Carmen was one of the most unusual and original outfits to emerge from the original progressive movement in the early 1970s. Hailing from America but based in the UK while singing songs about Spain, Carmen concocted their own brand of progressive rock by infusing it with flamenco traits, including footwork. Though still not widely known, they have received plaudits from the likes of Rolling Stone Magazine and Mikael Åkerfeldt.
Basil Francis was in touch with two members of Carmen – band leader, guitarist and vocalist David Clark Allen and dancer and vocalist Roberto Amaral – to understand more about the band’s history. Without further ado, here’s what transpired:
Basil Francis: Thank you for speaking to The Progressive Aspect. How did you two meet each other originally?
Roberto Amaral: From what I can remember, I was dancing at the El Cid, doing traditional flamenco and David’s parents, Marga and Clark owned the El Cid at the time. It was 1966 or ‘67 and I was in my late teens and that’s when I met David and Angela for the first time. But we didn’t connect again until I joined the band in December of 1971.
David Clark Allen: I had put the band together and I had one dancer before Roberto came. I was making this up as I went along and really didn’t know what was going to work or not. I just knew that my previous dancer didn’t sing. He didn’t play an instrument. All he did was dance. So it meant that the dancing remained separate from the band. They were like an add-on and I didn’t want that. I wanted it to be all one thing so that when the dancing happened, it came from people that the audience wasn’t expecting, because they had been playing instruments, they’d been singing and then all of a sudden, boom, they’re out from their instruments and they do this amazing dance. That was the idea.
My mother said, “Remember Roberto? I’m going to talk to his mom because I’m friends with her and see if she can find out where he is and if he’d be interested.” And that’s how the second coming together of Roberto and me happened.
Basil Francis: I know what you mean about the audience being surprised because it happened to me when I watched a video of you playing. I had been listening to Carmen for a couple of weeks and decided to look up the group on YouTube. I was totally unprepared for what I saw: you’re wearing very glamorous outfits, the hat and then suddenly the flamenco dancing comes and I’m just like, “What is going on?” I’ve never seen anything like that before and it made Carmen stand out immediately.
I wanted to hear more about both of your backgrounds in flamenco music.
David Clark Allen: It’s a wonderful kind of Hollywood tale with me. My parents weren’t professional flamencos when they met, but they went to Europe together. My dad had been funded as a painter – he was a fine artist. So they went there and he was studying painting and my mom was a dancer, but not specifically flamenco or anything like that.
When they got there, they met some gypsies on the street from Spain who called out to my mom and said, “Ah, we recognize you, you’re a gypsy too!”
And she said, “No, I’m Mexican.”
And they said, “Ah, we don’t believe you.” But they gave them an invitation to come visit them in Granada in the caves where they live which are now a tourist attraction and no one lives there. But at the time – this was not long after World War II – they were still occupied by gypsies. And my parents thought, “Oh, what fun, let’s do it.” So they went and they ended up learning a certain amount of flamenco, both of them. And my dad painted portraits of them in return as a favour. That’s how the flamenco started.
Then, because they were good-looking, they got a lot of work in France, in Paris. And then they got pregnant with me and came back to America.
Then when I was a very little kid, I picked up my dad’s guitar and they heard me playing, which they said was hilarious because I was really just holding the neck and playing it there because I was so small. I said, “I want to play guitar, I want to play guitar!” So they started teaching me, and then eventually I obviously really meant it.
I have very little, if no memory of this, other than what they say. I was in their shows from the time I was four, playing little solos and things like that, that my father had taught. But, you know, I never lived in Spain, I didn’t live in the caves, I wasn’t flamenco. I just was taught and that’s all I did. So my flamenco comes from that, and I say it’s Hollywood in that when we started it was just made up to a certain degree. It wasn’t, but it was, you know, because I didn’t live there. I didn’t come from there. I lived a middle-class life, but all I did was play flamenco. And I did it professionally, but it was kind of a strange thing, you know.
Basil Francis: What fascinated me about Carmen initially was that it was a group of Americans playing a Spanish genre in the UK I couldn’t understand how this came to be, but finally, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.
David Clark Allen: I am half Mexican and a lot of Mexicans take flamenco up because to be Mexican means you’re part Spanish and part something else, be it Aztec or whatever. So, you know, I have the Latin. Also, at that time, it wasn’t a good thing to be Mexican in Southern California. So I was told never to speak Spanish. From the time I went to school, I spoke fluent Spanish, but then I had to quit when I was about four or five. People didn’t know, so it really started getting weird for me. As a result, Roberto has more Spanish than me.
Basil Francis: I wanted to hear about Roberto’s history in flamenco music too.
