Eva Ayllón - Biography
Eva Ayllón rules in Peru. No matter where you travel, from the jungles of Quito to the shores of Lake Titicaca, from Lima’s bustling Boulevards to the sleepy streets that wind through the hills of Casco, Ayllón’s Afro-Peruvian music, known in Peru as Musical Creole, provides the soundtrack.
Creole music is known as Afro-Peruvian music in The States, due to the work of David Byrne, who introduced the genre to American audiences with the compilation The Soul of Black Peru (1995 Luaka Bop). The album included work by Susana Baca and Eva Ayllón, and although Baca is better known here, because of her solo albums for Byrne’s label, in Peru it’s Ayllón who brought Creole music into the mainstream. Every Peruvian restaurant, hotel lobby and souvenir shop has a CD player, and when you ask them what they’re playing, they’ll usually hold up a disc by Ayllón and sing her praises. If you’re not familiar with her work, they’ll offer their condolences before making you a list of her best albums and directing you to the nearest record store.
Ayllón has been Peru’s leading Afro-Peruvian diva since 1979. She has a roomful of Prèmios - Peru’s equivalent of the Grammy - in categories including Best Creole Song, Best Creole Vocalist, Best Female Vocalist - and over a dozen gold and platinum albums. Her concerts are major productions, featuring 16 dancers performing various folkloric dances from all over Peru, a 13-member band, elaborate sets and many costume changes. But despite a stage full of swirling dancers, spinning like tipsy rainbows and a band that makes the earth tremble with their fierce percussive attack, Ayllón’s voice easily dominates the proceedings. Her dramatic sandpaper and honey contralto cuts listeners to the bone; after a particularly moving song, it’s not unusual to see her fans weeping.
Ayllón, the oldest of 14 children, was born in Lince, a working class neighborhood of Lima and grew up surrounded by Afro-Peruvian culture. The family wasn’t poor, but Ayllón had to work to help support her parents and siblings. When she was 13, she got a job dancing on a pop music television program with a group called the Ebony Dolls. One of the shows producers, Pedro Chispas, heard her singing backstage for her friends and gave her a few featured spots singing pop music, but she was drawn more by the Creole music she grew up with. By 15, she was making the rounds of the peñas [clubs where neighborhood people hang out to socialize and play folk music] singing folk songs and learning the rules for the different styles of music - the marinera, which portrays the flirting of the hen and cock, and is considered by some to be vulgar, the lando, a very sad form of African music, the festejo, a happy kind of dance music and the tondero and trujillo, which are based on the rhythms of the horse’s hoofs and the dancing of the turkeys.
Ayllón’s parents were not encouraging. Like parents everywhere, they thought the musician’s lifestyle would ruin her morals. In 1973, Ayllón was asked to replace the departing female singer of the Los Kipus trio. Group leaders Paco Macera and Genaro Ganoza were important Creole guitarists and composers and told her she had a dramatic style that would fit well with their guitars. She was 18-years-old; her first tour of the country with Los Kipus introduced her to the Creole audience.
In 1977, the trio cut an album, Los Kipus y Eva (Iempsa). It was a hit and launched Ayllón’s solo career. Her next album, Esta Noche (1979 Sonodisc) was a best seller, and made her Peru’s leading Creole singer, a position she’s maintained ever since, with sold out concerts all over Europe, Mexico, Canada and South America, including a yearly three day series in Lima, that rivals Springsteen’s New Jersey homecoming concerts for their hysterical energy.
Ayllón usually plays two sets in concert, an international set, with sambas, salsa, and other Caribbean grooves and a set of Creole music. While not well known in the states, Ayllón’s audience here is growing, especially in cities with large Peruvian communities like New York, Washington DC, Miami and San Francisco. Ayllón has made about 30 records in her solo career, including Eva Ayllón (1983 CBS), Para Todos (1986 CBS), Para Tenerte (1994 Discos Independientes), Ritmo, Color y Sabor (1996 Discos Independientes), Eva (2002 Sony Music Chile) and Eva! Leyenda Peruana [Peruvian Legend] (2005 Times Square), her first album produced in the United States for an international market. To play catch up, try a greatest hit compilation — Grand Exitos de Eva Ayllón, Vol. 1 (1991 Discos Independientes), Historian de Eva Ayllón (1999 Discos Independientes). Ayllón currently lives in New Jersey with her Peruvian-American husband and children.
