Clark is the first writer to seriously tackle the Romeros\u2019 fascinating and inspiring saga: The family\u2019s humble origins in southern Spain, including how the guitar became all-consuming for Celedonio, a passion he later passed to his young sons; the early struggles that bonded the close-knit family together; their risky emigration to the USA; the challenge of adjusting to American life (and schools); and how Celedonio, Celin, Pepe, and Angel evolved into Los Romeros, who, following in the footsteps of the enormously popular Andr\u00e9s Segovia, became de facto ambassadors for the Spanish guitar in the United States and abroad\u2014playing for presidents and pontiffs\u2014a popular concert attraction, recording artists, even TV stars.<\/span><\/p>\n But Clark\u2019s book goes beyond being just an impressively detailed chronological history of the group and \u201cthe Romero family\u2019s singular devotion to and particular genius for making music.\u201d Nearly half of the book is devoted to incisive profiles of the family, starting with Celedonio and Angelita (\u201cThe Poet and His Muse\u201d), then Celin (\u201cThe Romantic\u201d), Pepe (\u201cThe Philosopher\u201d), and Angel (\u201cThe Proteus\u201d). There are sections on \u201cThe Romero Technique\u201d and \u201cThe Romero Repertoire,\u201d and then it\u2019s back to history for an unflinching look at the strife that led to Angel\u2019s departure from the group in 1990, and concluding with an optimistic sendoff about \u201cThe Next Generations\u201d\u2014Celin\u2019s son, Celino, and Angel\u2019s son, Lito, are current members of the quartet (with Pepe and Celin), while Pepe\u2019s son, also named Pepe, is a top-flight maker of classical guitars and ukuleles. The book\u2019s valuable appendices include a chronology, a Romero family genealogy, a list of albums, a glossary of names and terms, and, of course, notes and sources.<\/span><\/p>\n Clark is not exactly an impartial outside observer when it comes to the Romeros. He has known the family since the 1970s, studied guitar with both Pepe and Celin, and has remained friends with them through the years, even as his path as a guitarist and then a musicologist and teacher has taken him from southern California to Germany to Kansas and then back to California\u2014he is currently a Distinguished Professor of Musicology at the University of California, Riverside (east of Los Angeles), and the founder\/director of that school\u2019s Center for Iberian and Latin American Music. Along the way he wrote three well-received Oxford biographies of legendary Spanish composers: Isaac Alb<\/i>\u00e9niz: Portrait of a Romantic<\/i>; Enrique Granados: Poet of the Piano<\/i>; and, with co-author William Craig Krause, Federico Moreno Torroba: A Musical Life in Three Acts<\/i>. So it was not surprising that the Romeros actually approached Clark about writing their story. To their credit, however, they promised him complete freedom and editorial control over the manuscript (as well as full access to their extensive archives). Though Clark is clearly fond and admiring of his subjects, this is no whitewashed puff piece; it is honest about their foibles and occasional missteps. But ultimately it is about the triumph of a truly remarkable family and the enduring power of Spanish music.<\/span><\/p>\n I caught with Clark by phone in early August to talk about the book.<\/p>\n CLASSICAL GUITAR:<\/b> Can you talk a little bit about how the book came about\u2014why it was greenlighted by the family, and what you had to do to juggle researching, interviewing people, going through their massive archives, and then trying to remain somewhat objective? I think you did a great job of sounding objective.<\/span><\/p>\n WALTER AARON CLARK:<\/b> Well, thank you. That was the hard part.\u00a0 <\/span>I had always written about dead people before. [Laughs]<\/span><\/p>\n CG:<\/b> I was going to ask you about how that changes the equation. <\/span><\/p>\n CLARK:<\/b> I\u2019ll give you an example. An interesting thing about Isaac Alb\u00e9niz is that he tended to mythologize his early career. He said things that simply weren\u2019t true. He would tell one journalist one thing and another journalist another. So as someone trying to write a biography, I had to be extra-careful to corroborate any revisions. For instance, Alb\u00e9niz claimed that he stowed away on a steamer from Spain to Cuba. It took me several months to find the necessary documentation in maritime museums and government archives, but I finally put the pieces together: No, he didn\u2019t stow away on a steamer, he went there with his father who had been transferred to Cuba as an employee of the [Spanish] government. He also claimed he studied with Liszt, but my research showed that, no, he didn\u2019t study with Liszt. But all previous authors, out of respect to Alb\u00e9niz, would just repeat these stories or some version of them, without ever bothering to check them with original documentation\u2014primary sources.<\/span><\/p>\n The beauty part of it is that he was dead. [Laughs] So if I had to insinuate that he was a liar, that was OK, because he wasn\u2019t going to file a lawsuit against me. Now, you do have to worry a little bit about grandchildren, and I was concerned that maybe the family would be angry with me. But the granddaughter, who had helped me with my research at the Alb\u00e9niz house and going through his library, said, \u201cThank you for telling the truth about my grandfather.\u201d However, I should note that the book was banned from an Alb\u00e9niz museum in the town where he was born, in northern Catalonia. [Laughs] <\/span><\/p>\n But this is something a lot of people did in the Romantic period: They embellished their life stories. And that\u2019s something Celedonio did, too.<\/span><\/p>\n CG:<\/b> Yes, you\u2019re very frank about that in book, about him stretching the truth quite a bit.<\/span><\/p>\n CLARK:<\/b> Frank, but diplomatic. He made up stuff, too. He would tell a journalist he was five years younger than he was, that he got a doctorate in music from the Royal Conservatory in Madrid, and so on.<\/span><\/p>\n CG:<\/b> Not to mention advertising concerts as benefits for charity and then scrambling to get the charity to underwrite it!<\/span><\/p>\n CLARK: <\/b>That was classic, and the family actually told me that one! And Celin rigging the meter in their apartment building so it would show they used almost no electricity. This is what they did to survive. But my point is, it\u2019s easier to write something that could be looked at as unflattering about people after they\u2019re dead.<\/span><\/p>\n I did have the advantage of having known the Romeros for over 40 years; we\u2019re close friends and I respect and revere them. At first, I was reluctant to write this book. I was finishing up work on Torroba, and they were familiar with my work on Spanish composers, and they asked if I would write a book about their family. But I thought, \u201cI\u2019m too close to them; I won\u2019t be able to write with sufficient objectivity.\u201d But they said, \u201cWe don\u2019t need to look at your manuscript or proofs. Say what you need to say; we trust you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Then they showed me their family archive, which was huge and kept all in one place. When I started going through some of the material I realized, \u201cThis is an incredible story. I didn\u2019t know any<\/i> of this!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/classicalguitarmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/romeros-w-the-pope.jpg?resize=1170%2C842\")
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