Roberto Amaral: Well, my background is not as colourful as that. Neither of my parents were flamencos, but my father was a musician and a songwriter and band leader back in the 40s and 50s, actually as far back as the 30s. He was from Brazil, from São Paulo, and so I think I got my musical abilities and talents from him. My mother was not involved in any way in dance or music. I grew up in East Los Angeles in an area known as the Barrio which was predominantly Mexican-American. My mother was Mexican and my father was Brazilian, so I grew up listening to all kinds of music as a kid, mainly pop and R&B because that’s the kind of music that was being played in the neighbourhood and in and the schools I went to. But I didn’t get involved in flamenco until the age of 15. Just by accident, I went to a local park and saw a group performing classical Spanish dances and a little bit of flamenco, and also the folkloric dances of Mexico. So it was a mixed bag of dance styles and I decided that I wanted to start studying dance.
I had never really trained as a dancer as a child. I had always been pretty much geared to becoming an artist throughout my elementary, junior high school, high school and later college years. I trained as a fine artist so painting was a big part of my life growing up, but once I started dancing flamenco and studying flamenco in East Los Angeles, the bug bit me and I became mesmerised by the art form and I wanted to learn more about it and continue studying it as much as I could.
Eventually, I turned professional at the age of 17 and went to Spain. I danced with several companies. Dance wasn’t in the plan for me but it took over and in 1971 I was in Spain dancing with a company when I got a phone call from my mom saying that she had spoken to David’s mom Marga and that there was this opportunity for me to join this group and so I came home for Christmas vacation from Spain. I was on hiatus with the company that I was working with and I joined the band and never went back to Spain until the band broke up in 1975. That’s when I returned to the grid and continued my dance career, my flamenco career from there on. So it was a very quick introduction to flamenco that just snowballed and became professional within a couple of years. And then, once I joined the band, music was my life for the next five years.
Basil Francis: Amazing. I think I can also feel myself becoming mesmerised by the art form. You know, I never would have thought I’d get into flamenco music, but Carmen has become an entry point for me, and I’m sure for other prog fans too.
David, since you’re the one who spearheaded the group’s direction, what made you consider fusing flamenco with rock or prog?
David Clark Allen: Until I was 12, my career had been mapped out for me by my parents. They had the connections and everything. I was supposed to be a classical Spanish flamenco soloist. They were just waiting for me to give the word and they would pull the trigger and I’d be touring around the States. But by the time I was 12, I completely lost interest in pure flamenco or classical. I was listening to Beach Boys, and then I got into the Beatles and I loved the harmony. They were my introduction to harmony.
So, I got lucky. I made some demo takes with a little band I put together, and it worked. We got signed and I got a manager and all of that. And that lasted until I was about 18. Then the manager decided to leave music, turned to video instead, and became a successful video maker. In fact, he became very well known.
So then, I was like, “Oh, is it all over? What do I do now?” Because it had been very focused and although my melodies and things always had a Latin quality to them, they’d been pop. I’d been working in pop. It was the time of Yes and all those bands and I loved that. I was listening to that and I thought, ”Okay, if I’m going to put something together again from scratch, it’s got to be something that I can do well and combine with all these years I’ve had with some really good mentors, teaching about pop and recording.”
The only thing I could think of that I knew that other pop people didn’t know was the flamenco. It was as simple as that. I thought, “Okay, I’m going to combine that with pop because I really know pop. But I also really know flamenco and I think I know how to put them together. And I think it’ll work.” It literally started like that.
Then there were lots of versions of Carmen. Some had seven members and I think even eight at one point. And then it finally worked itself back down. But Carmen only really started to get going because of Roberto and because of John, our bass player. Everyone in the band contributed something and made it what it was. It ended up not being what I started with, which was very good but was much more kind of influenced by the New York Dolls and that sort of thing. We had more three-minute songs or four-minute songs right at the beginning.
Basil Francis: So the earlier songs in your repertoire would have been completely different to what we hear on the first album?
David Clark Allen: For example, with Bulerias, there was a version of it we were doing years before. But it was a much rougher, rawer, simpler thing. It slowly developed as it went along, and actually, as we got better musicians that were capable of doing more things, we would incorporate that. Our first drummer was wonderful, but he had a simple style of playing and what he did was very rock-oriented. With Paul, although he came from rock and pop, he was able to work himself up to where he really understood the flamenco rhythms and was able to be really complex while still being powerful.
Basil Francis: I was surprised when I looked into Paul Fenton’s background. He didn’t seem to have a prog pedigree but all the same he was able to do some incredible rhythms. As a drummer, I’ve been trying to learn some of your songs and they are deceptively complex.
