“In short: yes, I liked it Sinners, and that he went with great reluctance for the vampires.” Miquel Jurado finishes his coffee in this Starbucks in Barcelona where only with a lot of imagination can you believe that you are in a juke joint in Mississippi, those black establishments in the south of the United States, often in old barns, where you could listen to music, dance, drink, eat and place bets while the Ku Klux Klan was waiting for you outside to hang you from a tree next to their burning cross (listen to the theme). Strange fruitby Billie Holliday). Of course, to add atmosphere, Miquel is here, a man who has traveled to the dark side and even to the crossroads of the devil (in fact, to two) like the characters in , the film that recently won four statuettes at the last Hollywood Oscar ceremony.
Ryan Coogler’s film was the excuse to meet. I loved it (I can’t stop reviewing over and over again the exciting and chilling dance scene of the chief vampire Remmick and his crazy Irish dance, pure Lord of the infernal dance), and I wanted to discuss it with someone who knew about the subject. No one better for this than Miquel Jurado (Barcelona, 75 years old), music critic and good first-hand knowledge of the stages of Sinners. Miquel is the author of The river of music, from jazz and blues to rock, from Memphis to New Orleans (Redbook-Ma Non Tropo, 2019), which we presented to you at the Fnac in a unique trio Joan Manuel Serrat, the blues man Amadeu Casas and myself, with no other merit than being a friend of the author and having read Mark Twain. Miquel (“I’m a guy from Vilasar de Mar who appeared one day along the Mississippi and fell in love with it”) rewarded me with a beautiful eagle feather custom made by the Navajo artist Junior Ganadonegro, which is one of my most precious possessions and keeps me away from all evil.
Miquel acquired another one for himself but it did not help him avoid what he was involved in on August 17, 2022 on a highway in Mongolia —voilà his personal crossroads of the devil—during a trip with the family. As a result of that, he suffered tremendous fractures (in addition to brain and lung hemorrhages) from which he has only recovered very little by little and with Job’s patience. He still has a bit of a medical ordeal ahead of him but I was surprised by how much his appearance has improved: the guy is even enviably attractive, with an Al Pacino look, dressed in an elegant three-quarter length and with a magnificent Stetson hat that gives him the air of the protagonist of a crime novel.
Before getting into the subject of the film, Miquel brought me up to date, which included giving me a long tour of his life that went back to his signing for EL PAÍS almost when Lluís Bassets was wearing shorts, back during the Franco-Prussian War. “I joined in September 1983, Bassets called me to cover a Jazz Week at the Mercé festivities, in the Drassanes. In short, if I have been there for 40 years it has been because of Tomàs Delclós, who succeeded Bassets in Culture in the Barcelona Editorial Office, and because of Jordi Pujol, who closed the station where I worked, since I was originally a radio operator.”
Jurado says that currently he no longer feels like a critic, nor a music producer, nor an advisor and organizer of festivals, nor a writer, nor a doctor (a neurologist and one of the few jazz critics who have written pieces during consultation, between visits), all of which he has been. His desire now is to live in peace, finish his recovery and travel again.
Sinners. “I’ve seen it twice. The vampire thing seemed a little too much to me. And very cliché, it reminded me night of the living deadnothing new, but I guess it’s morbid.” We were in my field and I told Miquel that I, who know little about jazz and blues, found the thing about the bloodsuckers great. The influences of Robert Rodriguez’s movie open until dawn (including the supernatural combat in the gambling den) and the novel by , are clear (Coogler himself has recognized them). I would add Fevre Dream, the beautiful novel by Georges RR Martin that deals precisely with vampires in the Mississippi, and The heart of the angel, by Alan Parker. The fact that vampires need you to invite them in to enter where you are is a fact since Dracula.
“Let’s see, what I loved was the reconstruction of the environment, because I have lived it, well not at the time because that was in the thirties, but the times I have traveled there, everything remains surprisingly the same. I have been to the juke joint in , where the film takes place. It is a barn with chairs and tables in which people play jazz and blues; outside, I assure you, there were no vampires, well at least while I was there. Although I have to admit that in the streets “That lead to the cemetery you have the feeling that anything could happen at night.”
Miquel, who visited the plantations where the blues was first heard and from which Charlie Patton (cited in the film) emerged, has also been to another legendary place related to Sinnersthe devil’s crossroads, also in Clarksdale. “It is the place where it is said that Robert Johnson (1911-1938), the great blues singer and guitarist who influenced Clapton, the Stones, Dylan, Hendrix, made his mythical pact with the devil. He was useless with the guitar who was thrown out of the juke joints and suddenly disappeared for a year and a half and when he reappeared he played wonderfully. The legend explains that one night at that crossroads the devil appeared to him, he played a song and when Johnson returned it he already knew how to play movies. In exchange for his soul, of course. Johnson, Miquel considers, is reflected in the young Sammie in the film, who plays masterfully without anyone explaining why and who is in bad relations with his father, a preacher, who dislikes being involved in the diabolical world of the blues.
Miquel speculates that the film implicitly plays, “and somewhat with a trap,” with the idea that Sammie (Miles Caton) is not vampirized because he is already dealing with the devil, and that is why he wins the game against the chief vampire Remmick. In any case, the scene in which he is shown as an old man (played by the great musician) resisting Stack and Mary’s temptation for immortality is not in accordance with the life of Johnson, who died at the age of 27, apparently after a jealous husband put poison (mothballs) in his drink. “Hence the old Mississippi tradition of never drinking from a bottle of whiskey that you haven’t opened yourself,” says Miquel. There is dispute over which is the real tomb of the musician since three are credited to him.
Jury applauds then Sinners (instead he left after ten minutes One battle after another), but recommends another film on the subject, Crossroads (1986), by Walter Hill, with music by , which is admittedly exciting and moving and addresses more directly the legend of Robert Johnson and his mythical lost song. “The final duel between the protagonist and the devil’s guitarist, with two souls at stake, is sensational,” Miquel recalls.
We said goodbye talking about his own devil’s crossroads about 500 kilometers from Ulaanbaatar. “We collided head-on with another vehicle, I broke 17 bones. I remember practically nothing about the accident, except telling my daughter, who is also a doctor, ‘I’m broken, don’t move me’. Something about the Russian helicopter, old and huge and having trouble taking off. I don’t know what’s true about what I remember. The goats. The hallucinations in the hospital. There was no pain at the beginning. No, I didn’t make any pact, that’s how I am. I will return to Mongolia.”
Bravo mate Miquel, to talk about music and movies, to conjure up vampires and devils, and whatever else.
