Eugenio Finardi
Encyclopedia
Eugenio Finardi is an Italian
singer, songwriter
, guitarist
and keyboardist
.
, Italy
, on July 16, 1952, in a musical family: his father was an Italian music sound engineer and his mother an American opera singer; at age six Finardi made his first record, Palloncino Rosso Fuoco, a children song.
Finardi became part of a thriving music scene in Milan in the late 1960s. Rooted in the Blues
, classic Rock'n'Roll and the hippy counter-culture, he became an active member of the left-wing youth movement of those years. His first band was called The Tiger, in 1969. Soon he started playing with Alberto Camerini, a singer and guitarist born in Brazil, who a few years later would be instrumental in introducing American and British New Wave
to Italian Pop music. Together they even emulated the US film Easy Rider
by travelling on motorbikes from Milan to Amsterdam. The scene Finardi became part of included among others bands like Area
and Stormy Six
, Claudio Rocchi and female singer-songwriter Donatella Bardi. Finardi made a living by day teaching English, in which he was fluent because of his American mother, and as a musician by night, as singer, guitarist and piano-player.
After forming the band Il Pacco with Camerini, Finardi recorded a single in English in 1973, Spacey Stacey/Hard Rock Honey for Numero Uno, the first Italian independent record label started by singer-songwriter Lucio Battisti
and his writing partner Mogol
, who had a long string of Italian and international hits under their belts, and who had introduced in Italian Pop music different styles from the US and the UK, from the Rock music of Bob Dylan
, The Beatles
and The Rolling Stones
, to Blues and Soul.
Finardi's single went largely unnoticed.
and their singer Demetrio Stratos
, in 1974 Finardi signed with the label Cramps, run by Gianni Sassi. 1975 saw the release of his first album Non Gettate Alcun Oggetto Dal Finestrino. The album was a mixture of the style of Italian singer-songwriters and Rock'n'Roll. Camerini on guitar, Lucio Fabbri on violin, Walter Calloni on drums were among the musicians who played on the record, which included a Rock version of traditional Italian protest folk-song Saluteremo Il Signor Padrone, and original songs by Finardi - one, Taking It Easy, in English - with social commentary about metropolitan alienation, against the compulsory national service in the Italian army, and political prisoners. The album was influenced by both Prog-Rock, which was extremely popular in Italy, and Hippie
idealism.
Finardi became known from playing at Milan's alternative Festival in Parco Lambro in 1976, introducing a Rock sound to the Italian genre of singer-songwriters who were often politically involved, and mostly somewhat derivative of Folk Rock
, the early protest songs of Bob Dylan, and of the American West-Coast music of artists like Neil Young
. Finardi looked to the more electric and up-tempo sound of Rock&Roll and The Rolling Stones, and his sound was also often influenced by Jazz Rock fusion, thanks to Area members Patrizio Fariselli and Ares Tavolazzi
, and bass-player Hugh Bullen.
, and his third Diesel in 1977. The first included the counter-cultural youth anthem Musica Ribelle, and the hymn to pirate radio-stations La Radio; the second the love ballad Non e' Nel Cuore, which were all released as singles.
Finardi, who had started performing live often on his own with an acoustic guitar and sitting down, was now touring with a four or five-piece Rock band. His introduction of Rock'n'Roll in the genre of socially and politically aware Italian singer-songwriters was what made Finardi stand out and endeared him to the counter-cultural youth of late 1970s Italy, which in 1976-78 was in the midst of political upheaval and almost civil war, with the occupations of factories, universities and high-schools, demonstrations which ended in pitched battles with the police - often with fatal casualties - and the rise of political movements like Autonomia, the Indiani Metropolitani
and terrorist groups like the Red Brigades
(Brigate Rosse).
This eventful period of Italian contemporary history is known as the Anni di piombo (Years Of Lead)and also as the era of the Movimento '77, the youth movement for which 1977 was a pivotal year, somewhat an Italian equivalent of the Punk Rock
upheaval in the US and Great Britain. The dramatic and eventful climate of the period was the result of the so-called Strategy of tension
(Strategia della tensione): the confrontation between youth counter-culture and left-wing activists against an Italian government perceived as reactionary, repressive, corrupt, unstable, manouvred by the US, which disseminated disinformation and engaged in false-flag terror attacks blamed on the left in order to establish a more authoritarian regime.