David Clark Allen: Oh, completely. But then we were kind of crazy! I also kept us all rehearsing a lot when we came over to England because I didn’t know if I was going to be able to get us a record deal. The one thing I could do was to keep rehearsing a lot so that if we did get a shot, we would blow them away. It would also keep the energy going so that we wouldn’t get discouraged. All of us improved incredibly, technically.
Roberto Amaral: In a very short period of time, I must say.
David Clark Allen: It was about seven, eight-hour days of rehearsals and then we’d take two or three hours and just do our harmonies with me on acoustic guitar. Then Roberto would choreograph and work with my sister, and that would be a separate thing. Then we’d do it all together. And then Paul was often just practising with a metronome, doing 12/8 rhythms, hours into the night, by himself. We all lived together in this house up in High Wycombe and he soundproofed his room.
Basil Francis: It seemed ironic to me that a decade earlier the Beatles made their big breakthrough by going across the Atlantic to the States and you made your own breakthrough by going the other way.
David Clark Allen: Well, nobody wanted to sign us in the States. We had a really good manager who was very connected and knew everyone from Ahmet Ertegun to Clive Davis. All the biggies came and saw us at the El Cid and they all thought the show was magnificent. But they also didn’t believe it would record or that people would be interested in what they heard when it was recorded. And they told us to go to Vegas.
Back then, that was like, that was a curse. That was equivalent to selling your soul and becoming meaningless, so we didn’t do that.
Roberto Amaral: At the point that we became known as Carmen, we were pared down from eight musicians to the final five. Well, not the final five because we still had a drummer, John’s brother, Brian Glascock. At the time, I think it was the last job he did with us or the last major job he did with us. We had a manager who didn’t know what to do with us, but he managed soul and R&B groups, and somehow he got us booked into a Vegas-style lounge, which was at Harrah’s in Lake Tahoe for a six-week engagement.
So there we go, driving ourselves up to Lake Tahoe to do the six-week engagement, which turned out to be a very strange thing for us because all they did was complain that we were too loud for the lounge and we were keeping the customers from gambling. We were distracting them from gambling because we were a rock group, not a lounge act. So that turned out to be the only Vegas-like engagement that we ever did.
David Clark Allen: And it went exactly as we thought it might!
Basil Francis: I take it you moved to the UK because you saw the proliferation of progressive acts and thought this is where the really interesting music is being made?
David Clark Allen: Absolutely!
Basil Francis: I noticed that progressive rock never really seemed to flourish in the United States in the 70s. There were a few bands that made it like Kansas, but it never became as widespread as in the UK during that decade. I never really understood quite why that was. In fact, I asked another American artist the same thing last year. I feel like Americans would be interested in technical music and they are now, to some extent; there’s a huge progressive movement in the States now, but they were late to catch on back then, I guess.
Ed’s note – Because the UK is a small island, and the States is massive, so it was far easier for a musical trend to become “nationwide” over here in the days before computers. Imo, of course! 😉
David Clark Allen Well, back then it was rock and roll. And rock and roll was American. And in the early 70s, America still had its borders firmly up. I mean, the Beatles was a big shock for America. I’m talking about the record companies and everything. They really didn’t expect that because they were so used to only selling American products on a big scale. Progressive was the same thing. I don’t think it was so much that American people didn’t like it. It was the American businesses didn’t want to let it in.
Basil Francis: How weird. I mean, music’s so international now and you can stream things anywhere, anytime. It’s kind of difficult to think back to where you’d have to find the physical thing to put on or hear it on the radio.
Purely from a technical perspective, what kind of visas did you have to get to go to the UK?
David Clark Allen: I can tell you these were old-school days. We went over on tourist visas. And we had nine months to pull it off. Simple as that.
Basil Francis: And you turned into something else or…?
David Clark Allen: Well, we got a manager. That manager was able to get us there legally and get assigned. But we went over just literally as tourists.
Basil Francis: Fair enough.
David Clark Allen: Oh yeah, we just took our guitars with us. “We’re not here to find work.” But back then, you could do that.
Basil Francis: That must have seemed like a gamble, right?
David Clark Allen: It was and it wasn’t. I had been coming and recording in England for years. I had started from the time I was 14.
Basil Francis: So you weren’t completely unfamiliar with the UK?
David Clark Allen: Oh, not at all. My manager/producer was British and he was very well connected. I was recording at Abbey Road when the Beatles were doing the White Album, and I was doing stuff with him and we heard Blackbird before it was mixed, I got to hear some of the early stuff. I peed with John Lennon in the toilet, chatted with Paul… you know, and I was 15 or 16. So I’d been coming over and been part of the music industry all that time.
