3
The Role of Women in Music
Production in Spain During the 1960s
Maryní Callejo and the “Brincos Sound”
Marco Antonio Juan de Dios Cuartas
INTRODUCTION
In the flourishing economic environment of the late 1950s, an authentic
restructuring within the Spanish music industry took place. Record cata-
logues would now no longer focus exclusively on folklore, copla, or clas-
sical music and instead began to take advantage of the new political and
social developments that would soon encourage investment in this sector.
The musicologist Celsa Alonso (2005) highlights in her study on Spanish
beat the importance of the popular music of the 1960s in the social and
cultural changes of “developmentalism”. The author raises the interpre-
tation of the Spanish beat as a gamble of the “incipient record industry
that saw an interesting market among young middle-class Spanish people”
(Alonso, 2005: 229). Although this phenomenon of Anglo-Saxon musi-
cal importation could be approached from an exclusively commercial per-
spective, we cannot ignore the fact that, beneath this new music for the
youth, a set of “institutional strategies whose objective was to build an
image of normality, modernity and economic, social and cultural renewal”
were also hidden (Ibid.). It is an indisputable fact that the new musical
proposals at the beginning of this decade were a response to the need for
expression, rebellion, and leisure of a youth markedly influenced by their
Anglo-Saxon referents and the institutional use of this phenomenon. More
importantly, Spanish beat music represented a new market for a record
industry that had to respond to this phenomenon in two directions: adapt-
ing human resources on the one hand and technical resources on the other.
Within this new environment of social and cultural renewal, in which
the incursion of rock and pop music took place, as in other countries such
as England or the United States, the figure of the musical producer in
Spain is consolidated and linked to the processes of record production
within recording studios, which themselves acquire an increasing promi-
nence as creative agents, with evident consequences for the music’s sound.
The music industry in Spain during the last years of Franco’s rule took
advantage of the international opening raised by the political regime in
order to establish contacts with recording studios, engineers, and pro-
ducers from different European capitals, particularly London, Paris, and
35
36 Marco Antonio Juan de Dios Cuartas
Milan. One of the names associated with the foundations of the figure of
the producer in Spain is Alain Milhaud. He developed his work with the
Columbia label in Madrid and is associated with productions of Spanish
bands made in English studios. This reflected a dissatisfaction on the part
of some producers with Spanish studios, which were still far from possess-
ing the technological means of achieving the new sound of rock emerg-
ing from abroad, which was being made in studios that were no longer
simply spaces to fix a musical interpretation, but creative tools in them-
selves. During this process of change, not only the technical resources of
the studio had to be updated, but an adaptation of the different professional
profiles – namely, audio engineers, producers, or session musicians – was
also necessary. If at the beginning of the 1960s it was unusual to find the
figure of the music producer clearly defined during a recording process,
the fact of finding a woman developing this role in a recording studio was
nothing short of groundbreaking. According to the study conducted by Gil
Calvo (1989), from 1962 to 1966 the labor insertion in Spain of women
between 20 and 24 years was reduced to 29.3% of the total.
It is within this special social and cultural situation in Spain that María
de las Nieves Callejo Martínez-Losa, known artistically as Maryní Callejo,
began her professional activity. An excellent musician, precocious discov-
erer of talent through her work in A&R for the record company Zafiro, and
arranger and musical director, we must consider Callejo the first female
producer in the history of record production in Spain. Callejo represents
the case of the musician of academic training who accesses the record-
ing and publishing industry, evolving and finally fixing her position as
a record producer. The study of the professional role of Maryní Callejo
entails a great difficulty because there is a complete lack of information
concerning her professional career. For example, neither the writer and
guitarist Salvador Domínguez, in the chapter devoted to the first Spanish
producers from his book Bienvenido Mr. Rock (2002), nor the specialized
music press have documented the important work of Callejo within the
Spanish music industry of the 1960s. Furthermore, the absence of informa-
tion about Callejo on the Internet is equally significant, and it is reduced to
a few commentaries by some of the musicians who worked for her. This
fact confirms the need to definitively address her professional contribution
to the Spanish music industry and gives a great relevance to the personal
interviews that have been made for the preparation of this article.
