hypersongs

Fabrizio De Andre

The Genoese singer-songwriter nicknamed Faber, who wrote "La canzone di Marinella" in 1963 and went on to concept albums, a record sung in Genoese dialect, and a place as the leading Italian cantautore of his time.

Genoa and Marinella

Fabrizio Cristiano De Andre was born in Pegli, Genoa, on February 18, 1940. His friend Paolo Villaggio, whom he met in 1948, gave him the nickname Faber, partly for his liking of Faber-Castell pastels and pencils and partly for its assonance with his name. His parents were from Piedmont, the family spent part of the war at Revignano d'Asti, and he enrolled at the Liceo classico Cristoforo Colombo in 1956 and left law studies six exams short. He debuted as a student in a Genoa theatre in February 1961, and his first 45 on Karim, in October 1961, was "Nuvole barocche" with "E fu la notte".

He wrote "La canzone di Marinella" in 1963 and it came out in 1964 on a Karim single with "Valzer per un amore", arranged by Gian Piero Reverberi as a slow bolero. It did not sell well until Mina's cover of 1967 made it a national hit, and Volume 1 (1967) is considered his first true album. Tutti morimmo a stento (1968) was the first Italian-language concept album, with orchestral arrangements by Reverberi, followed by La buona novella (1970, on the apocryphal gospels), Non al denaro non all'amore ne al cielo (1971, on Spoon River Anthology), Storia di un impiegato (1973) and Canzoni (1974, translations of Brassens, Cohen and Dylan).

Rimini to Anime salve

He made his concert debut at La Bussola in Viareggio in 1975, the year of Volume 8 with Francesco De Gregori, and moved from Genoa to Sardinia. Rimini (1978) was made with Massimo Bubola, and a tour with PFM that began on December 21, 1978 in Forli produced two live albums in 1979 and 1980, his first live records; a video of the tour was found in 2020 and released on DVD. Fabrizio De Andre (1981, called L'Indiano) was more rock-influenced, again with Bubola. Creuza de ma (March 1984, Ricordi, 33:29) was produced by Mauro Pagani and De Andre and is sung in Genoese, with Italian translations in the liner notes; David Byrne told Rolling Stone it was among the decade's most important releases, and Rolling Stone Italia ranked it fourth in its 2012 list of the 100 best Italian albums.

Le nuvole (1990), the live 1991 Concerti and Anime salve (1996, with Ivano Fossati) followed, along with a novel, Un destino ridicolo (1996, with Alessandro Gennari). He toured in 1997 and 1998, a tour that was cut short, and died in Milan on January 11, 1999, aged 58, and is buried in the family chapel at Staglieno, Genoa. The Fondazione Fabrizio De Andre was founded in the year of his death by Dori Ghezzi with Fernanda Pivano. Tribute albums include Canti randagi (1995) and Faber nostrum (2019); the films include Fabrizio De Andre: Principe libero (2018), and books include Luigi Viva's Non per un dio ma nemmeno per gioco (2000) and the autobiography Una goccia di splendore (2007). Italian roads, squares and schools are named after him, and the Club Tenco gave him six Targhe and one Premio.

Songs

  • La canzone di Marinella 1964

    His 1963 song about a girl from the Piedmont countryside, first a poor seller and then, through Mina in 1967, the hit that changed his career.

Sources

  1. Fabrizio De Andre, Wikipedia
  2. Fabrizio De Andre, Wikipedia (Italian)
  3. Creuza de ma, Wikipedia
  4. La canzone di Marinella, Wikipedia (Italian)