Finardi was a notable counter-cultural and musical protagonist of these years, with songs like La C.I.A. about the American Secret Services' involvement in Italian politics, Soldi about consumerism, Giai Phong, about the Vietnam War
, Scuola about the education system, Tutto Subito about the confrontational street demos of Autonomia, and Scimmia which chronicled Finardi's past heroin addiction and subsequent self-detoxification through 'cold turkey', a particularly relevant song for touching upon a subject that would become a growing social problem in Italy starting in the following decade, the 1980s. Songs like Voglio and Oggi Ho Imparato A Volare were optimstic hymns for the revolutionary youth of the Italian left, and Diesel celebrated both Finardi's life on the road as a musician and the life of everyday working-class Italians.
Finardi started to make his transition from this turbulent period of Italian history and its cultural landscape with the album Blitz and single Extraterrestre in 1978, and Roccando Rollando (Rocking and Rolling) in 1979, which contained Legalizzatela, his song-manifesto for the legalization of cannabis. Other significant hits were Patrizia, and the bitter-sweet ballad Le Ragazze Di Osaka in 1981.
(1984), Dolce Italia (1987), the entirely acoustic Acustica in 1993, for which he toured in the same 'unplugged' mode, the re-reading of songs from his back catalogue Cinquantanni in 2002, his exploraton of spirituality Il Silenzio e Lo Spirito in 2003, and a return to his youthful love for the Blues with the album Anima Blues in 2005.
Eugenio Finardi's most recent works have a large audience, as proven by the success of the album Un Uomo (2007), a compilation of a 30 years long career, celebrated also in the show Suono in Italian theatres - and released also on DVD - in which Finardi tells his story through a series of monologues. His last work Il Cantante Al Microfono saw him accompanied by a classical music sextet. Eugenio Finardi's albums from the 1970s are considered classics of Italian Rock, and he remains one of Italy's most successful and influential Rock singers and musicians.
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
singer, songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
, guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
and keyboardist
Keyboardist
A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more...
.
Life
Eugenio Finardi was born in MilanMilan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, on July 16, 1952, in a musical family: his father was an Italian music sound engineer and his mother an American opera singer; at age six Finardi made his first record, Palloncino Rosso Fuoco, a children song.
Finardi became part of a thriving music scene in Milan in the late 1960s. Rooted in the Blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, classic Rock'n'Roll and the hippy counter-culture, he became an active member of the left-wing youth movement of those years. His first band was called The Tiger, in 1969. Soon he started playing with Alberto Camerini, a singer and guitarist born in Brazil, who a few years later would be instrumental in introducing American and British New Wave
New Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
to Italian Pop music. Together they even emulated the US film Easy Rider
Easy Rider
Easy Rider is a 1969 American road movie written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda and directed by Hopper. It tells the story of two bikers who travel through the American Southwest and South with the aim of achieving freedom...
by travelling on motorbikes from Milan to Amsterdam. The scene Finardi became part of included among others bands like Area
Area
Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat...
and Stormy Six
Stormy Six
Stormy Six were an Italian progressive and folk rock band founded in Milan in 1966. They performed and recorded until 1983, mostly as a sextet but occasionally as a quartet, a quintet and a septet. Although their line-up changed considerably over the years, founding member Franco Fabbri remained...
, Claudio Rocchi and female singer-songwriter Donatella Bardi. Finardi made a living by day teaching English, in which he was fluent because of his American mother, and as a musician by night, as singer, guitarist and piano-player.
After forming the band Il Pacco with Camerini, Finardi recorded a single in English in 1973, Spacey Stacey/Hard Rock Honey for Numero Uno, the first Italian independent record label started by singer-songwriter Lucio Battisti
Lucio Battisti
Lucio Battisti was an Italian singer-songwriter . He is considered to be one of the best-known and most influential musicians and authors in Italian pop/rock music history....
and his writing partner Mogol
Mogol
Mogol may refer to:*Mogol, Jalal-Abad, a town in Kyrgyzstan*Mogol, Tajikistan, a town in Tajikistan*Mogol *An alternative spelling of Mughal...
