Flamenco & Pepe Marchena

Latin Music/Recording: Europe: Pepe Marchena

Pepe Marchena

Born José Tejada Marín in Marchena, Seville, on 7 November 1903, flamenco vocalist, Pepe Marchena (aka El Nino Marchena), sang in taverns as a boy. Pepe first performed as Niño de Marchena. As he became more professional he began touring the cafes and theatres of Andalusia. Arriving in Madrid in 1921, the next year he bagged employment at Teatro La Latina. Paid 200 pesetas daily, he must have been a valued performer, earning more than the going rate. This tendency to be popular would soon cause something of a rift between him and other flamenco performers who didn't think Marchena delivered real flamenco. Yet in popularizing flamenco he would be its ambassador to the globe. In the meantime, his partner at guitar was Ramon Montoya.

The various forms of flamenco are its palos. Among those families is the fandango arriving in the early 18th century as a dance for couples to eventually become a favorite among the aristocracy. Fandangos are furthered sectioned by place of origin. The granaina, for instance, sprung from Granada about 55 miles northeast of Malaga by air. The fandango de Huelva is a style from Huelva off the Spanish coast about 35 miles from the Portuguese border [flamenco maps below].

The title of Volume 1 of 'Great Interpreters of Flamenco: Niño de Marchena (1920-1940)' seems to indicate recordings by Marchena as early as 1920, that volume beginning with 'La Rosa' which may not translate to 1920. But I find no recordings of 1920 anywhere documented. Other sources state that Marchena first recorded in 1922, but I can find no documentation of that either. June of 1922 saw him performing for the King and Queen of Italy upon their visit to the Kingdom of Spain that month. His earliest determinable recordings were in 1924, per the sixteen-volume release of 'Niño De Marchena: Obra Completa en 78 rpm 1924-1946'.

Marchena spent the twenties and thirties touring Spain, filling roles in opera flamenco in the twenties, moving onward to films in the thirties. Marchena had become enormously popular by the time of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Reflecting that, he dressed too well for the period, getting arrested by Republicans for being wealthy, albeit his release was arranged by the Minister of the Frente Popular. Marchena continued in opera, flamenco and films (such as 'La Dolores' and 'Martingala') after the war with high success. The fifties saw Marchena touring South America, Paris, Morocco and Algieria. He took flamenco as far away as Pakistan in 1961. Documentation of Marchena below is copied from the VF History. How that data was obtained amidst sparse information is now a mystery several years later, so I wouldn't put money on dates below which should be followed by question marks. The VF is supposedly organized by release dates. How those were determined I no longer know, perhaps somewhere in unsaved research for Montoya, but both sessions and issues of Marchena are presently largely unfound. Perhaps they are recording dates that I failed to distinguish, currently unable to link him to any early studios or record labels.