Taking lyric cues from poets Pablo Neruda and Federico García Lorca, Spanish guitarist and troubadour Joan Manuel Serrat unfolds exquisite tales of the human condition over his catchy Beatles-inspired pop, which also tugs quite liberally at the heart. His political outspokenness and embrace of the Catalan tongue made him a pioneer of the Nova Cançó movement in the ‘60s, and after openly condemning Franco's dictatorship in the ‘70s, he was exiled from Spain for a time. Of course, this did nothing to slow the dusky-voiced wordsmith's bold and brilliant roll through the decades since.