Joaquín Sabina | |
|---|---|
_Premio_Ciudad_de_Alcal%25C3%25A1_de_las_Artes_y_las_Letras.png) | |
| Born | Joaquín Ramón Martínez Sabina (1949-02-12)12 February 1949 (age 76) Úbeda, Jaén, Spain |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Spouse | |
| Musical career | |
| Genres | |
| Instruments |
|
| Labels |
|
Musical artist | |
| Website | www |
| Signature | |
 | |
Joaquín Ramón Martínez Sabina (born 12 February 1949) is a Spanish musician, singer, composer, and poet. His songs usually treat love, heartbreaks and society with significant use of literary figures as in the baroque-literature style.
He has released fourteen studio albums, two live albums, and three compilation albums. Some of his best-known songs are "Calle Melancolía" ("Melancholy street"), "19 días y 500 noches" ("19 days and 500 nights"),"¿Quién me ha robado el mes de Abril?" ("Who stole the month of April from me?"), "Pongamos que hablo de Madrid" ("Lets say I'm talking about Madrid"), "Y sin embargo" ("However"), "Contigo" ("With you") or "Peces de ciudad" ("City fish")
He performed both solo and with a group for his live albums, performing withJavier Krahe andAlberto Pérez in La mandrágora, the group Viceversa in a 1986 concert, and withJoan Manuel Serrat inDos pájaros de un tiro (Two birds with one stone).
Sabina suffered a stroke in 2001 and although he physically recovered, he entered a deep depression which resulted in a four-year-long concert hiatus.[1] He recovered and released his eighteenth album,Alivio de Luto, in November 2005 and in 2009 he released his album,Vinagre y rosas. In 2012 he released his latest album in collaboration withJoan Manuel Serrat:La Orquesta Del Titanic.
On June 29, 2020, Sabina married Jimena Coronado in a private ceremony in Madrid[2]
Joaquín Sabina was born inÚbeda, in theProvince of Jaén. He is the second son of Adela Sabina del Campo and Jerónimo Martínez Gallego. His father was a policeman.He attended aCarmelite primary school and he started writing his first poems and composing music at the age of 14. He was part of a band calledMerry Youngs which imitated singers such asElvis Presley,Chuck Berry andLittle Richard, as well as many others.
He attended a high school run by theSalesians of Don Bosco and during this period he began reading works byFray Luis de León,Jorge Manrique,José Hierro,Marcel Proust,James Joyce andHerbert Marcuse.
After completing high school, his father wanted him to follow in his footsteps and become a police officer but he refused, saying that he preferred the guitar. In his song "La del pirata cojo" he says he fantasizes about living different lives, but he would not even joke about becoming a police officer.
He then enrolled in theUniversity of Granada, readingphilology in the faculty. There, he read the poetry ofPablo Neruda andCésar Vallejo. Sabina lived at first with a woman called Lesley and started to prepare his thesis.
His revolutionary ideology led him to be related to anti-fascist groups. In 1970, he began collaborating with the magazinePoesía 70, sharing pages withCarlos Cano [es] andLuis Eduardo Aute; he then left the university, going into exile in London using a fake passport under the name Mariano Zugasti, to avoid persecution fromFrancisco Franco's government after throwing aMolotov cocktail into a government building. That same year, his father received an order to arrest Sabina due to his anti-Franco ideals.[3]
In 1975, Sabina started writing songs and singing at local bars. In a local bar called "Mexicano-Taverna" Sabina performed in the presence ofGeorge Harrison, who was celebrating his birthday. The ex-Beatle then gave Sabina a five-pound note as tip, which Sabina still preserves to this day. When Franco's dictatorship ended in 1975, Sabina returned to Spain and joined the army but, feeling imprisoned, he married to be able to sleep outside the barracks.
Sabina's first album,Inventario(Inventory) was released in 1978 by a small label Movieplay. He describes this album "as his own version of death metal", but the album largely went unnoticed. Afterwards, he moved to the powerfulCBS (today Sony) and releasedMalas Compañías(Bad Companies). This album gave Sabina his first number-one hit single "Pongamos que hablo de Madrid"[4] (Let's say I'm talking about Madrid), and the artist attained wide recognition. He released a live album calledLa mandrágora(The Mandrake), sharing the spotlight with bandmates Javier Krahe and Alberto Pérez. The trio enjoyed great popularity due to their participation in a TV program.La Mandrágora was controversial due to the racy and political content of the lyrics.
Sabina released his third albumRuleta Rusa(Russian Roulette) in 1984. In this album the singer evolved from the typical singer-songwriter style to Rock music with a harder sound and with presence of new instruments such as electric guitars. One of the most popular songs of this album was "Pisa el acelerador" (Step on the accelerator), which was the first maxi single of this album.[5]
In 1985 Sabina left CBS and released, this time underAriola,Juez y Parte(Judge and Side) his fourth studio album in which he teamed up with the band Viceversa, which was led by Pancho Varona, who would turn into one of his closest friends and producer of many of Sabina's future albums. In this release, which shows a more modern production with the use of synthesisers and keyboards, it was included another popular song entitled"Princesa" (Princess), arguably the most popular one of this release.[6]
His political views led him to take part in the anti-NATO movement. He later releasedJoaquín Sabina y Viceversa en directo, his first live album, which turned definitely into his commercial breakthrough. This album which was recorded in the Salamanca theatre inMadrid, the singer collaborated with other singers such as Javier Krahe,Javier Gurruchaga, andLuis Eduardo Aute amongst others.
