Dario Baldan Bembo
Migrazione

Boasting a career-defining hit must be one of the worst curses for a singer or a band: ultimately, the song and the artist become one (a bit like Domenico Modugno, known abroad by most as "Mr. Volare"), causing any other work of the artist, both prior and subsequent, to be forgotten. In the worst case, one ends up like an episode of "The Twilight Zone," condemned to repeat the same song in endless appearances in the most garish television shows. When Dario Baldan Bembo recorded "Amico è", he probably didn't consider this risk. The song drummed on relentlessly throughout 1982 (in summer camp, that season, I happened to be woken up every blessed morning with "Oooooohhh, Oh oh oh  oooooh...") until it generated various forms of rejection. The career of good Dario practically extinguished there, with the progressive failure of subsequent singles, although he continued to do excellent work as a songwriter (do you remember "Spiagge" by Renato Zero?). For years I had a sort of allergy to his voice, then I discovered who Baldan Bembo was before the notorious song, starting with the cosmic "Aria", and I couldn't help but be amazed.

Amazed because Dario Baldan Bembo was a kind of rare bird among the invasion of acoustic guitar singer-songwriters in the 70s; a character who emerged first of all as a highly sought-after keyboardist (formidable at the Hammond), present in the works of the major figures of the era (from Mina to Battisti passing through Equipe 84, of which he was part for a brief period), and then as a songwriter of timeless songs, including a quartet of tracks worth remembering, carried to success by Mia Martini: "Piccolo Uomo", "Sola", "Inno", and "Minuetto". Armed with this experience, Baldan Bembo's music strikes precisely for its particularly attentive approach to the purely musical aspect, a total approach in which arrangement and recording techniques play as significant a role as the composition stage (it is said that to achieve certain "atmospheric" effects in his tracks, he didn’t hesitate to move the entire recording studio outdoors). "Migrazione," the album from 1977, is perhaps the best testament to the versatility and capabilities of this artist, today somewhat forgotten.

The album (somewhat of a concept dedicated to travel, return, and tinged with a bit of social awareness on the issue of immigration in "Città dei Pensieri") encapsulates multiple aspects of the singer-songwriter/keyboardist, perhaps even at the risk of being a bit heterogeneous, but certainly also reserving pleasant surprises. Firstly, there's the never-hidden liking for certain progressive/jazz rock, undoubtedly congenial to him given his instrumental skills, which forcefully emerges in the opening with "Migrazione", the track that gives the album its title. The song proceeds dynamically amid fast Hammond chords that build its rhythmic structure and a pleasing melodic line on a dreamy text, divinely accompanied by Tullio De Piscopo's drums in atmospheres that may recall an accelerated version of Yes' "Yours Is No Disgrace". In the same league is the instrumental "Arrivo", with a similar use of the Hammond and beautiful guitar solos in a context this time purely Mediterranean jazz rock.

Then there is the more pop side of Baldan Bembo, capable of compositions with good international taste like "Viaggio", with beautiful west-coast hues, not far from certain works of Christopher Cross, or more oriented to another of his great passions, soul-gospel, as in the beautiful "Lontana eri". There's also room for a seemingly simple track with almost childlike traits like "La Mia Casa", a song yet dense with touching but never cloying romanticism, with a splendid vocal line over delicate piano notes.

And the more lyrical Baldan Bembo, fond of the classic forms of the Italian opera romance, is not to be missed either, making the notes of "Non Mi Lasciare" particularly effective (a track perhaps better known in Riccardo Fogli's interpretation), a wonderful declaration of love that at times makes one think of Puccini or a less pompous Bocelli. Of classical inspiration is also the track closing the album, "Risveglio", built in a crescendo on a melodic theme repeated in different tones until it transforms into a true choral (similar to what the artist had already experimented with at his debut two years earlier with "Aria" and even more with "Crescendo").

It is the mature work of a truly unique and original singer-songwriter, who would have certainly deserved a greater following and a greater number of imitators to rejuvenate a pop, ours, too dependent on foreign models. The pleasure of rediscovery remains, which finally allows me to overcome old childhood ghosts (ooooooh, oh oh oh oooooooooohhh...)