Francesco Guccini
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Francesco Guccini (born June 14, 1940 in Modena) is an Italian singer-songwriter and author. His songs are renowned for their poetic and literary value, and in 1990 he won the Premio Eugenio Montale for verses in music.
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[edit] Biography
As recalled by a verse of one of his songs, "it was the fate that in three months" moved his family out of Modena because of war. Guccini spent his childhood and part of his youth at his grandparents' place in a small village in the Apennine Mountains called Pàvana, a fraction of the commune Sambuca Pistoiese in the province of Pistoia (Toscana). The memory of the youth years spent in the somewhat archaic society of the mountains of central Italy was to be always present in his songs and books.
He then moved back to his family in Modena and attended the local "istituto magistrale". He worked for a couple of years as a reporter for a local newspaper Gazzetta di Modena. In 1960 the Guccinis moved to Bologna where Francesco studied at the local university. From 1965 to 1985 he held Italian courses at the Dickinson College (an American school) in Bologna.
He played in local bands such as The Hurricanes and Gatti and achieved success in the 1960s writing songs for a legendary Italian band, Nomadi, also from Modena. Some of these successes include "Noi non ci saremo" and "Dio è morto". In the 1970s, Nomadi recorded two albums of Guccini's songs as well as a live album, Album Concerto, featuring him. Guccini's debut album was Folkbeat, No. 1 (1967).
Guccini always declared his first two works, Folk Beat n.1 and Due anni dopo, being merely tentatives, a nature probably noticeable in the quite essential musical arrangements. The latter, however, contained classics like the title-track and "La primavera di Praga" ("Prague Spring"). His first mature album is therefore L'Isola Non Trovata ("The Not Found Island") of 1970, which shows many the themes which were to be present in the future releases: a certain melancholy for a perceived nearness of death, as well as the portrait of outcasts figures like "Il frate" ("The Friar").
Radici ("Roots", 1972), is one of Guccini's finest works, and contains some of his most famous songs. These include: the title-track, a nostalgic declaration of love for Guccini's youth spent in the Appennine mountains; "La locomotiva", a long ballad about the solitary, unlucky revolt of a Bolognese railwayman during the 19th century; "Il vecchio e il bambino", a melancholic story about the dreams of an old man, and the different way in which they are perceived by the boy accompanying him; "Piccola città" ("Small City"), about Guccini's early years in the Emilia-Romagna provincial world.
Stanze di vita quotidiana ("Stanzas of Everyday Life") of 1974 deals with more private themes, sometimes with nearly desperate accents. The album contains at least one masterwork, the yearning "Canzone delle osterie di fuori porta".
In 1976 Guccini scored his greatest commercial success with the album Via Paolo Fabbri 43. The title is his residence street in Bologna. He declared this choice was in error, because many of his fans made true pilgrimages there to meet and talk with him. The album features the famous "L'avvelenata", a catchy ballad in which Guccini unleashes his rage against musics critics and people perceiving in a distorted way his career and popularity as singer-songwriter.
Amerigo (1978), whose title-track is about the story of the emigration of Guccini's Pavanese uncle to the United States, Metropolis (1981), and Guccini (1983), showed that the Bolognese singer's inspiration was left untouched by the general switch to the more commercial themes that characterized the Italian musical world starting from the end of 1970s.
The 1984 live tournée was highly successful, and was soon collected in a double live LP, Fra la Via Emilia e il West ("Between the Via Aemilia and the West"). Emilia Romagna and the Old West symbolize well the double ties of Guccini to his native land and to America. Guccini declared to have knwown the latter soon in his life, through the comics and magazines imported by US soldiers during World War 2, but also through his uncle's tales. After the war, like many Italians of the period, he was of course influenced by American songs and Hollywood movies, and finally managed to touch with hand this kind of myth during his personal voyages to US (including a love story with an American girl).
His last album in the 1980s was Signora Bovary (1987), containing notable pieces like "Scirocco". After several interlocutory albums in the 1990s, Guccini returned at his best with Stagioni ("Seasons") of 2000: the title-track is an effective, merciless accusation against media invadence and moral corruption of Italy.
Guccini's last studio release is Ritratti of 2004.