When I came over to the UK, I was aware of how you could do things if you were confident. My mother came from a really impoverished Mexican background and she always told me… I mean I’ve always had this in my head: “Don’t ask, never ask, you just do and if you look confident, most of the time no one’s going to stop you.” She said to me, “You learn that when you have nothing, so remember that”, so I’ve done that all my life and it’s worked.
Basil Francis: Great words to live by. How did living in the UK compare to living in California?
Roberto Amaral: In the first year, we were isolated from each other because we all had little apartments or little bedsits in London and so we were all separated. When we got signed by Tony Visconti, our manager got us this house in High Wycombe for six months where we lived and rehearsed for our upcoming tour. I remember we would go to the supermarket and buy a breast of lamb because that’s all we could afford and we would roast it in the oven and stretch it out to last for five people. We lived the life of struggling rockers for the first year or two. And then once the albums came out and we started touring, it was a different kind of lifestyle. But in the beginning, it was making ends meet on what we had. It was a whole new experience for me.
Basil Francis: Nearly every article I’ve read about the band mentions that David Bowie was a fan or friend of the group but none of them mentioned how that happened. Please fill me in!
David Clark Allen: That’s simple. Tony Visconti had been working with David for years by that point. He was in one of his bands, then he produced him. He’s the one who introduced us to David and what he said was, “I think David would really like what we’re doing together.” He also mentioned that David had been given this amazing television show that’s coast to coast in America and he’s been given permission to choose who he wants on the show. Tony did a rough mix of the Bulerias and he let Bowie hear it.
Then Bowie wanted to meet us, so we put together a meal as a way of meeting, and then we realised we didn’t have anywhere we could ask David Bowie to come to. Tony said we could do it at his house, and that’s what we did. Roberto cooked a Mexican meal, which was lovely, and we met David, Angie and Amanda Lear and a couple of other people. There were about five of us, we had dinner and we got on really well. And then David put us on the show.
Basil Francis: So how did you meet with Tony Visconti originally?
Roberto Amaral: It started with meeting Paul, our drummer. David had struck up a conversation with Paul at Kensington Market, where they were looking around at snakeskin boots. One thing led to another and Paul came over and listened to our tapes and decided to leave his band, Christie, and join ours.
After Paul had joined, we were sitting in our living room watching The Old Grey Whistle Test and Tony Visconti was being interviewed. We all looked at each other and thought, “He should be the one to produce us because he’s been involved with David Bowie and he’s really progressive and he would know exactly what to do with us. He would understand our music and our concept.”
Paul’s manager, who was the manager of Christie, decided to take us under his wing as well. We told him we needed an appointment with Tony Visconti, and he was able to do that for us within a few days. Everything just happened so fast; our heads were spinning. We had a drummer, we had a manager and we had a meeting with Tony Visconti all within a couple of weeks. Everything that we had hoped would happen for us in Los Angeles was happening in London.
We met with Tony Visconti in his office and we auditioned for him acoustically. The five of us were in the office playing. David and John played acoustic guitars. Paul tapped out the rhythms on a coffee table. And Angela and I got up on carpeting and did our dancing. Tony Visconti fell over in his chair and said “Oh my God, when can I get you in the studio to record?”, and the rest is history because he signed us, we got into the recording studio and we started making our first album, Fandangos in Space.
Basil Francis: In most of your music, the lyrical subjects are mainly Spanish myths and legends. Why did you choose to write music about that?
David Clark Allen: I had discussed with Roberto that we needed the right sort of subject matter to match our music. When I was about 11 or 12, I was deeply influenced by a movie called The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. The film score blew me away. It was composed by Bernard Herrmann, who did a lot of Alfred Hitchcock’s films. The guy was a genius, a Hollywood soundtrack writer.
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad combined a mythical tale and incredible music which really affected me deeply. So when I started Carmen, I wanted to have a feeling of that kind of magical Hollywood, Middle Eastern quality mixed with flamenco. We were young, I was 23, Roberto was in his mid-twenties, Angela was 21 and John was about the same age as her. You tend to be romantic in your ideas at that age.
Basil Francis: How did you strike a balance of mixing prog and flamenco?
David Clark Allen: That came from me because I’d always known the music would be based around flamenco rhythms. The core, which I always saw as basically a three-piece – because I love Cream, Hendrix, and all that – I thought the core rhythmically has got to be heavy rock with a really John Bonham feel for the drums. Then John Glascock brought in his style of bass playing because I had been thinking of Chris Squire.
Basil Francis: I’m so glad you said that because that’s what his playing reminds me of and Chris Squire is one of my favourite bass players ever, for obvious reasons.
David Clark Allen: I saw Chris Squire before he was in Yes when he was in The Syn. I remember thinking at the time, “Wow, that guy is something else.” They were playing fake soul and R&B but he was already ‘Chris Squire’. He stood out wearing an ankle-length brocade cloak but he had the sound and he was already doing more with it.
