How was Isidor Marí, according to his friend: "He has never been presumptuous despite the fame he has had"

PalmA close person, with a smile that enchanted and shining eyes, eager for knowledge, for love, and for life. Very soon he began to play the guitar and to take an interest in music and songs. For him, there was no other path than music: “His father was already a musician, and his mother was called Cecilia, the patron saint of music.” Neus Ferrer says this, half-seriously and half-jokingly, highlighting the kindness of the character we are about to discover today: “When it got dark, he always accompanied me home. Over time, I discovered it was because he was very interested in my neighbor, Mercè, whom he eventually married.” Neus Ferrer’s lifelong friend is the musician and linguist from Ibiza, Isidor Marí (1949).

They are now over 70 years old, but when they meet, it seems as if time hasn’t passed. They remember when the Los Valencianos ice cream parlor was “the meeting place,” especially during the summer, while in winter they would go “up and down the Vara de Rey promenade.” Isidor and Neus are from Vila, they are the same age. Although their families were friends, what really united them “were the same desires to do things: ride bikes, go on excursions, spend the day together.” “We were a very close-knit group,” says Neus.

Isidor had a touch of mystery, as a young man. “He was a very close person from a young age. There is something of his that I especially like to remember: the way he laughed. When you told him something, he would smile with his whole face, and that look already told you many things. He has very expressive eyes. However, at all times it seemed that he was keeping things to himself”, explains Neus. “I remember Isidor as the person who was always by your side: an unconditional friend, quiet, serious, but with a flattering gaze and a beautiful smile. We loved each other very much. He has never been presumptuous despite the fame he has had”. Neus recalls the sixties to the seventies as a “precious” moment in their lives.

It was more or less at this time that he and Joan Moreno – with whom later, along with Victorí Planells, they formed the mythical music group UC – began that “incredible” work – in Neus’ words – of recovering old songs and forgotten verses: “They were only fifteen or sixteen years old and they were already going to the farmhouses looking for all that heritage. Later they set it to music. Our group were the first to hear it. We went to the beach with the guitar. We were privileged!”. Wherever there was music – a party, a concert, or people singing in the street – he was there with his guitar. And a special moment was when he showed Flors de baladre, which he wrote himself, to his friends: “I cried because it was so beautiful. He dedicated it to na Mercè”.

Neus also mentions the years of “authentic hippies”: “We listened to Bob Marley and Bob Dylan, we shared spaces with people from all over with a very different way of life. We weren't even aware of what we were living. We did everything by bicycle. We left the key in the door of our house. We had Philosophy classes on the beach with a teacher from Albacete who taught us to look at the world in a different way. It was another world!”

When it was summer, the group of friends used to go to Ses Figueretes beach, “at that time people from the town used to go walking or by bicycle; today it would be impossible”, says Neus. They also went to Talamanca, where Joan had a house. And he says that when someone in the group of friends had a birthday, Isidor and Joan would show up with their instruments under their house to sing them a song. All of the group wanted to go to university, and many ended up in Barcelona. “At that time, of the ten women in our class, only four of us went to study away. For women it was very complicated. But we were a fighting people: for the language, for music, for the Ibizan folklore”. Fifty years after that world, they meet from time to time. “Isidor still has that look that accompanies and that smiles at you”.