It's night and Tori Sparks appears at the Bar, dazzling and with her guitar on her back. She comes, of course, from playing somewhere, and now she only asks for "a glass of red wine" and for something by "David Bowie, Tom Waits or Flamenco" to play on the radio.
Singer and songwriter, music entrepreneur and Do It Yourself activist, this American resident in Barcelona has already accumulated twenty years as a musical artist, and thirteen at the head of her own record label, Glass Mountain. All this, without losing that expressive smile with which she explains and explains herself.
--And now, with the Covid situation, has there been a halt?
Quite the opposite. "With the pandemic, planned tours, here and in several countries, have been canceled, so I had to find other things to do." Between March and May, she promoted the #BalconyConcerts initiative, a weekly series of free concerts during quarantine. "We also released a compilation album with Glass Mountain, Amor en Los Tiempos de Cuarentena (Love in the Times of Quarantine), a charitable project to raise money for artists affected by the pandemic. Another charitable project has been the recording of a version of Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World, during quarantine, each musician from their home. A music video was made and, during the online launch event, we raised funds for the Food Bank."
--And for 2021, what plans do you have?
--At least, clean my house and try to write some songs. Oh, and one of my songs will be included in the soundtrack of a Netflix series!
Chicago-Nashville-Barcelona, with a stop in Granada
At 12 years old, Tori asked to sign up for guitar lessons. Perhaps that was the trigger, one of those moments that define everything or almost everything you will be tomorrow. Moving from her native Chicago to Nashville at 21 was another turning point, "although it seemed illogical because I didn't do Country and that's the capital of Country, but a local record label proposed working with them and their headquarters were there." The collaboration lasted a short time, because after a year the artist inaugurated her own label and began "to organize non-stop tours," always from Nashville.
--And from there you came to Barcelona?
--I was 26 years old and yes, I came to Barcelona and not to New York or Paris, which were my two other options. I didn't know anyone and didn't speak the language.
A year after being here, Tori visited Granada and everything changed again: "it was my introduction to Flamenco," a sound that has permeated her art until it became her own untransferable language, where American roots and the "Mediterranean Blues" (as the legendary BB King defined Flamenco) amalgamate.
And here she is now, with several albums under her belt, a conspicuous number of concerts behind her, savoring a red wine while reflecting on the fact of "moving forward with music, day after day after day, although it's always a struggle."
A city that complicates itself
"My relationship with Barcelona is one of love-hate, I admit it, but much more love. It's a city that complicates its own life and, by extension, the lives of those of us who live in it, but, at the same time, it is unique, full of richness and diversity, and always offers new details to discover. It is never boring. Here things always go spectacularly well or horribly wrong, there is never a middle ground".
--And being a musician, here?
--I feel super fortunate with the community of musicians I am part of, the network of friends I have, and the support I have received from the public and the local press.
The "ineptitude of the local, regional, and national government, combined with the amount of bureaucracy" does not escape her radar, and she is outraged that, in Ciutat Vella, they "prefer to put a Mango store instead of protecting a bookstore that has been there, literally, for 99 years."
Even so, Tori prefers to remember her first visit to Barcelona: "It was Carnival and I was in front of Santa María del Mar. Suddenly the gegants appeared, dancing, with people with little lights and playing music. Here, the gegants are the most normal thing in the world, but they impress you if you didn't know they existed."
And yes, she was impressed.
--There are many details of this city that we take for granted because we live here, but for some reason, for many reasons, Barcelona attracts so many people.
The artist admits to having the feeling of having found her home in our city, "and it's a surprise that it's here, so far from where I was born!" Although possibly her true home, her complex, rich, impregnable castle, is the music that inhabits and comes alive in her.