Basil Francis: I’m so glad you’re confirming this for me, because especially on Viva Mi Sevilla, John brings that funky, chunky bass sound that reminded me so much of Squire.
David Clark Allen: John could play and get any sound he needed to get with his Rickenbacker. He had the Chris Squire sound but his own style. I realised within the first day or two of playing with him that he had no idea about flamenco whatsoever. But it didn’t matter because he was somehow doing it from day one. He was a natural. He’s one of the best bass players I’ve ever worked with.
Basil Francis: He had no problem with the time signatures?
David Clark Allen: None whatsoever. He just listened and then he knew. He was a natural musician.
Back to your original question about mixing prog and flamenco, the biggest challenge for me was bringing flamenco to the electric guitar. I knew pop chords and funky James Brown stuff, but I knew what was required for the band had to be really different. I struggled for several years but evolved a sound and style that was based around Bonham and Squire.
Basil Francis: What I love about the music is that you really can’t tell where the flamenco ends and the prog begins. I’ve never heard anything like it.
David Clark Allen: No, no one’s quite done it the same. The closest I ever heard was a band called Elbicho, from Spain. They were influenced by us. I don’t think they’re together anymore, but they were prog, and they were very good.
They got hold of me about 10 years ago and had me play with them when they played here live and they knew all of Carmen’s songs. I forgot they were playing them and I said, “I’m really sorry, I don’t remember the chords!” they’re the only other band who came close to what we were doing.
Basil Francis I ought to ask if you’ve heard of the group Triana? They also formed in the 70s in Spain and played a fusion of flamenco and prog.
David Clark Allen: Oh, I’m very familiar with Triana. That was a lot more ‘Spanish’ than our music.
Roberto Amaral: They were more flamenco than prog. There was Alameda; they were also playing around with a fusion of rock and flamenco. This was like in the late 70s, early 80s.
There were several groups doing that kind of thing but they didn’t really integrate the dance with the music and also the progressive element of their style was nothing like what we were doing. We were more orchestral. We were more like Genesis with dance, while they were more of a flamenco group playing electric instruments and trying to make their sound progressive.
Basil Francis: The music of Carmen is far more innovative, adventurous and unpredictable. Those are the words I’d use.
David Clark Allen: There’s been nothing quite like us. And I’m not saying that like, “Oh, we’re the special ones.” But it’s true because I’m familiar with most of the bands.
The closest to our power was Ojos de Brujo. They were more Cuban-influenced. They certainly weren’t rock-influenced, and their dancers, again, were separate and just came on and did it. Their lead singer danced. She was a former dancer but then there was a male dancer who would come join her and dance with her but he would then disappear again, so it wasn’t quite the same. No one else has integrated it like we did or made it as rock as we did because that was the point for me. I wanted it to be heavy rock but also have the dance and the flamenco.
Basil Francis: Something I notice about your music is that you’re trying to get the most out of every moment as if you’ve really workshopped these songs to the point where you really can’t put anything more in.
Roberto Amaral: Yeah, we pretty much like to put as much in as we possibly could. That’s why Tony was a great neutralizer for us; he knew what to weed out and what to keep in to give us the sound that we ended up with. I mean, he knew that kind of music and he knew what would make the best recording and if it wasn’t for him, we probably would have ended up putting in too much.
Basil Francis: Perhaps one of my favourite bits that always puts a smile on my face is in Bullfight: “Trumpets blare PAPAPA!”
*Both laugh*
David Clark Allen: Oh, Tony loved that, too. I smile every time that it comes. Every time. Because we also created the sound. I mean, we went “PAPAPA” and all that, but then he distorted it.
Roberto Amaral: Also, in Dancing on a Cold Wind, it was Tony’s idea to put in that beautiful string quartet in Table Two for One to give us that kind of German flamenco cabaret sound that was just really bizarre and eerie. And he knew how to synthesize the strings so that they would sound just a little off-kilter.
David Clark Allen: Yeah, a little out of tune.
Roberto Amaral: Also in Purple Flowers, he really knew how to orchestrate the right combination of sounds.
We were in control as far as arrangements go, but he would be the sixth member of the group and he would be just as important. His opinion and input would be just as important as anyone else’s.
Basil Francis: I never realized just how involved he was in how the music was made.
David Clark Allen: Completely. He would take our suggestions and he technically knew how to realize them. We would know what we wanted, but only in an abstract sense in terms of the sound. He would be able to make it concrete. He was a member of the band. We had such fun recording. It was amazing.
