Dan Fogelberg
The Innocent Age

THE REVIEW

Sanremo Festival 1987 on Rai1: the talented host of the moment introduces the "big" Patty Pravo... "who will perform 'Pigramente signora,' music and lyrics by Patty Pravo herself!" Clap clap and there she comes, showy and flamboyant as always, the "background" track starts but after the first two lines I was already startled, just a few more lines and I knew for sure, the fraud was singing in Italian nothing less than "To The Morning" by Dan Fogelberg, the chords and melody are exactly the same!

"She's crazy!"... I think, and I feel like doing something the next day, calling, sending a letter with a tape... there's no need. Two days later, I read a snippet in Repubblica on the page dedicated to the Festival stating the formal complaint sent by the Daniel Fogelberg Italian Fan Club with supporting sound material! I am proud because Gerry, head of the aforementioned Fan Club and filer of the complaint, owes me the discovery of this artist and (may his soul rest in peace) never failed to remind me of it every time we met... The plagiarism is proven, they manage to keep everything rather low-key in the media (no Tapiri as is usual nowadays in such cases) but the exposed Patty loses her just-signed contract with the Italian Virgin and it will take her a few years to climb back up and sign with Fonit Cetra. Pigramente signora disappears completely, or at least I never had the chance to hear it again from that moment on, but maybe, besides it being appropriate for the "sophisticated" (in every sense) Patty Pravo, its further circulation of such proven cowardice is prohibited by law.

But who the hell is this Dan Fogelberg? He is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and singer from Illinois. A "mountain man" who, like many others, moved to Los Angeles in the mid-seventies to break into the right circle but as soon as success arrived, thought it best to escape from that madhouse and settle in Colorado where he still lives. From there, with calmness, serenity, simplicity, and humility, he has provided us with a treasure trove of works among which this, in the plebiscitary opinion of all who love him, is the brightest.

"The Age of Innocence" was released in 1981 as a double LP, seventeen pure songwriter songs, 100% made in the USA, impeccable arrangements with almost all instruments played by Fogelberg, but when he asks friends for a hand, they're called Joni Mitchell, Michael Brecker, Glenn Frey, Don Alias... Plenty of acoustic guitars and pianos, slightly sweetened atmospheres, definitely rural, forgo the seekers of stress and metropolitan malaise. It celebrates life, friendship, love, family, especially the most obvious but most definitive regret that captures each of our lives: the loss, irreplaceable, invaluable, predictable yet cruel, sought after, and then cursed... of innocence.

The most romantic and sensitive risk teary eyes when listening, with the lyrics at hand, to the best song I know dedicated to a parent: Fogelberg's father was a band leader in his town and in Leader Of The Band he thanks him for teaching him to love music and "letting him go when it was my time to go."

Allow me to use the remaining space, instead of describing the many other pearls of the album, with the personal and, I hope, decent translation of the most precious of these, entitled Same Old Lang Syne:

I met my old lover at the grocery store / The snow was falling Christmas Eve / I stole behind her in the frozen foods / And I touched her on