Pepe Marchena

Who was Pepe Marchena?

José Tejada Marín 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. 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 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 artists like El Lebrijano or Enrique Morente. He was also the first flamenco singer to use orchestra to accompany flamenco singing, though later he returned to the guitar.

Marchena also revolutionized the public image of the flamenco singer: he was the first to sing standing on the stage, and often wore unusual outfit, such as riding clothes. Both his singing style and public attitudes were widely imitated at the time, to the extent that the period has often been identified as the era of marchenismo. He was the first real popular star of flamenco singing. Until he appeared in the flamenco scene, flamenco was restricted to small venues and theatres, whereas he could attract the masses to fill large theatres and even bullrings.