Basil Francis: Lots of your songs mention gypsies and I wondered what the gypsy mythos meant to you and the relation to real gypsies. I believe they’re called Romani and I read that some Romani consider the word ‘gypsy’ to be a slur and I also wonder what you make of that.
David Clark Allen: Well, this was the early 70s and the world was a different place. For me ‘gypsies’ meant a romantic idea of freedom. It was freedom that I was writing about and thinking about when I thought of gypsies. It was completely unrealistic because I was aware of what gypsies were like because they worked at the club all the time. My parents would have them come over and I didn’t have a false image of them but I knew the image I wanted to portray.
Basil Francis: I don’t think it’s a negative image at all. You’re literally saying, “Give a woman a gypsy lover and she’ll want no other.”
David Clark Allen: Those are translations of really traditional flamenco lyrics from the turn of the 18th to the 19th century.
Roberto Amaral My only experience with gypsies was first-hand when I worked with them in the dance companies of José Greco and Rafael de Córdova, and different groups that I worked with in Spain. The makeup of the companies was sometimes predominantly gypsy. They were gypsy by birth but had trained to become flamenco dancers. Their lifestyle was very gritty, very in-your-face and fun-loving and very overly dramatic.
When we wrote about gypsies, we would take the extremes of gypsies, the extreme emotions that they express and we would colour it, making it sound as exotic and interesting as possible within the context of the song.
Basil Francis: When you were performing live, did it feel like you were wearing the guise of gypsies?
David Clark Allen: For me, yeah, absolutely.
Roberto Amaral: Yeah.
Basil Francis: Like an homage?
David Clark Allen: Yeah. An homage and a, “Gee, I wish I was.” All kinds of things.
Roberto Amaral: We dressed like gypsies. We were wearing all sorts of strange combinations of things and scarves…
Basil Francis: I saw your outfits on the Midnight Special, was that your typical stage costume?
David Clark Allen: Actually, we wore that for a bit, but by the time we started really touring a lot the whole band got a bit more rock-looking with jeans and leather, that kind of thing.
Basil Francis: It’s a shame that there are so few photos or recordings from that era. Are you aware of any bootlegs or anything?
David Clark Allen: I’m aware of one recording of us live that I would give everything I’ve got to get but unfortunately I put the word out and I’ve tried and just had no response. Our soundman recorded us right towards the end of the Tull tour and that was when we were at our best because we were recording, and we were playing constantly and had been for a year. He recorded us on a quarter-inch tape from his sound desk and he had our sound down. I remember when I heard it – and I’m usually very critical of myself – I heard it and thought, “Geez, that sounds better than our albums. That is amazing!” I had no idea we were actually that good. Unfortunately, he went on to merchandise for other groups and tours and I’ve never been able to get a response from him and to hear that tape again. But that tape is the best of us. We were doing stuff from the first album, but by then it was so powerful. My gosh!
Basil Francis: I’ve watched the Midnight Special so many times as it is the only live document of Carmen that is readily available, and I needed to ask, are you playing to a backing track?
David Clark Allen: It was half and half. We sang everything live, and I think the footwork was also live. The rest was done with a backing track because Tony said, “We’re going to sound amazing.”
Basil Francis: The first song I heard by Carmen on the new compilation Patterns on the Window was actually a more obscure song: Flamenco Fever, which I believe was written by Roberto.
Roberto Amaral: Boy, that’s an oldie! Flamenco Fever was written in in Los Angeles just before we went to London and then we recorded it in London. But I could be wrong, we may have written it in London. I remember thinking that this is catchy and this is commercial and it’s more poppy and it’s simple. People can relate to it. Just the title alone, Flamenco Fever.
Basil Francis: It’s hilarious to me that you consider it to be poppy and simple because to me it’s a very bizarre and complex song to put out as a single. But I suppose it’s simple in terms of Carmen.
It was a great first taste because it piqued my interest in the group, but then I listened to Fandangos in Space and I was utterly blown away. Why did you choose not to include Flamenco Fever on the first album?
Roberto Amaral: Because when we were deciding on the songs that were going to be on that album, Tony was part of that decision process because we had lots of songs. We all thought that Flamenco Fever wasn’t progressive enough like the others were and it wasn’t unique enough to really characterise what Carmen was all about. We all thought of it just as kind of a little pop song, and on that first album, the songs we included were more conceptual.
Basil Francis: Bulerias is probably your most well-known song, as it starts your first album, it’s referenced twice on Side Two and then the lyrics are reprised in Viva Mi Sevilla on the second album. Were the band actively trying to fashion this into an anthem?
Roberto Amaral: Yeah, we knew when we wrote Bulerias, that was probably going to be our most commercial song only because we thought it was commercial.
Basil Francis: *Laughing* I love the song but it’s far from what I’d describe as commercial!