MARYNÍ CALLEJO: A HISTORIC MILESTONE IN THE
INCORPORATION OF WOMEN IN THE SPANISH
RECORD INDUSTRY
Maryní Callejo was born in Madrid in 1943 to a middle-class family with
no previous tradition of musicians. She studied piano, composition, and
orchestral conducting at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Madrid,
acquiring a solid classical education. She finished her piano studies
with honors and was granted, by the director at that time, Jesús Guridi, a
37 The Role of Women in Music Production in Spain
scholarship to continue her studies in Italy and Germany. When her father
became ill, she decided to renounce her scholarship and stay in Madrid.
During her adolescence, when she lived in Ferraz Street in Madrid, she
often went to the nearby Pintor Rosales Street, where she met other groups
of teenagers with whom she played and, thus, began to have her first taste
of popular music. At that moment, these groups were beginning to play in
the so-called society parties that took place among the bourgeois families
and the aristocracy of the time. Maryní remembers her first performance
at Guadalupe School in Madrid and what this first performance meant for
her professional beginning within pop music:
On the day of Guadalupe they had a party at the school . . . and I went
with my friends. There was a grand piano there and, before the party
started, I begun to play the songs that we performed on the street.
At that moment, Augusto Algueró and Carmen Sevilla appeared, who
were to be the stars of the party. When they heard us, Augusto suggest-
ed that we should go to see his father the following day. So, the next
day I went to see Augusto Algueró’s father and, from that moment, he
became my second father.
1
Augusto Algueró and Carmen Sevilla represented the most successful
artistic couple in Spain during that time. Augusto was a composer of rec-
ognized talent and projection within the Spanish music industry and Car-
men, one of the most successful singers since the decade of the 1950s. The
compositions of both Algueró father and son had a significant impact on
the publishing world, becoming part of the repertoire of important Span-
ish artists of the time, and appearing in advertising jingles for radio and
television. The result of this first contact with the Algueró family was
the consolidation of what would be the first professional musical project
by Callejo as a musician: Los Brujos, one of the first Spanish groups of
“modern music” at the dawn of pop music. From Los Brujos, recognized
singers like Luis Gardey or Tito Mora were to emerge, who subsequently
went on to have important careers. Working with Augusto Algueró senior’s
publisher, Callejo’s first group recorded a dozen works whose national
impact served to consolidate her professional career. This contact with the
Algueró family allowed Callejo to begin working in the publishing world,
cataloguing scores and making musical arrangements for different artists.
It was also at this time that she began to work as an orchestral director
in the recordings of string sessions organized by the publisher for music
for advertisements. Callejo’s contact with recording studios became con-
stant from the time of her experience with Los Brujos, whose work ranged
from recording everything from jingles to choirs for the films of success-
ful singers and actresses of the time, such as Marisol.
2
These jingles were
recorded in Estudios Celada at América Avenue, later renamed as Estudios
Kirios in a new location on the outskirts of Madrid, which today consti-
tutes one of the most important studios in the history of record produc-
tion in Spain. Other studios in which Callejo worked on both Los Brujos
38 Marco Antonio Juan de Dios Cuartas
recordings and the advertising jingles were the modest studio located at
Ramiro de Maeztu School and Columbia studios on Barco Street.
However, the beginning of Callejo’s professional career as a producer is
also closely related to the Zafiro record company and its sub-label Novola.
Her access to the record company was motivated after listening to the
Spanish band Los Brincos, the subject of her debut as a musical producer.
The meeting with Los Brincos involved a firm commitment to a band and
a sound, which had unquestionable repercussions for music in Spain:
At that time, I worked in the mornings with Augusto Algueró (junior)
in the publisher that his father had in Carmen Street. And I was oered
to go to Zaro in the afternoons to see if I liked it. I started to clas-
sify things in the oces of the record company and, then, one of the
directors, Esteban García Morencos, proposed me to meet a group of
young boys. I, who came with the ideas of classical music, didn´t have
high hopes about what I was going to nd. We went to the place where
they rehearsed, which was in Iberofón factory, next to the Manzanares
River. That group was Los Brincos. They started to play and at that
moment I said to Mr. Esteban: I’m going to leave Augusto; I’ve liked
the group a lot and I think we can do wonderful things. I worked there
for 3 years.