[edit] Other activities
In the 1970s Guccini made appearances in some bizarre TV shows: in one of them he worked with the then unknown comedian Roberto Benigni. Occasionally, he also worked as an actor in some movies, the most successful being Radiofreccia by the other Emilian singer and songwriter Luciano Ligabue (1998). The collaborations between the two songwriters extended of course to some songs, one of them present in Guccini's album Stagioni. Guccini wrote also soundtracks for the movies Nenè by Salvatore Samperi (1977) and Nero by Giancarlo Soldi (1992).
Recently, Guccini has imposed himself as a good writer, publishing some books about his young years in Pàvana and, in collaboration with Loriano Machiavelli, four mystery books also set in that city and pivoting around the figure of a Carabinieri official. He has also attended a dictionary of the "pavanese" dialect, and told his youth in Pavana in the novels Vacca d'un cane and Croniche epafániche.
One of his lesser known activities is as a comics writer. His main productions in this field are the Storie dello spazio profondo ("Deep Space Stories"): it a series of short, humoristic science fiction stories created from 1972 together with his Bolognese friend, the cartoonist Franco Bonvicini.
[edit] Awards
He received several awards for his artistic work, among them the "Premio Tenco" in 1975 and the "Targhe Tenco" received in 1987 for the song "Scirocco", in 1994 for Parnassius Guccinii and in 2000 for "Ho ancora la forza", written toghether with Luciano Ligabue.
In 1992 he received the "Librex-Guggenheim" award and in 2003 the municipality of Carpi (in the Modena province) organized an exhibition on his works.
[edit] Trivia
- In the first ballot of the 2006 Italian presidential election, held on 8 May, Guccini received one vote.
- He is known for usually bringing a flask of wine on stage during his concerts.
- The Parnassius guccinii butterfly species, first identified in 1992 in the Apennine mountains, is named after him. Later, it has also become the title for one of his albums.
- He is the most famous supporter of football team A.C. Pistoiese.
[edit] Discography
- Folk beat n. 1 (1967)
- Due anni dopo (1970)
- L'isola non trovata (1970)
- Radici (1972)
- Opera buffa (1973)
- Stanze di vita quotidiana (1974)
- Via Paolo Fabbri 43 (1976)
- Amerigo (1978)
- Album concerto (1979, with Nomadi, live)
- Metropolis (1981)
- Guccini (1983)
- Fra la via Emilia e il west (1984, live)
- Signora Bovary (1987)
- ...quasi come Dumas... (1989, live)
- Quello che non... (1990)
- Parnassius Guccinii (1993)
- D'amore di morte e di altre sciocchezze (1996)
- Guccini live collection (1998, live)
- Stagioni (2000)
- Guccini live @ RTSI (2001, live)
- Ritratti (2004)
- Sette veli intorno al re (2004, with Franco Battiato and Francesco De Gregori, album for children)
- Anfiteatro Live (2005, live)
[edit] Bibliography
- Croniche epafániche 1991
- Vacca d'un cane 1993
- Storie d'inverno 1994 - with Giorgio Celli and Valerio Manfredi
- Macaronì 1998 - with Loriano Macchiavelli
- Un disco dei Platters 1999 - with Loriano Macchiavelli
- Un altro giorno è andato - Francesco Guccini si racconta a Massimo Cotto 1998 - Massimo Cotto
- Questo sangue che impasta la terra 2001 - with Loriano Macchiavelli
- Storia di altre storie (2001) - with Vincenzo Cerami
- Lo spirito e altri briganti 2002 - with Loriano Macchiavelli
- Cittanova blues 2003
- La legge del bar e altre comiche 2005
[edit] Comics
- Storie dello spazio profondo (1975) - with Bonvi
- Poche ore all'alba (1975) - with Magnus
- Vita e morte del brigante Bobino detto Gnicche (1980) - with F. Rubino
- Barbùn vs. Realtà (1981) - with F. Scozzari
- Gerry Pompa - with
[edit] Movies
- Bologna. Fantasia, ma non troppo, per violino (1976), directed by Gianfranco Mingozzi - actor
- Nenè (1977), directed by Salvatore Samperi - sound track
- I giorni cantati (1979), directed by Paolo Pietrangeli - actor and sound track
- Musica per vecchi animali (1989), directed by Umberto Angelucci and Stefano Benni - actor
- Nero (1992), directed by Giancarlo Soldi - sound track
- Radiofreccia (1998), directed by Luciano Ligabue - actor
- Ormai è fatta (1999), directed by Enzo Monteleone - actor
- Ti amo in tutte le lingue del mondo (2006), directed by Leonardo Pieraccioni - actor