, who had a long string of Italian and international hits under their belts, and who had introduced in Italian Pop music different styles from the US and the UK, from the Rock music of Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
, The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
and The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
, to Blues and Soul.
Finardi's single went largely unnoticed.
Early Career, the 1970s
Thanks to his friendship with the band AreaArea
Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat...
and their singer Demetrio Stratos
Demetrio Stratos
Efstratios Demetriou better known as Demetrio Stratos was an Italian lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, music researcher, and co-founder, frontman and lead singer of the Italian progressive rock, jazz fusion band Area – International POPular Group.Born and raised in Alexandria, Egypt, of Greek...
, in 1974 Finardi signed with the label Cramps, run by Gianni Sassi. 1975 saw the release of his first album Non Gettate Alcun Oggetto Dal Finestrino. The album was a mixture of the style of Italian singer-songwriters and Rock'n'Roll. Camerini on guitar, Lucio Fabbri on violin, Walter Calloni on drums were among the musicians who played on the record, which included a Rock version of traditional Italian protest folk-song Saluteremo Il Signor Padrone, and original songs by Finardi - one, Taking It Easy, in English - with social commentary about metropolitan alienation, against the compulsory national service in the Italian army, and political prisoners. The album was influenced by both Prog-Rock, which was extremely popular in Italy, and Hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
idealism.
Finardi became known from playing at Milan's alternative Festival in Parco Lambro in 1976, introducing a Rock sound to the Italian genre of singer-songwriters who were often politically involved, and mostly somewhat derivative of Folk Rock
Folk rock
Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...
, the early protest songs of Bob Dylan, and of the American West-Coast music of artists like Neil Young
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young, OC, OM is a Canadian singer-songwriter who is widely regarded as one of the most influential musicians of his generation...
. Finardi looked to the more electric and up-tempo sound of Rock&Roll and The Rolling Stones, and his sound was also often influenced by Jazz Rock fusion, thanks to Area members Patrizio Fariselli and Ares Tavolazzi
Ares Tavolazzi
Ares Tavolazzi is an Italian bass player and jazz musician born in Ferrara.-Biography:He studied cello and double bass in the Music School of Ferrara and began his career as bassist playing for Carmen Villani in a beat group, with his future collaborator, drummer Ellade Bandini...
, and bass-player Hugh Bullen.
Years Of Lead
Finardi's sound and style became a success in 1976, with his second album SugoSugo
Sugo, The Chosen One in English, is a fantasy Philippine drama that aired on GMA Network from July 2005 to January 2006 starring Richard Gutierrez.-Plot:...
, and his third Diesel in 1977. The first included the counter-cultural youth anthem Musica Ribelle, and the hymn to pirate radio-stations La Radio; the second the love ballad Non e' Nel Cuore, which were all released as singles.
Finardi, who had started performing live often on his own with an acoustic guitar and sitting down, was now touring with a four or five-piece Rock band. His introduction of Rock'n'Roll in the genre of socially and politically aware Italian singer-songwriters was what made Finardi stand out and endeared him to the counter-cultural youth of late 1970s Italy, which in 1976-78 was in the midst of political upheaval and almost civil war, with the occupations of factories, universities and high-schools, demonstrations which ended in pitched battles with the police - often with fatal casualties - and the rise of political movements like Autonomia, the Indiani Metropolitani
Indiani Metropolitani
Indiani Metropolitani were a small faction active in the Italian far-left protest movement during 1976 and 1977, in the so called "Years Of Lead".- Background :...
and terrorist groups like the Red Brigades
Red Brigades
The Red Brigades was a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organisation, based in Italy, which was responsible for numerous violent incidents, assassinations, and robberies during the so-called "Years of Lead"...
(Brigate Rosse).
This eventful period of Italian contemporary history is known as the Anni di piombo (Years Of Lead)and also as the era of the Movimento '77, the youth movement for which 1977 was a pivotal year, somewhat an Italian equivalent of the Punk Rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
upheaval in the US and Great Britain. The dramatic and eventful climate of the period was the result of the so-called Strategy of tension
Strategy of tension
The strategy of tension is a theory that describes how to divide, manipulate, and control public opinion using fear, propaganda, disinformation, psychological warfare, agents provocateurs, and false flag terrorist actions....
