Someone who chooses the adjective “Solo” as his artistic surname and who personally sings and plays until the last note we hear on his records seems to have all the ballots to embody the perfect hermit.
According to the talk, it turns out that Pablo Fernández Helguera does not fit that profile at all.
In reality, this self-sufficient Cantabrian musician based in Madrid is rather a mystery.
And, above all, a miracle.
Hardly anyone knows him yet in these parts, but he has just completed a monographic work with John Simon, a man now in his eighties who you will find in the credits of some of the most important albums of the sixties and seventies: he produced, among others , Janis Joplin, Simon & Garfunkel and, above all, The Band.
Fernández has just turned 38 and has just moved into a room without an elevator in the Madrid Río neighborhood, where he has installed his record operations bunker.
His three roommates, who are good people, give him the most comfortable room in the house (“almost full time”) so that he displays a collection of guitars, bass, keyboards, drums and microphones, the arsenal with which he 2020 has already signed a solo debut,
Alondras,
as exquisite as it is scarcely disclosed.
Previously he had led a band, The Puzzles, with which he realized his love for Paul McCartney, psychedelic rock and the most refined pop of the seventies, but hardly anyone cared to pay attention to them.
And so how the hell do we get to
Solo sings Simon,
an album published by a Florida record company specialized in delicacies and that enjoys a more extensive distribution in Japan, Germany, France or Italy than in Iberian lands?
The fuse lit during the pandemic break, when Radio 3 journalist Julio Ródenas suggested that he record a version of John Simon from home to premiere on his show.
Pablo gladly accepted the assignment, but as soon as he hung up, he had to type the name of the Connecticut musician into Google.
"I didn't even know who he was!" He confesses now, between embarrassed and amused.
Actually, saving the generational and curricular differences, Pablo and John have something of soul mates.
Because the member of the organization of the Monterrey festival (1967) and producer of albums as superlative as
Music from Big Pink
and
The Last Waltz
(The Band),
Cheap Thrills
(Big Brother & The Holding Company),
Child Is Father to the Man
(Blood Sweat & Tears) or
Songs of Leonard Cohen
has always maintained a stealthy profile, with a solo discography as succulent as it is difficult to locate.
“It was Paul Simon who personally pressed him over and over again to release his debut album,
John Simon's Album,
in 1971″, relates Solo.
“And as soon as it was released, she preferred to get married instead of going on tour.
He has always lived in seclusion, sitting in his producer's chair and not acting.
He is a very personal choice, but he has done well: he has just celebrated his 50 years of marriage… ”.
When Pablo finished his reading of
Tannenbaum,
the first song by Simon that he fell in love with, he sent it to Radio 3 and finalized the assignment.
But a few days later, almost as a courtesy, he looked for an email address for the composer and sent him the version.
He wasn't certain that he would even reach the recipient, let alone that the recipient would return a brief acknowledgment of receipt.
Several weeks later, when he had forgotten everything, he found an email from Simon in his inbox.
And it wasn't a couple of courtesy lines.
He effusively congratulated her on her work, suggested she record some other of his old compositions and even offered to personally play the piano in two precious pieces,
Irresistible
and
One,
a new creation.
That was the genesis of
Solo sings Simon,
a fortuitous and unpredictable project with which this son of two workers from the Cantabrian hospital in Valdecilla, without any family artistic background, claims his recognition as one of the great jewels of the Iberian quarry.
That's how they understood it at Think Like a Key Music, the same American label where the Brazilians Os Mutantes record, which began to manufacture the CDs and vinyls of this work just two weeks after receiving Pablo's first email.
"Before he had offered the album to almost all the Spanish record companies, but they all politely rejected it, arguing that it is not a good time for Spanish music sung in English," he reveals with more resignation than rancor.
The curious thing is that the illustrious Yankee mentor and his seasoned Spanish disciple have not even seen each other's faces during this long year of relationship.
Not even by videoconference: John only likes epistolary communication.
“The first few months,” Solo recalls, “he took a long time to respond to my emails, and on occasion I even wondered if the adventure was worth it, if I wasn't spending too much time on something that was progressing in fits and starts.
But there came a time when everything began to flow very quickly.
And it was wonderful."
Pablo Solo in a concert in Madrid in 2021.
And now, what does this involuntary hermit of Spanish rock expect from the future?
"Above all, continue playing and recording albums, although I am aware that my musical influences will not allow me to dedicate myself to this alone".
In his writing there are traces of the Wings, the Electric Light Orchestra, Left Banke, Randy Newman, Stealers Wheel or the first Pink Floyd, a
delicatessen
menu that does not, in fact, augur great commercial achievements.
“But maybe I could write custom songs for others in whatever style they put my mind to.
Sometimes Mexican songs sneak into my playlists, like Pedro Infante and Los Tres Reyes, or some trap thing that I dance to while I cook.
In music, as with cooking, you prefer caviar, but sometimes you go down to Telepizza…”.
–What time do you get up every day, while fame as a musician does not come to you?
-At six in the morning.
Terrible.
I work as a music teacher in a center for adolescents with addiction problems or mental illness.
A hard and enriching experience.
The other day I showed them a documentary about the Sex Pistols, and not even with those: they fell asleep.
So if I could get up a little less early, I'd be a happy guy.