinvent himself," says Narcís Rebollo, president of Universal Music for Spain and Portugal, in an email.

"Today, doing a project with these characteristics is very complex, knowing how to fit the talent of an artist and composer as personal as Pablo López and involving him in composing an unreleased and custom album for such an iconic artist," says Rebollo, who manages the careers of Alejandro Sanz or David Bisbal.

As they put music and lyrics to the album, Raphael and Pablo discovered that they have more things in common than they thought.

They both started singing when they were very young.

Rafael Martos started at the age of four in the choir of the church of San Antonio and, later, of Jesús de Medinaceli, in Madrid.

“I threw 10 years of my life there and took advantage of them.

Every day they wanted to kick me out because I didn't study, but they didn't because I was the star of the choir,” he recalls.

When he was nine years old, he traveled to Austria and won the prize for the best children's voice in Europe.

It was his transfer to Manuel Gordillo's singing academy, where Rocío Dúrcal and Manuel Alejandro also studied, the composer who has signed, along with Perales, most of his hits.

In late 1961, while still a minor, he began acting professionally.

One year later,

Going to his first audition with a record company, he had a revelation and changed the spelling of his name: the “f” became “ph”.

It was a marketing success, the first of many.

The rest is history: his triumph at the Benidorm Festival, his first tour of Spain, his signing with the Hispavox record label;

her first hit,

, and his participation in Eurovision in 1966, which launched him into the world.

Pablo López also started early in music, although in a more timid way.

He “he wanted to sing, but he didn't want to attract attention.

He wanted to get me on stage at school festivals, but he didn't want the public's eyes to be on me.

I never liked being the lead.

He makes me nervous.

Now I get along a little better, ”he admits with a laugh.

When he was five years old, he asked his mother for a piano.

Since there was no money for that, they gave him a Spanish guitar.

With eight he participated in the national contest

.

During that time, he began taking piano lessons at the El Ejido Conservatory of Music.

At 17 he was already making a living acting in hotels on the Costa del Sol and from there he went to London to work as a waiter in a pub.

At 24 he rose to fame on the television show

, in which he became a finalist, but had to wait another five years to sign his first record contract with the Universal label and publish his first solo single.

“I have never fully assimilated that there are so many people listening to my music.

I still haven't hugged fame so tight that I'm afraid to let it go.

I've been at this for 10 years and I continue to be amazed,” she notes.

Raphael is not afraid of losing his popularity either, he just takes the precaution of taking care of himself because, he says, he wants to last a long time.

“My great terror is that they tell me: 'Come on, get off the stage now'.

I want to decide that.

I don't want to die on stage, because it's unsightly, but I wouldn't mind going to the other neighborhood one day after a show, when the curtain goes down”.

They both have a recurring nightmare: losing their voices.

The first thing Raphael does every morning is to let out a treble to check that his vocal cords are okay.

They only seem to disagree on one thing: air conditioning.

“When I pick him up in the car to go eat, we always fight about it.

I upload it and he takes it down,” says López.

Raphael and López have been working for a year and a half on the composition of 'Victoria'. Ximena and Sergio

On the verge of turning 80 years old —on May 5th—, Rafael Martos is not willing to put the brakes on.

“It's a question that inevitably comes up from time to time.

More than putting the brakes on, it is dosing.

But nobody better than him knows how and when to do it.

He is in top shape, in every way, with wonderful present and future projects and with the public unconditionally by his side... It is very difficult to stop like this," says Manuel Martos, the singer's son, who has come to the photo session to accompany his father.

“His passion for music, for his profession, is difficult to see.

More than 60 years without stopping and continuing with that total love for what he does and always looking forward, thinking about what comes next, what's next... It's outrageous”, adds Martos, who is general director of Virgin Music Label & Artist Services in Spain.

Rosa Lagarrigue has been representing Raphael for almost 20 years.

She “she is aware of the passage of time, of age and that, if one day she doesn't feel good vocally, she won't give more concerts.

She is clear that the day she is not in shape, especially vocally, she will leave him.

That's why she takes great care of her voice.

The day before a concert she doesn't speak ”, explains the manager, who has also directed the careers of artists of the stature of Miguel Bosé and Alejandro Sanz.

“She is living a second golden age if we take her transplant as a turning point.

She has earned it because she is always updating herself, without ever losing her essence.

I don't think there is anyone like him.

On the world scene I can think of Mick Jagger, for example, who has had practically the same years of career.

Or in Cher, that she is still active, ”concludes the representative.

"It is,

A few weeks ago, Raphael and Pablo López sang together at the Billboard Latin Music Awards in Miami.

Raphael performed 'De tantan gente',

, and received a tribute to his six decades of experience.

"The prizes continue to matter to me, although it is increasingly difficult for them to be given to me because almost all of them have been given to me," he acknowledges.

The ceremony was dominated by the new stars of Latin trap and reggaeton.

Bad Bunny won the artist of the year award.

Rosalía, Farruko, Karol G and Rauw Alejandro were also awarded.

“Suddenly some strange music sounds… But who am I to say what is right and what is wrong.

I keep listening to the usual: Elvis Presley, Édith Piaf… ”, she says.

“I would like to be like those artists.

I do what I can".

“It hasn't gone so badly for you,” says López, laughing out loud.

Raphael finds it difficult to designate an heir.

"Today, singers are not like we used to be," he laments.

“I understand one hundred percent what you are saying,” López agrees.

“New artists lack belief in themselves.

Many are a product of marketing.

I don't want to say that the old was better, but it was different.

I don't know about the others, but I have always had decision-making power.

I have never asked permission for anything”, Raphael continues.

He is not very impressed by the success of Rosalía or C. Tangana, although he recognizes his worth.

“They don't do new flamenco, they do something else.

But they have more merit because they have created their own styles.

That's the hardest thing,” he adds.

On November 24, he will begin his Spanish tour to promote

.

She continues traveling as when she was 40 years old.

“I never received a reproach from my family.

I have had the immense luck of having a wonderful wife and children who have been able to understand my career.

At first they traveled with me, until one day Natalia told me: 'Look, you continue with your songs and I'll go home with the children.

We are waiting for you there, ”she recalls.

So it was.

His wife and his three children have always waited for him.

“Surely the biggest sacrifice has been not being able to dedicate all the time I would have wanted to his family.

But it is something that we have not noticed”, says Manuel Martos.

“We never felt his absence, no matter how long it was.

Surely it is something that he has felt and suffered a lot.

But my father was born for and to be an artist.

And that entails that sacrifice.

If not, he would surely have been immensely unhappy.

His secret is that he has not settled.

He is constantly looking for new horizons.”

Between so many tours and promotional interviews, Raphael still has time and desire to appear on television.

He is now participating in

, the Antena 3 talent contest. Pablo López is a jury along with Laura Pausini, Luis Fonsi and Antonio Orozco.

He says that this project has helped him realize that these and other artists love him.

“Isn't that wonderful?

Sixty years of career and now he realizes that we all admire him.

He is a legend!” exclaims Pablo López.

The idol is quick to correct him: “Don't call me a legend.

Call me Raphael."

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