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The music was somewhat familiar, embarrassingly familiar, from the very beginning. The melody, the rhythm and the universe of harmony attracted me like a magnet, it was a relationship born (or rather, re-born...?) on the right rails: it went in the exact way without forcing it....a magic, perhaps a need. The relationship with the rest of the universe was instead (and still is) much less easy, even if serene, in the middle of the council houses of San Siro in Milan, in the late '50s, early '60s.
That’s where I was born and grew up in 1956, in the courts of Preneste road, Civitali road, Paravia road and Morgantini road, playing football, stealing vinyls to listen to a song, reading school books and begging my parents to allow me to study music, even if their answer was unfortunately the same every time...but those were hard times, when you were concerned about getting by, without having weird ideas.
But in seventh grade I started to realize that I had to write my own music and with that old untunable EKO guitar that my parents finally bought me (…. great conquest..!), I started writing my first (experimental…) songs… horrible things, too long and wrong, but I had to start somewhere.
At Vittorio Veneto, the historic high school I attended during the vibrant years between 1970 and 1975, I can't deny that I often couldn't believe there were collectives or strikes: those were the hours when I'd escape to lock myself in the house to play the guitar and try to write and learn new things.
So, little by little, everything began to take on a believable shape, fueling my passion more and more; and, meanwhile, I never stopped listening to the music written by real musicians...
I know I wasn't a great example of scholastic, political, or social commitment, but I had my idea in mind, and I had no intention of giving up on pursuing it...
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Then, at nineteen, maybe twenty, I signed my first recording contract, with the glorious, legendary Durium: I'll never forget the stern yet affectionate looks of Mr. and Mrs. Mintanjan, who gave me the chance to start out by walking in through the front door. Meanwhile, I had enrolled in Medicine at the University of Milan, which I attended until the sixth year, even passing a fair number of exams, but there was no competition... my head was always somewhere else, and not in my books, with all due respect to Pathological Anatomy, Physiology, Internal Medicine and General Surgery 1 and 2, and the rest of the lot... in hindsight, it was better that way, I would have been a terrible doctor.
For those with a good memory, in those years with Idea 2 (Piero Ameli and I), we managed to gain good visibility, thanks to a theme song written for the then Tele Montecarlo: She's a Witch, with lyrics by Paolo Limiti.
But since I've never been a stage animal, my career as an artist was short-lived: I won't dwell on the anxiety I felt on stage at the Eurovision Song Contest in Saint-Vincent, or the terror I felt before entering the (splendid) Arena in Verona, even though it was clearly a shameless lip-synching performance: there I decided I'd never go on stage again, it wasn't for me, too much stress…
I studied guitar with Maestro Filippo Dacco', one of the most extraordinary people who has ever crossed my life, leaving a profound mark on it. During those years of study, and for the rest of my life, beyond the teacher-student relationship, a profound human connection was created that I will always cherish, and for this I will always be grateful: with him, I graduated in Functional Harmony.
Then I studied with my brother and friend Maestro Massimo Colombo, who, poor him, sacrificed himself trying to improve my nonexistent piano technique. The amazing thing is that he succeeded, albeit with some predictable difficulty, and we made unpredictable progress. This is a source of great satisfaction both for him, I believe, who saw his efforts rewarded
(even if not entirely... I'm not Bill Evans...), and for me, who, objectively, worked my ass off... and also a great joy for the osteopath's wallet, who occasionally withdrew my money, given the long hours spent hunched over the piano.
My true passion was, and remains, writing music, and I followed that instinct and desire with tenacity, even amid the difficulties that, I assure you, accompanied me day after day. Then, as in the most beautiful fairy tales, some "extraordinary" events happened that transformed the course of my life, such as meeting special people, whom I never stop thanking silently: talent, if talent exists, flourishes alongside these giants; extraordinary artists whom I was fortunate enough to associate with, and thanks to their immense artistic richness, learning from them was easier.
Here, in strictly alphabetical order, is a short list of those with whom I have had the honor and pleasure of working over the past fifty years: since it is absolutely impossible to remember them all, I hope I don't mind those I don't remember, and to whom I apologize in advance: Luigi Albertelli, Piero Ameli, Leonardo Amuedo, Oscar Avogadro, Charles Aznavour, Fabrizio Baldoni, Danilo Ballo, Roberto Benozzo, Franz Campi, Al Bano Carrisi, Piero Cassano, Giorgio Cocilovo, Fabrizio De Andre', Dario Farina, Fred Ferrari, Fiorello, Rodolfo Grieco, Dori Ghezzi, Gordon Kennedy, Ricchi e Poveri, Mario Lavezzi, Paolo Limiti, Andrea Lo Vecchio, Cristiano Minellono, Mijares, Domenico Modugno, Ricardo Montaner, Trijntje Oosterhius, Laura Pausini, Fabio Perversi, Pinuccio Pirazzoli, Alfredo Rapetti "Cheope", Romina Power………..and all those others.
People and characters
Moments frozen in time with friends and artists, so that time no longer has time, and becomes eternal.
