Bruno Lauzi
Amore caro, amore bello...

How many times, during those tedious weekend afternoons, have we found ourselves cluttering up shopping malls, stealing a glance at the bins full of compact discs, thrown inside like mussels in a bucket after being torn from their rocky corner. Those who know the discographies of the artists they worship by heart and aim for the most frenzied collecting venture don't give a damn about the competitive prices of superextraipermegagalatticaofferta that usually tempt the general public more inclined towards the acquisition or purchase of the "easy win".

And there they are, like mnemonic diary pages, the various: “I grandi successi di…” “Il meglio di…” “The best of…” written in golden, glittering letters, or worse, sneaky and fake collections that arrogantly and carelessly take the title from official albums of artists now sadly forgotten, but who have marked important pages in certain seasons for the mission to which they were called. See, I leave these nonsensical gatherings to the general public and fight for a just cause: to globally possess what has generated these excessively feasible and fraudulent anthologies. I demand originality and the starting point, and I also hold that the case of Bruno Lauzi is no less when it comes to the sad law of oblivion and the unfair relegation to low-grade supermarket stuff.

The singer-songwriter, adopted by Genoa but born on Eritrean soil, released during the last scraps of 1971 a double LP that echoes what was undoubtedly his most famous gem. However, let's start from 1969, when the ambitious Giulio Rapetti (known as Mogol) founded the label "Numero uno" and soon welcomed under his protective wing various emerging artists and musicians of those years, including Lauzi himself, Lucio Battisti, Oscar Prudente, Ivan Graziani, Premiata Forneria Marconi, Formula 3, Edoardo Bennato, and Flora Fauna Cemento led by Mario Lavezzi. Why is it essential to mention the “Numero uno” project? Because the influential record company, at the beginning of the seventies, being notably supplied with excellent and professional figures of the new Italian music scene, worked so that this authoritative, interesting, and unusual piece of work by Bruno Lauzi gained success and acclaim. Unusual because there is no trace of a press release on compact disc nor on the snubbed cassettes in vogue in the eighties and nineties. Exclusive disc of scarce availability, like (alas!) other gems by Lauzi published in that decade, never reissued, not even on a long-play record in subsequent years, and only obtainable in its first and only edition dated 12/71 (December 1971).

The product, as I previously alluded to, is a double, but the first section entirely deviates from the second.

In the first part, Lauzi performs live with guitar and voice, accompanied by the guitarist Andrea Sacchi, some pieces from the previous decade, including the famous "Ritornerai", songs from the Genoese and American country-folk repertoire, such as "O frigiderio" and "When I meet Connie in Cornfield", expressing with some theatricality his entertainer and conversationalist vein with the present audience. Lauzi's humility has always been characterized precisely by the almost fraternal relationship with those who listened to him, never boasting innate qualities or exalting his role as a small jester at the people's court.

Many of the talented sound craftsmen mentioned earlier, instead contributed to the success of the second part of the disc. Pieces by P.F.M., Flora Fauna Cemento, and Equipe 84 along with Dario Baldan Bembo, the La Bionda brothers, and percussionist Gianni Dall'Aglio, painted their varied hues on the canvas with passion and discipline. Among the tracks of enveloping harmony and remarkable quality, accompanied by the calm and melodic vocal tone of the Ligurian singer-songwriter, are "L’aquila" by the experienced duo Battisti-Mogol and "Lei non è qui non è là" written in collaboration with a very young Edoardo Bennato. At the end of 1972, Lucio Battisti will publish the LP "Il mio canto libero", which will include "L’aquila" offering a new interpretation; Bennato with his piece will perform the same operation in 1973 in his debut album "Non farti cadere le braccia". The other tracks remain in Lauzi's classic storytelling style that does not undergo particular metamorphoses; like a master, he weaves a plot not excessively engaged but certainly more courageous, proactive, and colorful compared to the (still excellent) works published earlier.

Reasoning would have me assign this album four rating dots, but my heart has imposed a maximum score, in memory of a charming, simple, and deserving provincial storyteller, one of many, who disappeared precisely six years ago (it was October 24, 2006), too quickly clouded, then neglected and forgotten by the prevailing slanderous game dictated by mediocre and unbridled butter giants who impose rancid and colorless innards.

DISCO UNO - DAL RECITAL AL TEATRO FILODRAMMATICO DI MILANO

Side A: Menica, menica - Vecchio paese - La banda - Gli acrobati - La mia solitudine

Side B: O frigideiro - Il tuo amore - Ritornerai - When I meet Connie in Cornfield - Coccodì coccodà

DISCO DUE - AMORE CARO AMORE BELLO...

Side A: Amore caro amore bello - Al mercato dei fiori - 4.000.000 di anni fa - Lei non è qui, non è là - Il costruttore - Giovedì speciale

Side B: L’aquila - Un buon matrimonio - Il coniglio rosa - Stella, Stella - Devo assolutamente sapere - Il tuo amore