Roberto Amaral: I know it’s not but they played it. I think it even made the top 40 in Luxembourg at that time. Radio Luxembourg had a top 40 and they were playing it on heavy rotation. I remember when we were sitting at High Wycombe at that house that was rented for us and we were all living together. We heard it for the first time on the radio and we screamed, “They’re playing our song on the radio!” Radio Luxembourg at that time was a big progressive rock station.
We were told from the very beginning that Bulerias would be our trademark because it had all the flamenco elements and had a steady beat even though it was in 12/8. That’s why we thought we might have some luck with this one song and I think Tony thought so too. Which is why he encouraged us to play that on the David Bowie special.
Basil Francis: Dancing on a Cold Wind is quieter and more relaxed overall than the first album. Was there a difference in how you approached this album?
David Clark Allen: Some of the material on the first album was well-rehearsed and had already been performed live using various approaches – as a two-guitarist and extra lead vocalist (my childhood friend and singing partner, Dennis Trerotola) 7-piece band to the one guitarist (myself) 5-piece band we became. Dancing on a Cold Wind was almost completely created in the studio in the moment, so to speak. We were so in tune with each other and Tony by that point that Roberto or I would finish writing a song, present it to the others, and we’d create the instrumental and vocal arrangements on the spot and record them. We were very relaxed and confident with the whole process during the making of that album.
Basil Francis: What is the Petenera that inspired the second side of the album?
David Clark Allen: The Petenera is a ’traditional’ Spanish/flamenco story about a beautiful woman whose attractiveness and inability to remain faithful causes the men in love with her to fight for her hand. During the fight, a knife is pulled and when La Petenera attempts to stop the violence, she’s accidentally stabbed and dies. No one wins. A tale of its time.
Basil Francis: I saw that the third album was recorded in North Brookfield Massachusetts after touring with Jethro Tull. I thought I could sense some Jethro Tull in the third album, but I’m not sure if that was intentional. How was it to tour with them?
David Clark Allen: We had an amazing time touring with Jethro Tull. The third album was definitely influenced by the energy of three months of live performance to large stadium audiences and, more subconsciously than deliberately, by Jethro Tull’s musical approach – they were very technically accomplished.
Basil Francis: I read that at the end of the Tull tour, you were left stranded with no money to return to the UK. What happened?
David Clark Allen: It’s true. We had no accommodation to return to, no money from the tour or record company (our manager received that and then disappeared) and I was left responsible for all the touring bills that hadn’t been paid. Never sign a contract without a lawyer checking the fine print! I finally convinced all the hire companies (tour bus and driver, stage equipment, etc.) that we had been left with no money to pay them.
Basil Francis: The Gypsies is a more straightforward album than the first two, but it still has many great songs on it. Could you feel a change in the way you were writing music?
David Clark Allen: Speaking for myself, I began using more of the songwriting skills I’d learned as a teenager – slightly shorter (except for the track The Gypsies) and more melody and chorus-driven pieces. I’m talking in relative terms as I learned those skills writing and recording 2½-minute surf grunge and Indy pop songs during the mid to late sixties.
Basil Francis: Carmen folded too soon, but perhaps it’s better to leave audiences wanting more than less. What do you think of the band’s legacy? Has there started to be more Carmen recognition in recent days?
David Clark Allen: Carmen is something I’m very proud of. Although it was originally my concept and creation, the other permanent members of the band made it what we became. Carmen was the result of all our belief and passion – it was a product of the times (the early 70s) and of our youthful belief in the power of music and performance. Whether there’s more recognition of Carmen recently, I can’t say but we were unique and sincere (in the best ways). I believe those qualities matter; greater recognition would be a plus but that is not what really matters. We were all part of something special, and we knew it.
Roberto Amaral: I think our legacy will be that we were groundbreaking in many ways and were only scratching the surface of our potential before the end of our short-lived existence. It’s been great knowing that ever since we started getting recognition, we’ve developed a strong international fan base. More recently we’ve acquired many new fans who never knew about us before but were discovering us for the first time through YouTube and word of mouth. The newly posted high-definition video of our 1973 performances on the David Bowie Midnight Special has really opened the doors to welcoming fans, new and old, to hearing and seeing our one and only recorded live performance. Hopefully, with the upcoming Esoteric label re-release of our three albums, we can continue to add to our legacy of being one of the most unusual, creative and adventurous musical groups of the progressive rock genre.
Basil Francis: Speaking of the Esoteric re-release, I’ve concluded that the new set is not a 2024 remaster (as is advertised on Spotify) but a simple repackaging of the Angel Air versions from 2007. I think there are disappointed fans who would like to finally hear the albums restored to their full glory. Do you know if the master tapes are still around?
