#roberto colombo

BEWARE OF THOSE TWO

THE MUSICIANS FROM THE PREMIATA FORNERIA MARCONI ARE BACK ON THE ROAD WITH THE ONE WHO IS THE FATHER OF SONGWRITING, FABRIZIO DE ANDRÉ, WITH HIM THEY HAVE STARTED AN EXPERIMENT THAT MUST BE APPRECIATED FOR ITS INTELLIGENCE. THAT IS WHEN A SONGWRITER DISCOVERS MUSICIANS (AND MUSIC).

At thirty-eight and with an almost twenty-year career behind him, barely studded with a hundred public performances, Fabrizio De André can be said to be anything but a stage animal. Yet, in the aftermath of a concert silence that lasted three years, the father of the Italian singer-songwriter is back "on the road", with what can well be considered the most spectacular "live" event of the current musical season. The posters spelled out clearly - Fabrizio De André plus Franz Di Cioccio, Patrick Djivas, Franco Mussida, Flavio Premoli, Roberto Colombo and Lucio “Violino” Fabbri. An exceptional "tour", whose calendar spreads from one end of the peninsula to the other half of the peninsula, with an equally exceptional goal: to collect material for a live album that would once again bring together the greatest Italian singer-songwriter and the most glorious national rock group.

The modalities of this definitive relaunch of De André’s actions will certainly not upset the "fans" of better memory (at the end of the 60s the nucleus of what would soon become the P.F.M. recorded with the singer-songwriter "La bouna novella") and perhaps not even the admirers of "Rimini", who in Fabrizio's ninth album have really found more music than in the previous eight volumes.

On the edge of a sound of greater breath, of more immediate and consumable songs, even suggestive scoundrelly deeds (the irresistible nursery rhyme “Zirichiltaggia” in Gallura), "Rimini" marked in red the leap from the past to a new human period, as well as artistic, to a rediscovered serenity clouded only by the thousands of guilt complexes that can be clearly read in that declared and tireless guerrilla warfare against the petty-bourgeois microcosm to which it has always recognized that it belongs.

Every word, be it text or song, excerpt of interview or hasty introduction in the presence of the public, underlines how much today Fabrizio feels too close to the role of the "entertaining" artist and feels the increasingly imperative need to conquer himself a "credibility", a much more concrete dimension, clawed to a very specific reality. "For me music, records, concerts, are just a ‘part time’ job that can be done during the weekend,” Fabrizio told me, "after doing things that, at least as far as for me, today, at thirty-eight, on a farm, they are more important and precise. I don't think you can think of continuing to tread the stages singing songs at fifty. Today I am already thirty-eight and I hope to master the tools of a more solid profession, that of a farmer, a cattle breeder. Then I need music to solve my practical needs, to make some money, since my new business today is only taking away from me. You know, I'm still not credible as a farmer, there's nothing to be done.”

Yet how can one not notice a smirk of satisfaction in the pensive De André who admits, almost in spite of himself, "of course I liked “Rimini" very much. Musically speaking, I must say that in truth I have always stammered. But this record can be enjoyed without having to pay attention to the lyrics and, for me, it's undoubtedly a big step forward.”

• FRIENDS OF SINGER-WRITERS

It was therefore "Rimini" that set in motion the mechanism of this "tour". In particular, the restless Premiata Forneria Marconi of the last year, now completely open to any collaboration of a certain importance, who wanted to find De André, once he listened to the record, to try a new project "ten years later". "We believe that today the Italian singer-songwriter is a musician who collaborates with other musicians", explained Franz Di Cioccio, "prime mover" of the initiative. "Confirming once more our structure as an “open" group, we wanted to strip ourselves of the typical image of PFM to create an experience that has already paid off abroad. Just think of Dylan and the Band, Jackson Browne and the Eagles. With us, the singer-songwriter has always been considered the sworn enemy of groups, yet today he needs us not only in the studio but above all live to be able to propose himself in a real and complete way. We believe that the songs of De André are still valid today. Few in Italy are poets of his stature. Only by recovering a certain musical "verve", in our opinion, the operation could have been considered successful. So why not do a "tour" and a live record, never made before by an Italian singer-songwriter? We liked the idea and we touched the realization of all the arrangements, as well as what will be the production of the live record. It must be said that people might have expected P.F.M. but this name does not appear on the posters. This "tour" must break all existing schemes.”