This first album by Los Brincos marked the inception of the beat sound in
Spain, under the direction of Callejo, who was chiefly responsible for the
recording.
1964: RECORDING OF THE FIRST ALBUM BY LOS
BRINCOS AND BEGINNING OF CALLEJO’S CAREER AS
A MUSIC PRODUCER
The relationship of Callejo with Los Brincos and the widespread use of the
term “the fifth Brinco” leads us to a necessary comparison between this
case and that of The Beatles, whose model it was also intended to imitate.
Within the functional classification of producers carried out by Burgess
(2013), the case of Callejo is adapted, like that of Martin, to that of the
producer-collaborator. Callejo is at the forefront of the production process,
although exhibiting a flexibility that allows her to extract the maximum
value from the artist’s ideas. On the back cover of the first album by Los
Brincos, Callejo wrote the following words about the experience of work-
ing in the studio with the band:
There are many groups dedicated to ‘ye-ye’ but, unfortunately, very
few that make music in this genre and not just electronic noise ac-
companied by distorting movements. Except for the ‘vedette’ groups,
which take care of the instruments, repertoire, assembly of songs,
etc. down to the last detail, there are many who are uneducated, who
scratch discs and discs of these until they manage to copy them! Now
39 The Role of Women in Music Production in Spain
we are nally lucky: a Spanish group, Los Brincos, has decided not
to copy anyone. All the songs they perform are their own composi-
tions, with a frankly good commerciality and style. It is dicult to be
impartial in a commentary when those who are being commented turn
out to be great friends; however, in this case it is very easy for me,
because the truth is obvious. . . . Because of the position that I occupy
within the Novola Company, I have had to take charge of the musi-
cal direction of this recording. To be honest, I must say that, at rst,
I thought this was going to be just another group, but I changed my
opinion after I listened to them. In truth, what they play and sing is in
perfect harmony, there are no ‘strange’ chords (the so-called ‘by ear’);
everything is adjusted to a very correct technique. From the rst mo-
ment I listened to them, I grew very fond of this recording, to the point
of looking like another Brinco. Today, after nishing this LP, we are
proud that in Spain we have such an exceptional group that, hopefully,
will mark a pattern that many others will follow. For now, go ahead
Brincos! Triumph awaits you because you deserve it.
3
In this text, Callejo defines her work as “musical direction of the record-
ing”, leaving aside the technical part for which an audio engineer would
be responsible. Indeed, her position within Novola was that of musical
director, and the term musical producer was not yet regularly applied to
describe this figure during the first half of the 1960s. At this time the term
“producer” is associated exclusively with the “phonographic producer”
and affiliated to the company in the recording credits. Callejo is not men-
tioned as a producer in the credits of any of the two albums by Los Brincos
produced for Novola, although in her later stage at Philips (as the producer
of Fórmula V, another successful Spanish band from 1968), the singles
as well as the EPs and LPs begin to be labelled with the roles: “Arrange-
ments, direction and production: Maryní Callejo”.
The role of the producer is from that moment linked, at least in Spain,
to the musical concept, to the arrangement and, above all, to the author-
ship of the music rather than the sound. The limited technical knowledge
of our first producers and their limited experience in professional studios
explains their lack of prominence in technical actions, where this function
was delegated to an engineer who had to translate his sound concept at the
mixing console. Callejo’s text alludes to some stereotypes that confront
pop music with rock, such as “commerciality” versus “authenticity” (not
copy), which in this case is objectively not very credible considering the
pursued admired English sound. Musical perfection is shown through the
absence of “strange” or “by ear” chords. In spite of her training, there is
an approach to the musicians, highlighting a “perfection” at the harmonic
level that conforms to the patterns of Callejo’s classical training. The fact
of being considered another Brinco brings Callejo’s work in the recording
studio closer to the role of a producer-collaborator, her role at the musical
level being unquestionable, although in no case does it eclipse the inten-
tionality and the aesthetic values of the band. But perhaps we should also
analyze the figure of Callejo using the functional typology of Burgess
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