By Tony Bryant

Juan Peña Fernandez, El Lebrijano, was born in the old flamenco town of Lebrija and he belongs to the huge clan of  gypsy flamencos started by the legendary Fernando El Pinini. El Lebrijano’s mother was a singer, La Parrata, and her brother was El Perrate, a respected flamenco singer from Utrera, Seville.
El Lebrijano’s brother is the renown guitarist Pedro Peña and his aunts include Tomasa Torre, daughter of Manuel Torre, and La Fernanda and La Bernarda de Utrera. Amongst his cousins are guitarist Pedro Bácan and singer Tomas de Perrate.

He is the godson of La Niña de los Pienes, and so since his youth he has been surrounded by some of the most influential flamencos of the last century.

El Lebrijano is another singer who continues his family tradition, although  he has explored many different avenues with his flamenco mixing it with andalusi music, which at that time was an area that had not been previously explored.

On one recording he performed with a collection of North African musicians in an attempt to trace the origins of flamenco, connecting it with its Moorish past.
He started his career as a guitarist, but switched to singing at an early age, and he has become one of the most flamboyant singers of flamenco.
His early years were spent performing in the tablao El Guarjiro in Seville and El Duende in Madrid.

His exceptional vocal range and qualities are outstanding; at first he studied the styles of his family and later he was strongly influenced by Antonio Mairena and Juan Talega, but all the time he was developing his own unique vocal style.
During the 1960s and ‘70s he was one of the top festival artistes performing at many of the summer events that were held through out Andalucia and the rest of Spain.

The recordings he made during the 1970’s display his immense knowledge and expertise in the singing of the deepest most orthodox styles of flamenco song.
He recorded an excellent Cd entitled Persecution on which he traces the history and arrival of the gypsies in Andalucía.

The story is narrated by Felix Grande, the author of Memorias de Flamenco, and tells of the many injustices committed against the gypsies of Andalucía during the fifteenth century. El Lebrijano produces the atmosphere and feeling of the gypsy caravans with typical gypsy songs such as tientos, siguiriyas and caravanas, accompanied by the rattling of wheels and the thumping of hooves.
The caravana was a style of cante that his mother La Perrata was a master of and they are a style in which all the family would sing the chorus in harmony; a reminder of the days of traveling gypsy caravans!

El Lebrijano has made many recordings on which some of the biggest names of the flamenco guitar have accompanied him. These include Melchor de Marchen, Niño Ricardo, Manolo Sanlùcar, Juan Habichuela and Paco de Lucía, with who he made an excellent recording in 1995. This Cd was simply named El Lebrijano con la colloboration de Paco de Lucia, and this is an excellent demonstration of El Lebrijano at his very best.

El Lebrijano still performs today and his unique style of  flamenco mixed with  Arabian and African styles of music has seen the stages in all corners of the world.

He is to be considered one of the surviving legends of this art and he is a man that has explored avenues and possibilities that had never before been ventured into, in his search for the explanation of flamenco’s roots.

Recommended Viewing.

TVE Puro y Jondo El Lebrijano

Rito y Geografía del Cante Vol 3

Recommended Listening.

Persecucion 1991

Tierra 1992
El Lebrijano con la colaboracion especial de Paco de Lucía. 1995

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