A Cadillac behind the adventure of bringing Leonard Cohen’s songs in Spanish

behind the title The Poet: Songs in Spanish hides an ambitious project that slowly took shape and already has a first volume published: translating the repertoire of the legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and recording it with a selection of voices from all areas of Argentine music, from Ariel Minimal to Daniela Herrero, from Silvina Garré to Ricardo Tapia. And between Emilio del Guercio, Nito Mestre or Leo García, just to name a few.

The creators of such an adventure are Mario Siperman and Gustavo Rocathe first of them massively known as keyboardist of Los Fabulosos Cadillacs

The Blue Lotus, from comics to study

The blue lotus (in French The blue lotus), serialized between December 1932 and February 1934 in Le Petit Vingtième, a weekly supplement for children of the conservative Catholic daily Le Vingtième Siècle, is the fifth volume of the series The Adventures of Tintincreated by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé.

For many it is Hergé’s first masterpiece, and some critics consider it the best of all Tintin albums. Thanks to the professions of Zhang Chongren, a Chinese student friend of the Belgian author, the story is very well documented, erases Western prejudices about China in the first half of the twentieth century and highlights the Japanese intervention in China, a fact contemporary to its publication. .

In that widespread area of ​​the city of Buenos Aires that some insist on calling Belgrano, others Nuñez, El Loto Azul is also an apartment that houses the recording studio of Mario Siperman, aka Spiker. Upon entering, the décor combines a multitude of comic memorabilia with gold records from his band, plus a beautiful stack of CDs on one wall and an array of vintage keyboards, instruments and sound accessories that will make even the neophyte sigh for the beauty of it. your drawings.

But El Loto Azul is also the name of the record label that hosts Siperman’s latest adventure outside his group of a lifetime, and which he shares with Gustavo Roca: the first of numerous volumes of The Poet: Songs in Spanish. That is: the repertoire of the Canadian Leonard Cohen, translated into the language of his admired Federico García Lorca, and sung by voices of all genres of Argentine music, with Siperman, Roca and other musicians as support bands.

The origin

The genesis of this beautiful project has to do with Cadillacs and with chance. In 2008, during the group’s reunion tour after several years away, in a Vicentino sound check he began, to kill time, to hum a song by Cohen. “I’ve thought about it and I can’t remember what song it was,” says Siperman, laughing, in his studio on a cold winter morning.

That’s where the light bulb went on: a disk called Vicentino plays Cohen in Spanishwith the fabulous frontman who makes the songbook of the author of Farewell, Marianne“In the style of jazz classics like Cole Porter’s songbook“.

The project did not materialize due to the countless tours of LFC and its lead singer as a soloist. “And we also realized that a project of this magnitude must have a very clear focus. For a singer to concentrate in this way is something unfathomable, almost impossible, ”says Mario.

But fate had other plans. Quiet hand, singer of La Mancha de Rolando, one day went to El Loto Azul to record some things. “And in one of those typical study speeches, where one says to the other ‘Did you hear such a thing?’ Cohen’s name and this idea were born. Manu told me ‘I want to do something’, and that same night he sent us a song. “

And he adds: “There we realized with Gustavo that we could put a singer for each song. This has two good things: on the one hand, those who participate are fully involved in his song, and it is something humanly possible to do. ‘else, while we were recording the songs, for some reason, whether it was the melody, the mood of the song or what the lyrics say, it occurred to me who was the perfect person to record it. he said’ This is the song perfect for this and for that ‘and it happened, ”says Mario.

the selected

One of the main attractions of The poet it is just that: the different interpreters of the songs. Ariel Minimal, Daniela Herrero, Silvina Garré, Ricardo Tapia, Emilio del Guercio, Nito Mestre, Leo García, Cucuza Castiello, Bárbara Luna and Claudio Kleimanonly in the first volume already edited.

In one folder there are already made recordings of many others: Teresa Parodi, Palo Pandolfo, Adrián Yanzón, Jorge Minissale, Fernando Goin, Manu Quieto, Juan Subarà. Beto Cuevas, Victor Heredia, Andrea Echeverri and Jorge Nasser.

“The fact is that Leonard Cohen’s theme, with more than fifty years of musical career, is also very varied. Both in the way he sings, in what he writes and in his interpretation of him. In general, when we think a song like that is for it, it was perfect for him. The only time I was wrong was with Pandolfo stick. I had thought for him It seems so long August, Nancy, which is a subject that represents a tremendous decline. But obviously I thought of the Palo de Don Cornelio “.

