by John Storm Roberts, Original Music
Flamenco, like opera, has been increasingly subject to the "Big Voice" syndrome -- ever more tearing, ever more hyperbolically emoting. What made Pinto one of the greatest singers of a flamenco peak period was his mix of passion and control -- a sense that the fire of his performances was a fire banked so that it would not overwhelm him. He was, in a word, a master rather than a showman, and these recordings -- mostly with the superb Melchor de Marchena on guitar -- prove it.