PFM

From I Quelli to Numero Uno

PFM, short for Premiata Forneria Marconi, is a progressive rock band from Milan, billed as the first Italian rock act with international success. The name comes from a bakery shop sign, forneria, in Chiari near Brescia, with Premiata added at Alessandro Colombini's suggestion. Before it, Franco Mussida, Flavio Premoli, Franz Di Cioccio and others had worked as backing musicians for Lucio Battisti, Mina, Adriano Celentano and Fabrizio De Andre and played as I Quelli, who made one album in 1968. Mauro Pagani joined in 1970, reportedly after meeting them during the recording of De Andre's La buona novella, and they signed with Numero Uno, the label founded by Battisti, Mogol and others. In June 1971 they shared first place at the Viareggio festival with Osanna and Mia Martini.

Their albums include Storia di un minuto and Per un amico (both 1972), Photos of Ghosts (1973, Manticore, with English lyrics by Peter Sinfield, who also suggested the abbreviation PFM), L'isola di niente and The World Became the World (1974), Chocolate Kings (1975) and Jet Lag (1977), their last album in English. Photos of Ghosts reached 180 on the Billboard 200 and the live Cook reached 154 in January 1975. A US tour in 1974 of about fifty dates included shows with Santana and Aerosmith, and on February 21, 1975 they played NBC's The Midnight Special. Patrick Djivas replaced Piazza on bass in 1974. They stopped performing in 1987 without officially disbanding, returned with Ulisse (1997), and have since made Dracula (2005), A.D. 2010 (La buona novella, 2010), PFM in Classic (2013), Emotional Tattoos (2017) and I Dreamed of Electric Sheep (2021) with Ian Anderson and Steve Hackett among the guests.

Storia di un minuto

Storia di un minuto was released in January 1972 on Numero Uno (RCA), 34:25, recorded in Milan in 1971 at the Fonorama studio, produced by Claudio Fabi with Gaetano Ria engineering, according to Pagani's autobiography Nove vite e dieci blues as excerpted by Il Post. It topped the Italian album chart after one week, the first time that had happened in Italy. Mussida played guitars, mandocello and lead vocals, Premoli organ, piano, Mellotron, harpsichord, Minimoog and vocals, Pagani flute, piccolo and violin, Giorgio Piazza bass and Di Cioccio drums, Moog and backing vocals. AllMusic's retrospective gave it 4.5 stars and Robert Taylor called it one of the best progressive rock debuts in history.