Joaquín Sabina is a slippery fish. He belongs to the rare category of perfect interviewees. As soon as the red light turns on, he unleashes a torrent of confessions that blinds any journalist: like the greyhounds that chase the mechanical hare, instinct overrides all investigative purposes. Furthermore, Joaquín avoids simple characterizations of him: he is considered more of a poet than a singer, given that many do not know if he is a vocational rocker, an evolved singer-songwriter, a frustrated rumbero or a mix of everything.
In his abundant bibliography much more attention is paid to the literary than to the musical. Now it comes Inventory 75, a book by Juan Puchades and Julio Valdeón that combines both approaches (and includes a very extensive distillation of their interviews). It is warned that Sabina's discography is a minefield, with striking discrepancies between vinyl and compact discs, apart from too many loose gems on small media, collective albums and live works. For which, alas, neither the artist nor her company seem to have much interest.
Valdeón and Puchades trace influences that are not usually mentioned, from the frequent patterns of JJ Cale to the inspiration of the early Jean-Patrick Capdevielle, with his Springsteenian brio. Although the reality of the country forced him to work more with the models of Dylan and The Rolling Stones, later complemented with Caribbean effluvia and the treasures of Latin American popular songs. Better to forget that love for old jazz that usually materializes in funny vignettes camp more typical of Tuset Street in Barcelona than Canal Street in New Orleans. Musically regrettable but, it should be acknowledged, consistent with their man-in-bowler hat aesthetic.
Flexible, Sabina adapts to the mannerisms of her producers. Sometimes it works (José Luis de Carlos, Alejo Stivel) but blunders also abound, from the techno jewelry of the releases of the second half of the eighties to the slippage of the collaboration with Serrat (The Titanic Orchestra, unfortunately premonitory title). As Valdeón warns: upon entering the 21st century, Joaquín moves away from the musical world and “the library becomes his almost only fuel.” Instead of the street, television and newspapers.
There are two stages in Sabina's public life. The last twenty-something years of the last century represent the search for formats, the coupling to electrical groups, the voracity of experiences, the foundations of self-mythification. Already in this century, promoted to a mass phenomenon, she has prioritized her craft, maintaining her recording productivity and gigantic tours. It is true that her albums (and videos) live – it is insisted on Inventory 75— contain valuable approaches to classic themes. Although the New Joaquín takes too many precautions: he avoids playing in America the sublime Of purest and gold for containing too many Spanish references; By the same rule, it would not be possible Barbie Superstar.
The epic Sabina is today reduced to willful automatisms. Law of life, pessimists would say. Which can now be offset by the discoveries of Inventory 75. Thus, the scale of the show Joaquín Sabina and Viceversa live reveals how much that messy bohemian controlled. And the expansion of the field with external views, from the sonnets set to music by Pedro Guerra to the Italian versions of Lu Colombo. This iceberg does not end just like that.
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