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Rating: I remember Armando Piazza, he was in the stories of my older cousins who talked about this strange singer-songwriter. He sold his records at the concerts of major rock bands that came to play in our beautiful Naples, which during the early seventies, despite the national-popular iconography of sea, pizza, and mandolin, was a hub of alternative artists.
I was too young to understand what an acoustically acid ballad meant; I thought they were referring to something spoiled while I turned over in my hands the cover of a record like "Second Contribution" by Shawn Phillips who, living in Positano in those years, was as praised by us as he was unknown in America. But Shawn had long blond hair that fell over his shoulders, and his little beard made me imagine him as Jesus Christ (indeed, for me, he was really Jesus Christ). Armando, on the other hand, was an ordinary guy with freshly barbered hair parted on the side, and I wondered what the hell he had to do with Shawn.
The answer lay in two records also sold through magazines of the time like Ciao 2001. After all, the label was a local Beautiful Black Butterfly that also published the Showmen, from which Elio D'Anna would split to join Osanna. I still have a cassette tape of the second album that Armando released in 1973: "Naus"... and I won't hide that after so many years, I still enjoy listening to that slide guitar intro that seems taken from Ry Cooder (who was just debuting as a solo artist at that time). An album that, like the previous "Suan," was made of guitars with no plugs to connect to the power and acoustic psychofolk atmospheres suggested by the progressive groups that were all the rage in Naples during those golden years.
The seven minutes of "Sleep Away" are like an acid lullaby for those who need to sleep after too many sleepless nights spent chasing five-dimensional dreams, Shawn's acoustic guitars accompany Armando's indolent voice while Toni Esposito brings out his percussive arsenal in the strange and psychedelic jam finale of a collage of overlapping voices.
I like to think that the arpeggio of " A Mother Lament" could have been borrowed by John Martyn for his magnificent "Solid Air" just a year after Armando's recording! No, come on, it's not possible that the great guv'nor knew of Armandino's existence, hunched over his guitar just like him, filling the grooves with the muffled atmospheres of "White Lady Blue," with a Van Der Graaf-like saxophone giving us a blend with a sweet paste whirled by Toni's percussive carpet. Instead, it's the Mc Donald-style flute from early King Crimson that characterizes the long " Sing a Song" while "The silence has closed your eyes and the door" is more agitated and nervous due to the tension built up in the crossing solos of the two saxophones.
In short, you didn't have a great voice, Armando, even in "Wake Up" more than the vocal cords, you make the heartstrings vibrate at the memory of those times filled with participation, sharing, pot, free love, and friendship, things that today in these exasperated times make you smile. I don't know what happened to you but may God keep you safe.
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