David Clark Allen: I did have the master tapes but they were destroyed when my house flooded some 15 years ago. Unfortunately, they were completely soaked with sewage.
Basil Francis: That is extremely unfortunate. At least the versions available today are still perfectly listenable, and perhaps AI will be able to clean up the sound further in the future.
It’s evident that Carmen is really appealing to fans of progressive rock, but what do fans of traditional flamenco music have to say about it?
David Clark Allen: Like everything, there were mixed reactions to Carmen. Most younger people embraced and got it, understanding that it was an expansion and updating of a musical form which, at the time, had become a bit stagnant. We had many fans of traditional flamenco who enjoyed our musical synthesis, as well as some who viewed us as ‘heretics’. It’s not really a contentious point now that Rosalia, Fuel Fandango, and, although not currently active, Elbicho, Ojos de Brujo and many more, have all contributed new exciting takes on what flamenco fusion can be.
Basil Francis: What have you done in your careers since the 70s?
Roberto Amaral: I’ve enjoyed a wonderful career as a dancer, choreographer, director and producer of several decades of dance-related productions. I’ve been the artistic director of 3 different flamenco and classical Spanish dance companies. I’ve also had a gratifying 50-year career as a master dance educator. Most recently, in 2020, I decided to set aside my dance career and begin devoting myself exclusively to fine art, more specifically painting. As a youth, before I became a professional dancer/singer/songwriter, I had trained throughout my school years to become a fine artist. But those aspirations gradually changed once I began to passionately fall in love with dance at the age of 17. What followed after that was a life journey I would have never expected!
David Clark Allen: I worked as a session musician with Jack Nietzsche (played guitar for Michelle Phillips’s solo album) and did a cameo as a flamenco guitarist for The Bionic Woman. I wrote two songs included on Agnetha Fältskog’s first solo album, Wrap Your Arms Around Me. I wrote material for ABBA’s publishing company that was covered by other Scandinavian artists. I renamed myself Housk Randall and worked as a sexual anthropologist and documentary photographer for 17 years. During that time I had five books published in four languages that documented the emerging piercing, tattoo and fetish scene and spent five years qualifying as a psychotherapist and then practised at the Whittington Hospital in Archway. I established a successful family photography studio in 1997 with my wife which I ran for 14 years. I also returned to music in 2007 with my group called Widescreen which was myself on guitar and vocals, Larry Lush on synth and laptop, and Charlotte Medical on violin, accordion, and vocal harmony. We supported The Buena Vista Social Club, Ojos De Brujo, and spent years playing most of the big and little festivals in England. We released one album En Mi Vida, produced by Larry and I and engineered by Larry who was a successful remix engineer. We disbanded eventually when I decided to follow an academic path. I spent two and a half years learning analogue and digital engineering and production on a 48-track SSL desk, achieved a Masters in Creative Practice from Goldsmiths Uni and am now halfway through a PhD in music, identity, racism, and Hollywood at the University of Leeds.
Wow! – Ed
Basil Francis: Why have you chosen to make the UK your home?
David Clark Allen: The short answer is fate, and I like London. The longer answer is I’ve been coming to the UK since I was 15; at first with my parents and then with my British music producer/manager, David Mallett. I lived here for a year and a half with Carmen in the 1970s and then returned to form a band with Barrie Barlow (the drummer from Jethro Tull) in 1980. The band we formed was great fun but the timing wasn’t right so we parted company and I stayed and managed to meet Mike Chapman who was about to produce Agnetha Fältskog’s first solo album. Not long after that, I was diagnosed with cancer and given a short time to live, a diagnosis that, fortunately, turned out to be wrong. That’s when I changed my name and career path and became a photographer anthropologist, leading me to meet my wife and raise a family here in London.
Basil Francis: Is there anything next for you?
David Clark Allen: Once I achieve my PhD qualification, I plan to continue doing research and writing books. I also still compose and produce my own music but for a different audience than before.
Basil Francis: And for you Roberto?
Roberto Amaral: Just to keep doing what I’m doing now until the day I die. It isn’t easy for creative people to keep themselves from creating, at least that’s how I feel. It’s all we know and it’s in our blood.
Of course, I would love to one day become a prominent and successful painter, but only time and fate will tell. I’ve really only been immersed full time into trying to reach that goal for four short years now so I’m hoping I can soon see positive results from all the hard work I’ve been putting into this new venture. And if anyone is interested in what I’m currently creating, they can visit my website Amaral Studio.
Basil Francis Many thanks to both of you for talking to TPA!
Our thanks to David & Roberto for the band photos used in this article…
LINKS
Carmen – Website (David Clark Allen) | Facebook | YouTube | X