"I heard Catalan being spoken at a kiosk and I thought: 'What the hell am I doing in Madrid?'"

PalmaLlorenç Santamaria walks through the bar door and greets with a handshake and a wide smile that doesn't leave him during two hours of conversation. He is surprised to see the photographer. "Oh, but do we have to take photos? I could have sent you some!". He looks at himself as if to check that his appearance will be up to the task. In his silhouette, the Mediterranean man coexists – linen trousers and shirt – with the rocker he has never ceased to be – earring in his ear. Music starts playing on his Ray-Ban Meta glasses and he takes them off to turn it off. He wears a cap with the initials LS engraved and poses with and without it, while he adjusts his hair. He orders an iced Americano coffee, smiles and is ready for the questions. He lives in Barcelona, but he comes and goes continuously to Mallorca to take care of his 95-year-old sister. He is up to date with what is happening in his homeland and, before addressing a career of more than six decades, he starts with overtourism.

“Just look at this airport. It has halls that look like football fields. They could, at least, separate domestic flights from international ones. Why do I have to arrive two hours early just because some guy is going back to Sweden after his holidays? And, afterwards, where do all these millions of euros that come in here every day go?”.

He has not attended any demonstration against saturation because he was not on the island, but he would have done so if it had coincided. “I would have taken to the streets. Before, tourists were in their hotels, and now any little house or apartment is rented out, and a car too. The power of tourist rentals is very great. But, of course, I see my daughter, who is going on a trip to Greece and looks for accommodation on Airbnb and everything is already Airbnb. Damn, they have introduced themselves in a way that is hard to stop!”

Pros and cons

He has two daughters, 32 and 22 years old, lives with his wife in Barcelona, and is about to become a grandfather. At 81. “I’m giving you an exclusive,” he laughs, mockingly. During the golden years, he was Lorenzo Santamaría, not Llorenç. “At that time, in Catalonia, there were singer-songwriters and, for the rest, stage names. When I had to decide on that, I wasn’t thinking about anything. I was a simpleton!”. He laughs again before confessing: “I wanted to be a singer. The best singer in the world. I didn't think about fame, nor did I want to be famous. That’s the truth. Then fame comes to you and you say... Damn, it has its pros and cons. You need it if you want to put on concerts with good production, but it’s also burdensome. When I realized it, I was already famous and it annoyed me. I never retired, but when I felt overwhelmed or tired, I always returned home. I returned to the island. Mallorca is my refuge”.

His father was a carpenter and died when he was two years old. His mother, a worker at a textile factory in Santa Maria, was left in charge of six children. The eldest—whom Llorenç now looks after—took the reins. “I grew up among women, happy as could be. We were a humble, village family. We didn't live in abundance, but we didn't go hungry. And I was surrounded by love”. He closes his eyes to emphasize the word love and remembers how the fishmonger used to pass by once a week, selling picarel and sardines to the sound of a horn. “I think about how we fed ourselves without knowing anything about concepts like organic, in the vegetables we ate, and yes, it was a beautiful childhood”.

As a boy, he delivered siphons and sodas, sold chocolate, and worked at a barbershop. To pass the time on long walks, he played the harmonica. He knew nothing about music. There was no family background in it. The 60s were approaching and “everyone wanted to have a music band.” Some cousins of his had started one. He listened to them and asked them to let him sing a song. “I suppose it was a rock-and-roll song from that era.” He went to an audition at Radio Mallorca, when “there was still no television and music was played live on the radio,” and he emerged as the vocalist for Los Chelines. Later, he gained experience with Los Fugitivos before joining Los Bríos, with whom he played at the Jack El Negro nightclub, in the Jonquet area of Palma. “My mother never really cared much that I dedicated myself to singing, but when I started doing it at night and would arrive at four in the morning, she didn't like that anymore. She would tell me: ‘The foreign women will lead you to ruin.’”

After going through several bands, Z-66 called him to Toltec, “the venue where all the trendy bands of the era played.” Once again, they selected him and the manager hired them. They sang all the international hits. Many times they covered songs that hadn't even been released or played on the radio in Spain, tracks that arrived in the suitcases of those foreign women or the American marines who docked in Palma.

“I didn't even know how to speak Spanish. Really. I spoke Mallorquín with my friends and family, and then I sang in English based on what I was learning, without even knowing what those verses meant. Up to 5,000 Americans could get off the aircraft carriers, mostly Black, and they had bands and played on the ship.” The marines would arrive at the club and end up getting on stage. They brought soul and funky rhythms, a complement to the rock of The Doors, The Animals, and The Rolling Stones, for whom Santamaria was crazy about.

