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 Entertainment | April 2007 
Singer Barba Basks in the Billboard Spotlight
 Jordan Levin - MiamiHerald.com
| | Although he says he loves traditional Mexican music, Barba tries for a more personal style in his own songs. |
When he was 14 and singing for change on public buses in his hometown near Guadelajara, Mexico, Mariano Barba's biggest ambition was to sing someplace that didn't move, for people who actually wanted to listen.
He got what he describes as his first big break at 17, when he filled in for a sick musician at a local restaurant.
Certainly he had dreams, but he never imagined he'd get to where he is now - one of the top new artists in regional Mexican music, with five nominations for the Billboard Latin Music Awards, one of Latin music's biggest awards.
He also has a spot Thursday in Telemundo's live national telecast of the show from Miami. He'll sing Aliado del Tiempo (Time is My Ally), the hit title track off his third album that came out of nowhere to top U.S. Latin radio playlists for much of 2006.
That made the hunky young Barba the hottest new star in regional Mexican music, the top Latin music genre in the United States.
"I never thought I'd get to this point," Barba, 26, says by phone from a hotel in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico, still groggy from an all-night recording session last week.
"I dreamed of it. But I never thought it would be as much as it is in this moment. I never thought I'd get on Latin radio. But to realize your dreams you have to work at them. I worked really really hard. You have to sacrifice everything to get what you want."
The story of Barba and his tiny Mexican label, Three Sounds Records, is the kind of underdog-makes-good tale that still occasionally brightens the increasingly corporate landscape of popular music. Barba and Three Sounds persevered through two previous, little-noticed releases.
The singer earned attention for Aliado del Tiempo the old-fashioned way, performing incessantly in Mexico, with word of mouth spreading north to the United States, sparking sales and eventually radio airplay.
That kind of success is more common in the regional Mexican music world, where mom-and-pop music stores and a busy circuit of dances that often feature several acts per night allows new artists to break in more easily. But it's still a near-miraculous accomplishment for an unknown outsider with almost no resources to get into the giant chain stores and tightly controlled radio playlists that lead to mainstream Latin success.
"For a new label to get this CD on the charts - that's really hard to do," says Leila Cobo, Billboard Magazine's Latin bureau chief. "They have to convince people like Target and Kmart and Wal-Mart to carry it. And they're a teeny, tiny company with one artist. It kind of gives you hope."
"His last record is extremely good, as good as any multinational release," says Alberto Uribe, head buyer for Ritmo Latino, a chain of 50 stores that's the largest independent Latin music retailer in the United States.
Uribe took note of Barba's sales long before he appeared on U.S. radio: "He's young, he has charisma. And his lyrics are simple and reach audiences easily. He sings about normal things that people live every day."
Barba brings lovely melodies and a softer romantic feeling to the usually oom-pah style of Mexican banda, as well as a definite onstage charisma and a gift for emotional expression. He is self-taught, composes his own songs and does his own arrangements - although he doesn't read or write music. Inspiration seems to visit him often - he says he has a host of songs written.
"Songs always come in a different way," Barba says. "Sometimes they're my experiences, sometimes it can be a situation that I see happening to someone else, or things that people tell me about, or something I dream. It's very strange. Inspiration is something I don't know how to explain, because you don't understand it, you feel it. There are these moments when you least expect it and then you feel it, your heart goes boom boom and you get goose bumps."
Although he says he loves traditional Mexican music, Barba tries for a more personal style in his own songs. "I try to express my own feelings, hoping that people will identify with them."
He hopes that Thursday night's show will bring even more people to his music.
"I can't call it ambition," he says. "My biggest dream is to reach more and more hearts, that my music will cross more and more borders, and one day my songs will be part of people's lives."
jlevin@MiamiHerald.com |
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