It looks like not much will happen regarding the 50th anniversaries of the deaths of two crucial flamenco artists from Seville, Pastora Pavón and Pepe Pinto. According to our colleague Manuel Bohórquez, they’re “among the greatest of all times in cante“. It will be 50 years of their final farewell in in October and November of this year, 2019, and in the opinion of those of us working in this flamenco website the anniversary should be commemorated in style, particularly in Seville, were both were born: Pastora at the Puerta Osario district and Pepe at La Macarena, thirteen years apart.

There hasn’t been any artists more quintessentially Sevillan than them both, particularly in cante, and it’s a pity that the people in the capital of Andalusia don’t show them greater affection, particularly to Pepe Pinto, who has been very much forgotten in his own hometown, as cantaor and also as entrepreneur, a little known aspect of this artist from La Macarena which, certainly, is seldom acknowledged.

It’s a good thing that the Federación de Entidades Flamencas de Sevilla will honor them in their series Entre naranjos y olivos, and that one or other summer festival will do something in their memory. Yet, Seville City Council should organize a series of lectures and concerts honoring both of them, since they’re among the most notable sons of this city. In our opinion, it’s a shame that Pepe Pinto has nothing to his memory at La Macarena, for example, because he’s the most important artists from that district. He was a true macarenero, from Monedero Street, not an outsider like others who claim to be from La Macarena without having been born there. Thus, it’s baffling that nothing has been erected to his memory in that district.

Photo above: Niña de los Peines with her brother Tomás Pavón (left) and her husband Pepe Pinto (right)