Talk about Juan Martin Fierro is to think about life through music, something that we only know and, above all, feel the music loversthose of us who get excited when hearing the story behind the lyrics of a song or the anecdote that happened once the artist leaves the stage, it is something like what happens behind the scenes, I am not exaggerating when I say that it is obsessing about life , the data and dates of those beings that we admire for the harmoniousness produced by their lyrics or the instrument they play.
iron He has dedicated twenty-five years to writing about music in prominent media outlets, most of them written for the publishing house EL TIEMPO. During his career, he has had the opportunity to interact with great figures of various genres, including salseros Rubén Blades, Cheo Feliciano, Papo Lucca and Issac Delgado, Pablo Milanés and Ivan Lins; legendary figures of traditional and classical music in Colombia, such as Teresita Gómez, Blanca Uribe, Catalino Parra and Petrona Martínez; icons of Brazilian popular music such as Caetano Veloso, Djavan and Gilberto Gil; and world jazz stars such as Kamasi Washington, Maria Schneider and Jack DeJohnette, among many others.
In these pages of his new book, The way you sound, through in-depth interviews and intimate approaches with the artists, Fierro manages to capture the beginnings and the most transcendental moments in music. But, above all, he reveals to the reader what happens once the stage lights go out and the artist faces his own reality. As sung by Héctor Lavoe: “I am the singer, very popular wherever I want, but when the show is over, I am just another human.”
Whoever has a prologue by the teacher and poet Rubén Blades can consider themselves lucky and, even more, privileged. This is the case of Fierro, he shares with us the dedication of Blades, who not only thanks him for his timely contribution to musical history, but also asks a harmoniously honest question: “What good is knowledge if we stop sharing it with others? ?
Cover of the book ‘The way you sound’ by the writer Juan Martín Fierro
Photo:Claudia Ruiz
In these fifty stories there are not only data and scenes that were witnessed within musical history, but also the deep relationship that Martín Fierro has with music. “When writing about music I have always been guided by my preferences rather than trends, and, in that sense, I have been able to satisfy my musical tastes by going from artists that have already disappeared to the forefront of today’s sounds,” he confesses to his readers in the prologue of this book.
