Joan Manuel Serrat Essentials

Taking lyric cues from poets Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca, Spanish guitarist and troubadour Joan Manuel Serrat unfolds exquisite tales of the human condition over his catchy Beatles-inspired pop, which also tugs quite liberally at the heart. His political outspokenness and embrace of the Catalan tongue made him a pioneer of the Nova Cançó movement in the ‘60s, and after openly condemning Franco's dictatorship in the ‘70s, he was exiled from Spain for a time. Of course, this did nothing to slow the dusky-voiced wordsmith's bold and brilliant roll through the decades since.