In 1987 Sabina released his fifth studio album,Hotel, Dulce Hotel(Hotel, Sweet Hotel), which sold a large number of records in Spain (400.000 copies).[7] One of the most popular songs of this record was the track "Así estoy yo sin ti" (That's how I am without you) for which was released a promotional video, the first one of his musical career.[8] That success led to his next albumEl Hombre del Traje Gris(The Man in the Gray Suit), in which he would count with Antonio García de Diego, a new collaborator and also another of his fellow friends. After releasing this album, Sabina undertook a successful tour in Latin America. This record was followed by the release ofMentiras Piadosas(Pious Lies) in 1990.
Two years later, in 1992, the performer reached a new sales record with the release ofFísica y Química(Physics and Chemistry), which sold more than one million copies[9] mainly thanks to the smash hit "Y nos dieron las diez" (We went on till ten o'clock)[10] a song with strong Mexican traditional flavour that tells the story of a summer affair. This song received such a warm welcome that has been covered by many Latin American singers. The unprecedented success led the singer to another successful tour to the Americas.
His later albumsEsta boca es mía(literally, "This Mouth is Mine", a Spanish idiom meaning "I'll speak my peace"),Yo, mi, me, contigo[11](I, my, me, with you) and19 Días y 500 Noches(19 Days and 500 Nights), won him wider recognition and multiple platinum albums.
After recovering from a stroke,[12] he returned to the stage in 2002 withDímelo en la Calle (Tell Me on the Street orDare to Say That Outside). He later released a double album calledDiario de un peatón(A Pedestrian's Diary), which included both his previous album and 12 new songs, along with a book illustrated by him.
In 2005 Sabina released a new recordAlivio de luto(Relief from Mourning ). The album release was accompanied by a DVD that includes interviews, music videos, acoustic versions of the songs, and home-made recordings.
In 2007, he went on tour with Spanish singerJoan Manuel Serrat, calledDos Pájaros de un Tiro(Two Birds with One Stone) and they recorded a CD of this tour, which includes the DVD of the concert and a documentary.[13]
In 2009, he received the prize of the city ofMadrid from the mayorAlberto Ruiz Gallardón, who said that he was one of the most important people who had given a good image to the city.[14] That year, he published his 15th studio album,Vinagre y Rosas (Vinegar and Roses), an album in which he collaborated with his producersPancho Varona andAntonio García de Diego, and with the bandPereza. The first single from the album was the song "Tiramisu de limón" ("Lemon Tiramisu"), sung with Ruben and Leiva, the members of Pereza. For the promotional video, he collaborated with the actress and singerMónica Molina. Finally the album was released on 14 December, entering directly at the top of the Spanish album chart.[15]
In 2022, the documentarySintiéndolo mucho (Really Feeling It)[16] will premiere at the San Sebastián Film Festival, a film directed by Spanish directorFernando León de Aranoa and in which the former member of the bandPereza,Leiva, collaborates as composer of the soundtrack. It is an intimate documentary in which León de Aranoa shows us Joaquín Sabina in different aspects of his daily life, with recordings made during several years of monitoring the artist fromJaén and which shows us hidden aspects of his biography. In it, friends appear gathered at the singer-songwriter's apartment or images of his tour throughMexico.
Some examples of his baroque style songwriting with a largemetaphoric usage:
From "Calle melancolía"[17]
Vivo en el número siete
calle melancolía
quiero mudarme hace años
al barrio de la alegría
pero siempre que lo intento
ha salido ya el tranvía
en la escalera me siento
a silbar mi melodía
I live at number seven
melancholia street
for years I've been wanting to move
to the happiness neighborhood
but every time I try
the tram has already left
I sit in the stairs
and whistle my melody
From "19 días y 500 noches[18]
Me abandonó
Como se abandonan los zapatos viejos
Destrozó el cristal de mis gafas de lejos
Sacó del espejo su vivo retrato
[...]
Tanto la quería
que tardé en aprender a olvidarla
diecinueve días
y quinientas noches
She abandoned me
As old shoes are abandoned
She broke the glass of my distance glasses
She removed from the mirror her live portrait
[...]
I loved her so much
that to learn to forget her it took me
nineteen days
and five hundred nights
From "Contigo"[19]
Yo no quiero saber por qué lo hiciste
Yo no quiero contigo ni sin ti
Lo que yo quiero, muchacha de ojos tristes
Es que mueras por mí
Y morirme contigo si te matas
Y matarme contigo si te mueres
Porque el amor cuando no muere mata
Porque amores que matan nunca mueren
I don't want to know why you did it
I don't want with or without you
what I want, girl with sad eyes
is that you die for me
And dying with you if you kill yourself
and killing myself with you if you die
because when love doesn't die it kills
because loves that kill never die.
From "Barbi superstar"[20]
Al infierno se va por atajos, jeringas, recetas
ayer, hecha un pingajo me dijo, en el tigre de un bar
"¿dónde está la canción que me hiciste cuando eras poeta?
Terminaba tan triste que nunca la pude empezar"
Por esos labios, que sabían a puchero de pensiones inmundas
Habría matado yo que cuando muero ya nunca es por amor
You go to hell by taking shortcuts, syringes and prescriptions
yesterday, being a mess, she told me in a pub's toilet
"Where is the song you wrote me when you were a poet?
the ending was so sad that I never could start reading it (the song)"
For these lips, that tasted like filthy hostels' soup
I would've killed, now that when I die it's never because of love
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)