“They played a thousand times better than us. Not because they knew more about music, but because they had that brutal strength and energy... We were Mediterranean, man. I tried to sing well, and a live performance wasn't that. Their concept was about power, and their way of approaching live shows had nothing to do with singing perfectly. It was energy. They taught me all of that.”

The solid singer was forged through hundreds of hours of live performances, in a musically effervescent Palma that allowed him to meet idols like Jimi Hendrix and his admired Eric Burdon, leader of The Animals. “I had bought a reverberation device that I was paying for in installments of I don’t know how many pesetas, a ruin. I was convinced that it helped me sing well and Burdon arrives and tells me: ‘No, the echo is here’ [touches his throat]. Imagine what it was like to discover that whole world”.

At the Sgt. Pepper’s club –the one inaugurated by Hendrix– he was already working eleven months a year. The band had a rented apartment and lived, without worries, from the music. “They paid us a fortune for the time. It was big money!”. The night, the contact with tourists, hippies, and rock made drugs circulate, but Llorenç never lost his way. “It happened to many colleagues. I didn't think about anything. I lived day by day, but my guide continued to be becoming the best singer in the world. Not fame”.

In the 70s, the industry declared the era of bands over. It was looking for soloists. Llorenç had the voice and presence and the siren songs arrived. “I locked myself for a month in a property an uncle of mine had in the mountains to meditate on it. I was a guy in a band, but I accepted”.

The record label sat down to create a name. He wanted Lorenzo Negro and Lorenzo Santamaría was imposed. He composed songs about his concerns, but the company was clear that the path was marked by Raphael, Julio Iglesias, and Camilo Sesto. “They were interested in songs about love and heartbreak. They believed that was what had to be done and we were successful. They gave me a career”.

The trajectory was slow-cooked until it exploded with Para que no me olvides: "There were times when I didn't want to sing it". At the height of his popularity, he was claimed by the cinema. Santamaria was in fashion and had the air of a gallant. They offered him the role of Don Juan Tenorio. "They chose me without even knowing if I was an actor. And it was hard for me, because it was ancient Castilian". And, following the vital attitude that has moved his career, he kept going. He filmed with Ángela Molina, Victoria Abril and López Vázquez, among others.

He became a very popular singer and his manager, Alfredo Fraile, saw the opportunity to replicate the success of his most famous client. "It was as if he wanted to make me a second Julio Iglesias. From Miami to Argentina, I went through all the countries, doing television, attending parties, and I thought that wasn't for me. Not for a guy from a village like me. And I would come to take refuge in Mallorca".

He never worried about the clauses of some contracts that were accompanied by the adjective "leonine" because "the money was coming in". He took his savings and invested them in a nightclub and live music venue that didn't work out. A romantic breakup did the rest: "I went broke and I went to Madrid".

In the Spanish capital everything had changed with the start of the 80s. "The blond boys were triumphing", he says to summarize the success of Los Pecos, Iván and Miguel Bosé. He continued in music, but before three years there he felt he was drowning. "Emotionally, I was not in my place".

Made as a singer

Then they called him for a movie in Catalonia. “I stopped in Castelldefels, at a beach bar where they were making a paella and speaking Catalan, in my language, right in the Mediterranean, and I said: ‘What the hell am I doing in Madrid? Get out!’. I was in a good moment of maturity, at 35 years old, and already established as a singer. I continued in music, but settled in Barcelona”.

He has to think –as if he had never considered it before– to answer whether he would have liked to have the career of Ray Charles, who left a legacy of good songs and a style true to himself. When he prepared his farewell, with the utmost modesty, he believed the audience wouldn't be there. He sold it out. And promoters keep hiring him because he keeps selling out. “It’s incredible, but even now, some woman still calls me ‘handsome’.” He laughs again.

He does not perform in the summer by his own decision –“it is too hot”– and, like his admired Miguel Ríos, he sings rock-and-roll and all the songs that their audience expects. “I believe in my repertoire and people enjoy it. I have remained as the balladeer, uncle”. He returns to Barcelona and, while waiting for the arrival of his grandchild, he rehearses every day. “An hour and a half. The trick is to push yourself. I would like to be lying on a deckchair, but I can’t! I enjoy the adrenaline of getting on stage”.

Has it been a full life, this one of going along like a sparrow? “You bet it has. I haven't lived in abundance. I haven't been ambitious, nor have I needed a villa in Miami or two houses in Madrid. None of that. I'm fucking great,” he laughs while readjusting his cap.