Pandolfo’s response was unexpected: “When I called him and told him, he had an amazing response: ‘I’m in a much brighter phase right now.’ Love yourselffrom Have new songswhich was left for one of the following volumes, because given his death it seemed to me in bad taste to insert it now ”.

The same, depending on the choice of topic, happened with the musician and specialized journalist Claudio Cleiman: “Claudio discovered the project and told us he was a fan of it First let’s take Manhattan. And it was different, because he was the one who translated too. So, if you choose the theme and adapt it, you will obviously give one hundred percent of your talent. It was very good”.

One of the most exciting moments on the album is the version of Yyou know meoriginal from Songs from a roomCohen’s album released in 1969) on the voice of Emilia del Guercio. A unique voice, albeit in an unusual register, both for chronological reasons, and for many years that Del Guercio has not released a studio album (the legendary Graffiti is from 1983).

“I was a huge Sabbath fan. More than Almendra, because Almendra separated when I was very young and I got more tanned Coven ”, Mario is sincere. “I listened to the Coven farewell concert at Luna Park live on Radio del Plata, broadcast by Badía. I remember it perfectly. For this reason, at the end of the song, at my request, Emilio recites ‘Every flower that is born in the wasteland has problems if someone sees its body uncovered under the dew’, which is a verse from psalmodya sabbatical that I love, ”he says.

Regarding Emilio’s current voice, Siperman outlines a very interesting theory: “When he starts with the coven, you can say that he sang along with Spinetta. Then, as he walks away like that spin, he takes on his personal color of him, which is cool.

The theme of the voices and the singers makes the conversation jump, without interruption, from Del Guercio to Bird on a wire from Nito Mestre, and in the more than natural way that Nito solves parsimony at the beginning of one of Cohen’s standards. “And that that first verse is low for Nito in terms of the pitch of his voice. But the nice thing is that he really liked singing over there, because generally we are used to listening to Nito in higher forms, more related to what would be the choruses, “he says.

live presentation

The Poet: Songs in Spanish it will be presented on Thursday 14 July at La Trastienda. Lucas Becerra (drums), Nicolás Fontimpe (bass), Guillermo Gomez (guitar), Marcela Hatsatourian (backing vocals), Mayra Cordonier (backing vocals) and Louise Dearco (backing vocals) will accompany Siperman (keyboards) and Roca (guitar) plus the host of guest singers.

If it can be foreseen Volume 1 Silvina Garré will not be part of the party, since she lives in Mar del Plata, and the same happens with Bárbara Luna, who lives in France, but whose songs (The dark river Y Chi of firerespectively) will be interpreted, in the same way as my oh my by Ricardo Tapia (third absent with notice).

The fact of the absences (and other appearances of the volumes to come) is linked to the Argentine edition of the CD of Old ideas de Cohen (2012) which includes the texts translated into Spanish by Joaquín Sabina. When asked about it, Siperman doubles up with another great story. “I didn’t know, but I knew Sabina is a huge Cohen fan because Serrat told me.”

And he explains: “At one point I called Serrat to let you participate. First he got excited, but then in the end he didn’t succeed. So it was that in a conversation I had with him he said (imitates him) ‘Well, man, the real Cohen fan is Sabina.’ And it happened to me that since I had already talked to Serrat, I couldn’t say ‘Hey, since you’re not coming, won’t you give me Joaquín’s phone number?’ (laughs). I’m a little paranoid about being out of place. However, the project is not closed.

For this, and to close, Siperman returns to the link with Spain, but from a musical point of view. “There is a strange ambiguity. Cohen was Canadian. He played Spanish guitar, with nylon strings and learned to play guitar with a Spaniard in Canada. He lived on the Greek island of Hydra and was a Lorca fan. For all this, his way of playing and composing is more influenced by the music of the Mediterranean than by the music of North America “.

“Our interpretation is closer to American folk and to what comes from Celtic music and Irish folklore. This is where the ambiguity occurs: we play a little more American than him, he sounded more European. So when we put together the versions we thought, as something internal, ‘If Leonard were here, would he accept it?’ ”.

There is no doubt that the passages included in volume 1 (and subsequent) of The Poet: Songs in Spanish they would have had permission from field commander Leonard Cohen. Because, as he rightly said, we are ugly, but we have music.

mfb