--- A Jack Daniels without ice or, failing that, a real bourbon, so as not to lose the habit.
Manuel López Poy appears at the bar at dusk, with that serious demeanor of his, which is only a facade and which hints, behind his lively gaze framed by his glasses, an infinite capacity to see life with humor, laughter and ---above all--- tons of that Galician sarcasm that comes factory-installed in this man born in the village of Sarria, Lugo, and who came to Barcelona 27 years ago: "Provisionally, to work with a six-month contract, and here I stayed until today."
"I am a village boy with a lot of curiosity who dreamed of being a cowboy, traveling the world and writing... and that's what I've dedicated myself to with unequal fortune," explains the writer, screenwriter and journalist, specialized in Blues and roots music and author of works ranging from comic scripts for Mamed Casanova, Las Cinco de la Tarde or La Espada de San Eufrasio to the essential volume Todo Blues, passing through western novels published under the pseudonym Samuel Shot or biographies of musical genres such as Rock, Soul or Rock-a-Billy. His latest achievement is a book that exhaustively covers the cultural history of the American Western through its characters, its folklore, its literature and its cinema, titled Érase una Vez el Oeste (Diabolo).
"Right now I'm engrossed in several things at the same time, for a change ---he warns---: a comic script about Valle-Inclán, a book about journalists and noir fiction, a new cowboy novel for 66RPM, the texts for a photographic project about the Blues in Barcelona, in addition to the usual survival schemes." He sips a good drink of his bourbon and continues: "Without forgetting the preparation of a long, long, long trip, for when they open the cage for us," he adds.
The Blues as the rhythm of life
A regular writer for publications such as Ruta 66, director of the Yearbook of the Societat de Blues de Barcelona and co-responsible ---together with Joan Ventosa--- for the magazine Bad Music Blues on Ràdio L'Hospitalet, Manuel is one of the most prominent names when it comes to activism in favor of Afro-American roots music in Barcelona.
Something that has been noted in his works such as Días Azules (Blue Days), a collection of stories that mixes fiction with musical biography; Entre el Cielo y el Infierno (Between Heaven and Hell), which adds a hundred anniversaries and profiles linked to the turbulent world of original bluesmen, or the recent Aires de Tormenta (Stormy Weather), an attractive artifact in the form of a disc-book that compiles more stories, of a noir and historical nature, with a soundtrack by musician and composer Blas Picón, who, for the occasion, has brought together a true dream team from the city's Blues and R&B scene.
"What I am most proud of are the friends I have made and who have helped me live life very intensely, which is what I am most satisfied with," the author boasts in this regard.
Barcelona as a total destination
"One distant day in 1976 I took a train to Madrid to study and discover the world with astonished eyes," Manuel recounts about what is possibly the most significant turning point in his existence. But it is in Barcelona, where he arrived in September 1994, where he claims that "the best and worst things of my adult life have happened to me. I have drunk its night like a savage, I have fallen in love like a calf, I sank to the bottom, I created a family, I became a writer and I surrounded myself with wonderful accomplices. To mention two contrasting historical moments, I will mention the brutal blues party for my 50th birthday, surrounded by friends from all over the country, and the beating I received from some Nazis one night in Poblenou."
--- And what would you say is your relationship with the city?
--- When I arrived in Barcelona, we were both hungover. The city was recovering from the Olympic hangover and I from the one I got on the train that brought me from Seville. Since then, that has been the tone of our relationship: she stubbornly on a suicidal race to nowhere and I trying to get all the juice out of it.
It is in Barcelona, where he arrived in September 1994, where he claims that "the best and worst things of my adult life have happened to me"This journey to nowhere of the city he inhabits is described by the writer as "the showcase of vulgar merchandise it has become, its absolute loss of personality and the narrow-minded reductionism to which looking at its navel so much has led it."One of the things that led me to stay was the intensity of its underground cultural life, something that has been lost to become a sad watering hole for tourists. Although perhaps that is happening to all big cities, that they are becoming mere backdrops," hence, at one point, coinciding with the swallowing of his thirdbourbon, Manuel López Poy raises a prayer to the air: "Paraphrasing José Luis López Vázquez, a request, a plea, a supplication... dear public and private bosses: Stop suffocating culture and torpedoing live music, this is becoming unbearable!".
Night has fallen and the chat has extended over several pieces of Blues, which the regular asked to be "old and soft, as I like to concentrate on the conversation."
--- Do you have any plans for the night?
--- No, I am a night owl in retirement phase. Now I wake up early to clearly see what I used to contemplate blurry on my way back home.
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