Joaquín Sabina

Joaquín Ramón Martínez Sabina (born 12 February 1949) is a Spanish musician, singer, composer, and poet.

His songs usually treat about love, heartbreaks and society with a large usage of literary figures similarly to the baroque-literature style.

He has released fourteen studio albums, two live albums, and three compilation albums.

Some of his most 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 my April month"), "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")

In 1970, he began collaborating with the magazine Poesía 70, sharing pages with Carlos Cano (singer-songwriter) and Luis Eduardo Aute, he then left the university, going into exile in London using a fake passport under the name Mariano Zugasti, to avoid persecution from Francisco Franco's government after throwing a Molotov cocktail into a government building.

That same year, his father received an order to arrest Sabina due to his anti-Franco ideals.

In 1975, Sabina started writing songs and singing at local bars.

In a local bar called "Mexicano-Taverna" Sabina performed in the presence of George 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 powerful CBS (today Sony) and released Malas Compañías (Bad Companies).

This album gave Sabina his first number-one hit single "Pongamos que hablo de Madrid" (Let's say I'm talking about Madrid), and the artist attained wide recognition.

He released a live album called La 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 album Ruleta 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.

In 1985 Sabina left CBS and released, this time under Ariola, 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.

His political views led him to take part in the anti-NATO movement.

He performed both solo and with a group for his live albums, performing with Javier Krahe and Alberto Pérez in La mandrágora, the group Viceversa in a 1986 concert, and with Joan Manuel Serrat in Dos 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.

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 with Joan Manuel Serrat: La Orquesta Del Titanic.

On June 29, 2020, Sabina married Jimena Coronado in a private ceremony in Madrid

Joaquín Sabina was born in Úbeda, in the Province of Jaén.

He is the second son of Adela Sabina del Campo and Jerónimo Martínez Gallego.

His father was a policeman.

He attended a Carmelite primary school and he started writing his first poems and composing music at the age of 14.

He was part of a band called Merry Youngs which imitated singers such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard, as well as many others.

He attended a high school run by the Salesians of Don Bosco and during this period he began reading works by Fray Luis de León, Jorge Manrique, José Hierro, Marcel Proust, James Joyce and Herbert 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 the University of Granada, reading philology in the faculty.

There, he read the poetry of Pablo Neruda and César 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 the anti-fascist groups.