Joaquín Sabina: the character ate the person

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.

More information

Sabina's miracle... or how to resurrect in Madrid

In his abundant bibliography much more attention is paid to the literary than to the musical.

Now comes

Inventario 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 humorous

camp

vignettes 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 foreboding 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 live albums (and videos) – it is insisted in

Inventario 75

– contain valuable approaches to classic themes.

Although the Nuevo Joaquín takes too many precautions: he avoids playing the sublime De purísima y oro

in America

because it contains too many Spanish references;

By the same rule,

Barbi Superstar would not fit either.

The epic Sabina is today reduced to willful automatisms.

Law of life, pessimists would say.

Which can now be compensated for with the discoveries of

Inventario 75.

Thus, the rundown of

Joaquín Sabina and Viceversa's live

show reveals how much that disastrous 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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