Pablo Navarro, the renowned flamenco guitarist, was born Paul Kingsley Evans in Cardiff, Wales. His parents emigrated to South Africa at the end of WW2 and set up home in Sea Point, Cape Town. Paul decided at an early age that he wanted to pursue a career in music. After attending a show by a touring Spanish dance company, he settled on the flamenco guitar. After leaving school he learned what he could in South Africa, and then headed for Madrid, where he perfected his skills, eventually touring with Lusillo’s Spanish Dance Theatre Company. On his return to South Africa, he worked with many of the leading musicians and dancers of his time. He formed a group, Brazilia, which combined flamenco, jazz and South American rhythms. He later formed the Pablo Navarro Trio, with Elspeth Jack and Bienyameen, which proved a very popular and busy endeavour, averaging 150 performances a year. He is described by Elspeth Jack as a professional, with a legendary sense of rhythm, a larger than life personality, a tearaway who lived life to its limits. He died in 1999, aged 57, after a long struggle with cancer.

(Source: Obituary by Elspeth Jack, Cape Times 31 August 1999)