How to get records in mysql where first letter equals 'X', when dealing with spanish characters?

How to get records in mysql where first letter equals 'X', when dealing
with spanish characters?

As an example:
select *
from recording as r
where left(r.title, 1) = 'p'
This picks all the recordings that start with the letter p.
But, the problem is that i'm dealing with a spanish table that contains
recordings like ¿Por qué? or «Por un amor» o even ¡Pon la mesa!, etc...
And that's just one example...
How do i get the recordings that start with a specific letter when i'm
dealing with spanish special characters like the one described above?
Do i need to create a separate column in the table, let's call it 'sort
name', and strip all of those special characters? Are they other
solutions, special functions that i'm not aware of in mysql?
Thanks