Manuel Torre
Manuel Soto Loreto, known as Manuel Torre, was a Jerez-born Romani singer widely considered one of the greatest — and most purely instinctive — cantaores in flamenco history, prized above all for his siguiriyas and soleá. He recorded relatively little and left few written traces, but García Lorca cited his singing as a defining example of duende, and generations of later cantaores, including Antonio Mairena, claimed him as their central artistic ancestor.
Manuel Molina died the same year Manuel Torre was born, so the connection runs through inherited style rather than any direct meeting — flamenco historians trace one of Torre's core siguiriya styles to the version associated with Molina, passed down through the Jerez singing families around Torre's father.
listen forTorre's own recording is explicitly billed as a 'Seguiriya de Jerez de Manuel Molina' — the credit is the clearest evidence of the lineage, since no recording of Molina himself survives from before commercial recording existed.
Flamenco historians consider El Marrurro — a Jerez siguiriya specialist from the same San Miguel neighborhood tradition — a direct forerunner of Manuel Torre's style, crediting him with shaping the interpretations of Torre and other San Miguel cantaores who came after him.
listen forEl Marrurro's siguiriyas survive mainly through the versions other singers, including Antonio Chacón, recorded of his compositions; listen for that same wrenching, unresolved quality in Torre's own siguiriyas.
Along with Silverio Franconetti and Antonio Chacón, Enrique el Mellizo is considered one of the most influential singers of flamenco's Golden Age, and scholars count him — via the broader Cádiz school he founded — among the sources feeding Manuel Torre's generation of Jerez and Cádiz-area singers.
listen forNo recording of El Mellizo survives; listen instead for the dark, Cádiz-inflected phrasing his malagueña and siguiriya styles are known for in the singers who inherited them, including the intensity of Torre's own bulerías.