(Strategia della tensione): the confrontation between youth counter-culture and left-wing activists against an Italian government perceived as reactionary, repressive, corrupt, unstable, manouvred by the US, which disseminated disinformation and engaged in false-flag terror attacks blamed on the left in order to establish a more authoritarian regime.
Finardi was a notable counter-cultural and musical protagonist of these years, with songs like La C.I.A. about the American Secret Services' involvement in Italian politics, Soldi about consumerism, Giai Phong, about the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, Scuola about the education system, Tutto Subito about the confrontational street demos of Autonomia, and Scimmia which chronicled Finardi's past heroin addiction and subsequent self-detoxification through 'cold turkey', a particularly relevant song for touching upon a subject that would become a growing social problem in Italy starting in the following decade, the 1980s. Songs like Voglio and Oggi Ho Imparato A Volare were optimstic hymns for the revolutionary youth of the Italian left, and Diesel celebrated both Finardi's life on the road as a musician and the life of everyday working-class Italians.
Finardi started to make his transition from this turbulent period of Italian history and its cultural landscape with the album Blitz and single Extraterrestre in 1978, and Roccando Rollando (Rocking and Rolling) in 1979, which contained Legalizzatela, his song-manifesto for the legalization of cannabis. Other significant hits were Patrizia, and the bitter-sweet ballad Le Ragazze Di Osaka in 1981.
From the 1980s to the present
Since then Finardi has lived periodically abroad, in London, UK, and in the United States. He has appeared at the Mecca of Italian commercial Pop music, the annual musical contest of the San Remo Festival, which would have been unthinkable in the 1970s. Through many different collaborations, he has released regular albums: among them one made entirely of songs with English lyrics, Secret Streets in 1982; the live album StradeStrade
-See also:*List of towns and villages in Ireland...
(1984), Dolce Italia (1987), the entirely acoustic Acustica in 1993, for which he toured in the same 'unplugged' mode, the re-reading of songs from his back catalogue Cinquantanni in 2002, his exploraton of spirituality Il Silenzio e Lo Spirito in 2003, and a return to his youthful love for the Blues with the album Anima Blues in 2005.
Eugenio Finardi's most recent works have a large audience, as proven by the success of the album Un Uomo (2007), a compilation of a 30 years long career, celebrated also in the show Suono in Italian theatres - and released also on DVD - in which Finardi tells his story through a series of monologues. His last work Il Cantante Al Microfono saw him accompanied by a classical music sextet. Eugenio Finardi's albums from the 1970s are considered classics of Italian Rock, and he remains one of Italy's most successful and influential Rock singers and musicians.
Albums
- Non gettate alcun oggetto dal finestrino (1975)
- SugoSugoSugo, The Chosen One in English, is a fantasy Philippine drama that aired on GMA Network from July 2005 to January 2006 starring Richard Gutierrez.-Plot:...
(1976) - Diesel (1977)
- Blitz (1978)
- Roccando rollando (1979)
- Finardi (1981)
- Secret streets (1982)
- Dal Blu (1983)
- StradeStrade-See also:*List of towns and villages in Ireland...
(Live, 1984) - Colpi di fulmine (1985)
- Dolce Italia (1987)
- Il vento di Elora (1989)
- La forza dell'amore (collection of remastered songs, plus 2 previously unreleased songs, 1990)
- Millennio (1991)
- Musica Desideria (1992)
- Acustica (1993)
- Occhi (1996)
- Accadueo (1998; re-released in 1999 with one 1 bonus track)
- La forza dell'amore 2 (2001)
- Cinquantanni (2002)
- Il silenzio e lo spirito (2003)
- Anima blues (2005)
- Un uomo (2007)
- Un Cantante Al Microfono (2008)
Singles
- Spacey Stacey/Hard Rock Honey (1973)
- Soldi/Voglio (1975)
- Musica ribelle/La radio (1976)
- Non è nel cuore/Giai Phong (1977)