Pepe Marchena

José Tejada Marín (Marchena, Seville Province, Spain, 1903-Seville, December 4, 1976) known as Pepe Marchena, and also as Niño de Marchena in the first years of his career, was a flamenco singer who achieved great success in the ópera flamenca period (1922–1956). Influenced by singers like Antonio Chacón, he carried to the extreme the tendency to a more mellow and ornamented style of flamenco singing. Owing to his particular vocal conditions and singing style, he excelled mainly in palos (styles) like fandangos, cantes de ida y vuelta and cantes libres, contributing to making them the most popular flamenco styles in the era of the ópera flamenca, and created a new cante de ida y vuelta, the colombiana, later recorded by many other...