To the observation that, despite many pieces being "updated" in a brilliantly unrecognizable way, a total renewal was not attempted, Fabrizio remarked, “it is still about songs. In my opinion, the old songs such as "Bocca di rosa", or even "Marinella" with such an unrecognizable introduction, are already quite distorted, but there are avalanches of words and these require a lot. They must be understood and certainly not covered. The arrangement was therefore resolved in a decoration, above all rhythmic rather than strictly instrumental.” Franz added, "you might have expected a Dylan “makeover”. However, you must consider that De André, as well as the other "historical" singer-songwriters coming out of the 1950s, is of French setting and basically has nothing to do with rock, the opposite of Dylan. For this, Fabrizio uses a group like ours, which, with ten years of work in the studio, has acquired quite a varied musical personality. You hear the Premiata in these concerts enough, but we do not cover it. There is no antagonism. Indeed, the experiment confirms exactly the opposite: that a singer-songwriter manages to coexist with a group that already has its own precise identity. This could be the beginning of a new period. All the latest songwriters - from Branduardi to Venditti, to Finardi - have given indications in this regard. As for Premiata, we hope that experiments like this will lead to a more intense exchange between Italian musicians. If this "live" record is welcomed, considerable progress will have been made. A group is not just a group, but a collective of musicians. In Italy we need to play, not to tell each other what we could or shouldn't do.”

• A “NEBULOUS AND VAGUE” CRAFT

In the “back-stage” of the Cantù sports hall, the ritual preceding the concert is now the same. Once the rehearsals are finished, the technicians are working on the final touches of the system, the music becomes a suffused background to the most disparate topics of conversation. From a dressing room, Fabbri's violin and Mussida's guitar casually chase Ponty’s "New Country", while Djivas and Marva go to discuss photography. Di Cioccio's sticks guarantee a constant and relentless hammering. Fabrizio moves constantly, mending bits of conversation with a few sips of whiskey, confessing his concerns about the new stable that he intends to build which should cost him several million, or preferring to blend in with the audience that is already filling the bleachers.

The news of a massive breakthrough finds almost everyone resigned. Only Fabrizio, particularly restless, pushes himself through the crowd that is entering to understand what is happening. The sense of guilt re-emerges in him for this "nebulous and vague" profession, the reasons for which he really cannot justify. The vision of a policeman beating up a boy from the audience discourages him by placing him in front of the reality of a problem of vast and complex implications. Back in the dressing room, his outburst is almost violent. In large part, the tension is due to his hoarseness, that forced the “tour” after only two dates to a total stop for almost a week, and a rather cold “resumption” on the occasion of the concert in Milan on January 2nd.

Four dates later, the Cantù in fact, the show still seems more run-in. If Fabrizio is certainly more convinced, nevertheless the Premiata is well-trained. A glass tumbler accompanied by shouts like "aristocratic" and "go to the Scala" attempts a disturbing action but provocations are not accepted on the stage. With “Marinella", subtly presented as "a futuristic piece of which we have understood nothing” and introduced by a keyboard intervention that makes it completely unrecognizable, Fabrizio sounds the gong to start his great catwalk of sacred and profane love, and of small bourgeois pictures yellowed between envy of power and stale silly rules.

After “Andrea", who "got lost and does not know how to return" (the first of five quotations from "Rimini"), De André puts his hand to the apocryphal gospels of “La Buona Novella”, thus renewing the glories (allow me the expression) of the first collaboration with “four pilgrims named Mussida, Di Cioccio, etc.” “Maria Nella Bottega D'Un falegname", splendid and imposing in the new arrangement, merges into a successful “medley" with the “Testamento Di Tito”, introduced by an unpublished passage of guitar-keyboards in pure Weather Report style and finally enriched by Mussida's electric embroidery. For the first time, the intelligence and taste with which P.F.M. knows how to reinvent the more “classic” De André is an admirable game of spaces and rhythms.

Even better, "Un Giudice" (from "Non Al Denaro Non All'Amore Né Al Cielo”), in a version made particularly urgent by Premoli's accordion. "Giugno ’73" and “Amico Fragile (from “Vol. 8") reveal clear notes by Cohen in the pockets of a more intimate and thoughtful De André. With "La Guerra Di Piero”, atmospheres of great effect are recovered again, but the "treatment" by the group pays too much attention to the pace of the original. After an incandescent Mussida in the beautiful "Verranno A Chiederti Del Nostro Amore (from “Storia Di Un Impiegato"), “Zirichiltaggia”, with its particularly country flavor, kicks off an ideal second part of the concert that ends up resolving in a irresistible crescendo.

“Rimini", “Via Del Campo”, the Dylan-inspired “Avventura A Durango”, “Sally” and a spectacular “Bocca Di Rosa” snatch smiles from Fabrizio who, having remained seated for the entire duration of the concert, begins to squirm, to follow the relentless rhythm dictated by the group. It is the prologue to an overwhelming finale. “Volta La Carta”, introduced by some jokes a la Stivell, offers P.F.M. themes and rhythms that are more congenial than ever. The whole group is now launched, Fabbri and Colombo more than ever in the foreground. Also well disguised, "Il Pescatore” snatches a last roar of applause before Fabrizio, his voice harshly tested, leaves the field to Premiata for a “jam” played on the edge of “Alta Loma”. A series of unmissable solos finally allows every single musician to get out of the structure of De André's pieces, from the collective arrangements, and to freely embark on the paths of improvisation. It is of course Di Cioccio who beats with his drums the unmistakable “Celebration” for the jubilation of the whole audience, and not by chance. Once again, we witnessed a real "party". An experiment that absolutely must not remain ignored.