Judges, guitars, freedom and the mainstream: Problematizing the early cantautor in Spain

© 2016 selection and editorial matter, Isabelle Marc and Stuart Green; individual chapters, the contributors. Cantautor is the word in the Spanish, Catalan and Galician languages coined in the 1960s to refer to a politically engaged singer who performed his/her own songs. In Basque, the term is kantari. 1 The output of these musicians was labelled canción de autor (literally author’s song), or sometimes canción protesta (protest song). 2 This chapter deals with these early musicians and songs, from their emergence until the death of General Francisco Franco – that is, the second half of the Franco dictatorship (1959-1975). The context of late-Francoism is crucial in the birth and rise of the canción de autor. This emerged as a political action and flourished throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s. It was mainly a form of protest against the Franco regime and eventually declined in the 1980s with the consolidation of the democratic process. 3