Buon Vecchio Charlie
Buon Vecchio Charlie

Ah yes... there was a time when even our beloved peninsula churned out some great albums and what I am about to review falls forcefully into this category; I'm talking about "Buon Vecchio Charlie" by Buon Vecchio Charlie: the group (way back in 1972) consisted of a line-up of six musicians named Richard Benson on vocals and guitar (don't laugh if you know him, when I listened to this album I could hardly believe he had written and played it), Luigi Calabrò also on vocals and guitar, Sandro Cesaroni on saxophone and flute, Sandro Centofanti on keyboards, Paolo Damiani on bass, and Rino Sangiorgio on drums.

The sextet offers us a fine progressive rock album played perfectly, extremely complex in its structures, with far and vaguely medieval tones. The album is composed of 6 songs, 3 of which are long in duration, and 2 of medium-short length: the first song "Venite Giù al Fiume" boasts an excellent performance and turns out to be rich in various drumming time shifts; as for the lyrics well I suggest you read them, you will be pleasantly surprised. "Evviva La Contea Di Lane", in my opinion, stands as the most complete song on the album, being at times melodic and at others more intense. The vocal part plays heavily on Benson's theatrical tones, showcasing not only excellent vocals but also great guitar mastery. The other band members merely, so to speak, flawlessly perform the music, with special praise for the keyboards. Third track and yet more emotions, "All'Uomo Che Raccoglie Cartoni" turns out to be a delicious and exquisitely PROG ROCK suite: moving on first fast and aggressive coordinates and then slow and sweet, the 15 minutes will take you on a musical journey beyond the limits of the imaginable. The song appears as a very long instrumental divided into 5 episodes, where you hardly miss the vocal presence. The only flaw is the volume of the instruments not always perfectly balanced. We then come to "Rosa," a very delicate song, based on the story of a woman, Rosa in fact, who has gone away; the text, slightly less structured than the others, still turns out to be beautiful and sweet. Fantastic guitar base conducted by Benson and Calabrò. 4 minutes and 34 seconds in which you will be captivated by this beautiful song. We thus come to the final episode of the album: "Il Guardiano Della Valle," which, accompanied by a beautiful text and excellent vocals, can be considered an excellent closing song.

Having reached the end of the album, we can thus say that it was a pity not to have been able to hear from this fantastic sextet again: after unsuccessfully seeking a producer, the six disbanded to pursue solo paths. Ultimately an excellent album that unfortunately is never considered among the masterpieces of Italian prog. Ps: despite being written back in 1972, the album did not see the light until 1990 due to a certain sort of "snubbing" by record companies.