Adriano Pappalardo
Non mi lasciare mai

Adriano Pappalardo - "Non mi lasciare mai" (1980)

Adriano, a true bluesman from the Battisti stable, achieved great international success with the single "Ricominciamo" after a long period of apprenticeship in the early '70s: this is the following album, which oddly does not include the million-seller single. What to say about the well-rounded character straight out of a Stan Lee comic? The t-shirt with a gladiatorial pose, the superman-like AP-sic!- inscription, a symptom of strength and an Italian heritage of powerful and perhaps uncontrollable energies, all instinct and sentiment, indicative of the rejection of intellectualisms for their own sake, opting for a wholly interior search under the polynomial (?) home, country, family, and... lover.

The album contains moments of undeniable value, authored by Albertelli and Tavernese, ranging from ballads with a country flavor, to rock'n blues and more funky sounds - Io e te / Uomo selvaggio / A mio figlio - but without overly flirting with disco music except for the pinkfloydian- sci-fi episode of "Viaggia", following the trail of Run like hell from Pink Floyd's The Wall.

The album did not achieve the explosive success of the hit single, which played relentlessly in the Roman summer of '79, for which I have a small emotional debt: the night before for Gbr, one of those legendary stripteases had aired -soundtrack Comfortably Numb-, and the next day, aroused and determined not to be a wallflower, I had brought my old cement gray phonovar case to friends' house upstairs - having a stereo was rare - and I had danced Ricominciamo - primal pollutions! and super paippes!- with Lauretta, thanks to a mischievous penalty in the game of spin the bottle - does it still exist?-. Those fresh lemon-flavored lips I seem to still feel them, they made me anticipate... very different insights. Ah, in those days owning or giving a successful 45 rpm record, especially if for pomicions only, was a guarantee of being truly cool and fashionable. It cost only a few Lire.

Thank you Adriano, in the name of the childlike soul we carry inside, I owed you a mini review.