Joan Manuel Serrat

As a teenager, Spanish singer/songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat first picked up the guitar and began making music. During 1960 he joined a pop ensemble at Barcelona's Agronomy School, where he and his classmates performed Beatles numbers and Italian pop melodies. His path to a recording contract opened in 1964 when he appeared on the radio program Radioscope; presenter Salvador Escamilla arranged a deal with Edigsa, leading to Serrat's debut EP the next year. He took the stage for the first time in 1966 at the Catalan Music Palace, and his first album followed twelve months later. Not long afterward he released the follow-up Cancons Tradicionals and made his screen debut in the film Palabras de Amor.

The 1969 album Dedicado a Antonio Machado, Poeta, whose lyrics were drawn from Antonio Machado's poetry, became his strongest success yet and earned widespread praise throughout Spain and Latin America. He marked the achievement with a South American tour and captured first prize at Rio de Janeiro's World Music Festival for his performance of "Penélope." The arrival of 1971's Mediterraneo established him on an international scale. American audiences first welcomed him in 1976 during appearances in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. In January 1995 the Spanish government awarded him a medal for his contributions to Hispanic culture. That same year the tribute album Serrat, Eres Unico saluted his body of work. In 2000 the Spanish Association of Authors and Editors (SGAE) presented him with one of its ten Medals of the Century.

Although he faced a health setback that required surgery for bladder cancer in 2004, Serrat sustained his career across the following decade with releases that included the orchestral album Sinfónico in 2003 and the all-Catalan Mô in 2006. Further tributes appeared in 2005 on Serrat, Eres Unico, Vol. 2. He joined another legendary Spanish singer, Joaquín Sabina, for the 2007 album Dos Pájaros de un Tiro, and the pair reunited five years later on La Orquesta del Titanic.