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You mentioned that you first heard flamenco as a kid.

I was fascinated by dancing, my sister was a dancer, my mother used to be a dancer, though not flamenco. You know, I didn't have other means of expressing myself. I used to see movies and try to interpret them. But when I was 10 or 11, I went to see a really dumb movie, called "Valentino," I think. If I saw it now I'd probably be horrified. In the opening sequence the guy who played Valentino in the film, Anthony Dexter, was with a Spanish dancer on a ship. It started out with him doing heel-work on the table with a guitar. At that moment the duende (the spirit that inspires flamenco at its most magical moments) entered me. I went crazy. At that moment I fell, literally, in love. It got me big.

There's a long-standing connection between Hollywood and flamenco, lots of movies with cameo flamenco scenes.

Also Today Donn Pohren, flamenco's hero Over a bottle of vino tinto, the first non-Spaniard ever awarded the title "flamencologist" talks about one of the world's most vibrant folk arts. By Jon B. Rhine

In 1952 or 1953 MGM made a film called "Sombrero," with Ricardo Montalban and Cyd Charisse, a musical. I can't find it anywhere. Jose Greco played a bullfighter in it and danced. Nobody could do a farruca like he could.

Your mother was hip enough to recognize your interest in flamenco. So at some point you just said, "I'm going to Spain"?

There was not much flamenco in America then. I was already a Spanish dancer and had a little group. I was, like, 13; I had already quit school and had older dancers with me. The companies would come. Greco came with four Gypsies in '52, and that really did it. I went to talk to them and I got some names. Finally, at 15, I decided to go to Spain. I got a freighter in Texas and went to Barcelona. I didn't know anybody -- I was a kid. There was a teacher everybody told me about in Madrid, an old Gypsy guy, Estampio. Everybody said to study with him, so I went to find him. When I got to Madrid, I couldn't find him anywhere. I was wandering around in the old part of Madrid after I'd gotten an address from a girl who said she was a dancer, and I went there. I went into the vestibule and there was an old man sitting in a chair wheezing, and I said I was looking for Estampio. He said, "What do you want with him." I said, "I'm going to study with him." He said, "But you're an American." I said, "Yeah." He said, "But Americans can't dance." He said, "I'm Estampio." He was a portero, a doorman.

There are a lot Americans in Spain involved in flamenco and they all assumed this Spanish identity at some point, like you did. Was it a way to get inside?

Uh-huh. In my case I think it was based on fear -- fear of myself. I dyed my hair black and became Mario Montejo. In America I spoke with an accent. Nobody called me by my real name until I was probably 28. I finally said, "Wait a minute -- I'm not Mario, I'm Hampton."

You could probably pass as a Spaniard.

I thought I could -- except I'm 6-4. You know, it was kind of schizzy for me. I was really very lonely and pretended to be above it all.

The whole attitude thing is still a part of the flamenco scene. To hang with these Gypsy guys you've got to be in the part, so to speak.

Yeah, that's the romance. It's a dangerous thing on some level for some people. In "Seven Pillars of Wisdom," T. E. Lawrence says that a person who lives in two cultures at once can go insane. I sort of identified with that -- not that I was insane. But I was definitely ...

You were immersed in it ...

It also incarcerated me, you know. I mean, every kid is trying to find out who he is, and then he learns that he's not who he thought he was.

When you were in Spain it was in a sort of time warp.

It was 19th century. There were no Europeans, I never heard English. There were no Americans there except some servicemen and maybe some salesmen from England. In '54 in all the bodegas there was always a retiree who was paid to listen to anything off-color politically -- and you were out of the country. Flamenco was totally anti-Franco. Look at what the right-wing Spaniards did to [Federico García] Lorca; they hated flamenco. In cosmopolitan Madrid, flamenco was like hillbilly.

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