The town of Linares is located in the Spanish region of Andalusia, the cradle of flamenco. Carmen Pacheco Rodríguez was born here in 1951 and would later use her hometown as the stage name. Carmen Linares loved to sing flamenco from an early age and when the family moved to Madrid in 1965, she was able to develop herself there, learning a lot from and singing with the greatest artists. Her debut
… album was released in 1970 and in the Netherlands she performed for the first time in 1985. Today Linares is considered one of the greatest flamenco singers of 'cante jondo' or 'canto puro'. Despite her traditional pure singing style and almost encyclopedic knowledge of the flamenco repertoire, she is also open to more modern influences. On the album Raíces Y Alas, released on her own record label Salobre, Linares interprets ten poems by the famous Spanish poet and Nobel Prize winner Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958), set to music by guitarist Juan Carlos Romero, in a nuanced and expressive way. The album was awarded Best Flamenco Album 2008 in the Netherlands. (SvdP)more
