La Niña de los Peines

• Name — La Niña de los Peines • Birth Name — Pastora Pavón Cruz • Born — 10 February 1890 • Birthplace — Seville, Spain • Died — 26 November 1969 • Place of death — Seville, Spain • Genre — Flamenco • Occupation — Singer • Years Active — 1898–1950s • Spouse — Pepe Pinto (m. 1931–1969) • Instrument — Vocals

Born in the famous quarter of Alameda Hércules, in Seville, she started singing for the public as at the age of 8, in the Seville Spring Fair. Later, when she was singing at Café de la Marina, a café cantante in Madrid, she acquired the nickname La Niña de los Peines (The Girl of the Combs, a nickname she never liked), as she usually sang a stanza in tangos style with the following lyrics: Peinate tú con mis peines Mis peines son de canela Comb with my combs My combs are made of cinnamon She never learned to read or write, and only learned to sing when she was already an adult. Her family were in dire need of money, so she started to sing regularly as a professional in the Taberna de Ceferino, in Seville, and then spent a period in Madrid and Bilbao. In this town, she was not allowed to sing in public owing to her young age, so she sat as model for painter Ignacio Zuloaga. Back in Andalusia, she took part in the performances of several cafés cantante in Jerez, Seville, Málaga and other towns. In 1910 she made her first recordings, and in 1920 the Teatro Romea was paying her the highest fee it had ever paid to an artist. After that, she started a long series of tours in all Spain. In 1922 at Granada, she participated at the Concurso de Cante Jondo. This famous music festival was largely organized by Manuel de Falla and also Federico García Lorca in order to reinvigorate the flamenco arts. She was featured as a professional performer, along with Antonio Chacón, Manuel Torre, Juana la Macarrona, Ramón Montoya and others. She was also chosen as one of the judges for the contest between non-professionals. • Illustration — Portrait of La Niña de los Peines, painted by Julio Romero de Torres between 1917 and 1918. Along her career she met or shared the stage with many classical flamenco singers of the Golden Age like Antonio Chacón, Manuel Torre, Francisco Lema (known as Fosforito El Viejo), La Trini, or Frijones. She had also met in 1922 Federico García Lorca, who, in a lecture given in 1933, stated: This woman's voice is exceptional. It breaks the moulds of all singing schools, as much as she breaks the moulds of any built music. When she seems to be out of tune, she is not out of tune: on the contrary, she is incredibly in tune as, owing to the special miracle of this style and the passion with which she sings third tones and quarter tones, impossible to record on the staff. (Quoted by Antonio Reina in Museo Virtual de la Niña de los Peines) In 1931, she married flamenco singer Pepe Pinto. After the parenthesis of the Spanish Civil War, she came back to the stage, as part of several flamenco shows, together with artists like Concha Piquer. After this, she retired for a few years, and came back with a show called España y su Cantaora (Spain and her singer), together with her husband, which she toured for a few months and was acclaimed by the critics. Then she definitely retired again. In 1961 she received an homage in Córdoba, in which several well-known flamenco artists took part, such as Antonio Mairena, Juan Talega, Manuel Morao, or Fernando Terremoto. In 1968, a monument was built in her honour in her quarter of Alameda de Hércules. In the last three years of her life, she was completely retired owing to senile dementia. She died in 1969, a month and a half after her husband. In that same year, singer Antonio Mairena recorded his album Honores a la Niña de los Peines in homage to her. In 1996, during the IX Bienal de Flamenco, the autonomous Andalusian government declared the voice of La Niña de los Peines Bien de Interés Cultural (Asset of Cultural Interest).

"In some sort of way, Pastora Pavón was a revolutionary of the flamenco song, serving as link between the traditionalism of the last century and all the modernisms the current one, even the most detestable, which she did not reject without experimenting on them first, assimilating and enlarging everything that had some valuable element." (Álvarez Caballero 1998:249) "We already saw, in the words of García Lorca, what La Niña de los Peines was when she sang with duende. A sombre, agonizing angel, who surpassed all measure, who embraced all emotions (…)." (Álvarez Caballero 1998:250) "Pastora is the incarnation of flamenco singing, as Bach was of music. Geniuses of the size of this Gypsy appear in history only once in a while. She is a pontifical figure who links, through her personality, the illustrious past with the present renaissance. (...) We do not know what La Andonda, La Serrana, María Borrico, Merced la Serneta and many other famous women singers sang like, but it seems impossible that any of them surpassed Pastora Pavón in the vastness of her repertoire, the freshness of the voice, Gypsy rajo and catching vitality." (Ricardo Molina, flamecologist, quoted by Ríos Ruiz 2002:103) "Among women, I have never known an artist like Pastora, and I think it will take centuries before her equal is born." (Pepe de la Matrona, singer, quoted by Álvarez Caballero 1998:252) "[Referring to the singers of the ópera flamenca period] there remains, towering, as a challenging unique figure, Pastora Pavón, La Niña de los Peines, battling the fandangueros in their own territory, the theatre stages, and achieving indisputable success with the old styles of seguiriyas, soleares, malagueñas, peteneras, tarantas, tientos and bulerías." (Martín Salazar, n.d.) "it can be assured that there has never been a more prolific and encyclopedic singer than Pastora. Nobody has had her flavour, nobody has been her equal." (Antonio Reina in Museo Virtual de la Niña de los Peines) "Pastora Pavón Cruz, the incomparable Niña de los Peines, has probably been the greatest genius in the history of [flamenco] singing. An all-style interpreter, she completely mastered the fundamental songs (seguiriyas and soleares), the festive ones (tangos, bulerías and cantiñas), the peteneras and the cantes de Levante (malagueñas, cartageneras, tarantas and granaínas). (Martín Salazar 1998) "With La Niña de los Peines, all discussion comes to an end: flamencologists, artists, flamenco fans, critics and everybody interested in flamenco, in general, state that she is the greatest woman singer to date." (Manuel Bohórquez, quoted by Antonio Reina in Museo Virtual de la Niña de los Peines).

La Niña de los peines, Patrimonio de Andalucía, Fonotrón, 2004, — The complete collection of her songs, recorded between 1910 and 1950, in 13 CDs, including CD ROM with a study of her artistic legacy. www.fonotron.com

La Niña de los peines, voz de estaño fundido, Sonifolk, Madrid, 1997 La voz de interes cultural: La Niña de los Peines, Colección Quejío, EMI-Odeón, Madrid, 1997 — Partial compilation

La Niña de los Peines was recorded at birth as Pastora María Pavón Cruz. She also worked under the name calvo. Her recorded language was Spanish. She married Pepe Pinto.