Joan Manuel Serrat November 4, 2008

Joan Manuel Serrat is a Spanish singer-songwriter from Barcelona, famous for his music in both Spanish and Catalan. He spent many years at odds with the government of Francoist Spain for, among many things, coming out against arbitrary executions and refusing to sing the song "La, la, la" in Spanish (rather than Catalan) for the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest; he was even exiled in Mexico for some time before Franco's death. Today, he is heralded as one of the most important figures in Hispanic popular culture.