La Niña de los Peines
photo: anonymousunknown author · public domain ↗Pastora Pavón Cruz, known professionally as La Niña de los Peines, is widely regarded as the most important woman in the history of flamenco cante. Performing from childhood in Seville and recording prolifically from 1910 into the 1950s, she mastered essentially every palo — from the gravest siguiriyas and soleares to festive tangos and bulerías — leaving a catalogue of more than 350 recordings later declared a Spanish national cultural asset. Alongside her brother Tomás Pavón, she became a touchstone for the mid-20th-century flamenco revival and for every singer who came after her.
Flamenco historians group La Niña de los Peines with Manuel Torre and her own brother Tomás Pavón as the singers who became inspiring models for the generation that led flamenco's traditionalist revival — Torre's dark, duende-heavy siguiriyas set a standard of raw emotional weight that shaped how her generation approached the most serious cantes.
listen forTorre's 'Siguiriyas' is prized for a jagged, almost-breaking vocal intensity; listen for that same willingness to let the voice crack and strain, rather than stay pretty, in Pastora's heavier recordings.
Chacón was, alongside Manuel Torre, one of the two dominant male cantaores of Pastora's formative years, and his ornate, encyclopedic command of the fandango and malagueña families set a benchmark of vocal refinement that the recording generation — Pastora included — measured itself against.
listen forChacón's florid, precisely controlled ornamentation on 'Qué Tienes Por Mi Persona' is a study in restraint next to Torre's rawness; Pastora's tangos and cantiñas show she absorbed some of that same precision even in her more festive material.
La Niña de los Peines learned directly from singers of La Serneta's generation, and the soleares style La Serneta is credited with originating — the 'soleares de la Serneta,' prized for their melodic complexity — became a core part of the repertoire Pastora Pavón carried forward and helped canonize.
listen forThere is no surviving recording of La Serneta herself, who died before commercial flamenco recording was widespread — listen instead for how singers of Pastora's generation treat the winding, unusually melodic soleá phrases attributed to her, then hear that same complexity in Pastora's own soleares recording 'Un Día Era Yo El Rey.'