Edoardo Bennato
Pronti a salpare

Edoardo Bennato returns with a much-anticipated album that offers emotions and lots of good music; indeed, music is at the heart of this album produced by Orazio Grillo (known as Brando) and masterfully played by Edoardo and his band; the album is recorded in analog, truly played in the recording studio, and you can breathe music tinged with rock and blues, all the way to the Rossinian finale with “Non è bello ciò che è bello”; it starts with a memorable piece, a ballad with blues undertones: “Pronti a salpare”; an important text that draws inspiration from the highly topical migration issue, then placing us of the “Western system” in the same condition as those desperate forced to leave everything; a song brilliantly played, where the piano becomes an added value along with Edoardo's inspired and moving harmonica; follows the first single “Io vorrei che per te”: a rock ballad, steeped in hope and poetry; Edoardo draws from his language, that of fairy tales; now, however, he takes a step forward compared to 35 years ago, now he wants the “island that doesn’t exist to become reality”: it’s the new awareness of an adult Bennato who has become a father and dedicates this ballad to his daughter, for whom, like every dad, he wishes for a better world; the third track is “Povero amore”: a song already present in the album “Sbandato” from 1998; here, in my opinion, it’s further improved with a notable contribution by Giuseppe Scarpato (one of Edoardo's two guitarists and one of the best guitarists around): the completely renewed bass and guitar backdrop offers this track (already beautiful in the first version) a more modern and captivating outfit; the fourth track is a stroke of genius and from Edoardo, it’s to be expected: “La calunnia è un venticello”; Bennato takes inspiration from The Barber of Seville to build a driving blues and remember Enzo Tortora and Mia Martini, killed by slanders that in print become “absolute truths”; Edoardo speaks for those crushed by this perverse system of fake journalistic morality; follows “Il mio nome è Lucignolo”: a rocking track, echoing the Rolling Stones, a rock icon, of whom Edoardo (a seasoned rocker) is obviously a great admirer: it’s about Lucignolo, a character excluded in 1977 (album “Burattino senza fili”); Edoardo retrieves him and dresses him as a PR; Lucignolo is transgression by vocation, Lucignolo is the bad adviser who self-celebrates; “among the pitfalls of the forty thieves and Ali Baba’s sermons”, he’s the magician who opens every door, he’s the guarantee (how much healthy irony, which Bennato cannot renounce); the sixth track is a driving blues: “A Napoli 55 è ‘a musica”; an autobiographical song, Edoardo sincerely traces his musical journey, the beginnings with doors slammed in his face, who suggested he graduate and change career, and he, fortunately, stubborn to the extreme, never gave up on music, and after more than 40 years as a great musician-songwriter, we can say his stubbornness had a great foundation and reason to exist; Edoardo, amid the autobiographical words of the text, does not fear telling the truth and today does it more directly than in the past; he does not talk about “the cat and the fox”, but directly apostrophizes them as “the godfathers and masters of the record industry” (rock is also this, provoking and smartly moving consciences); the seventh track is “al gran ballo della Leopolda”: another dragging blues; here the harmonica is entrusted (in addition to the guitar) to the other guitarist of his band, Gennaro Porcelli, who lives the blues on his skin like a true calling; the text is boldly ironic, assuming a dialogue with a Pippo against the backdrop of Leopolda, the facade power’s headquarters; in this grotesque scenario move Edoardo with his “delirium”, Pippo with his “common sense” and Matteo who doubles, and one does not know which one is “the real one”; Edoardo plays the disruptor among the courtiers of Leopolda, lost in “the fervor of the quadrille and the figured tango”; the eighth track is “una macchina”, a claustrophobic blues, with an unsettling gospel intro; it’s a very dragging piece, masterfully played, with a Bennato more than ever the master of the stage; it ironically addresses the use of technology that Edoardo looks at with respect, almost devotion, but also with suspicion; salvation, but also extinction, are two sides of the same coin, everything depends on man and how he uses it; the ninth track “giro girotondo” is a sweet, poetic, and inspired ballad; Edoardo's voice, as in “Io vorrei che per te”, becomes paternal, and when at the end he sings about the “mountains amid nuts and chestnuts”, it is the dad speaking to the son and dreaming of a better world for him, which perhaps already exists and is within reach if only we renounced the “crazy speed” and started doing the “ring-around-the-rosy” that “will save us”; Edoardo is telling us to return to being children, the salvation of the earth also passes through here; the tenth track is “il mio sogno ricorrente”: a rock, dragging, autobiographical song; “the more they attack me, the more fun it is to mess up”, Edoardo dreams of flying, for him flying means “overcoming clichés and borders”; Edoardo does not listen to prohibitions, as it’s known he’s allergic to talking crickets, he prefers to be Pinocchio and here also somewhat Peter Pan, given the recurring dream of taking “a good running start” and soaring over good advice, conventions, and ideological fences; follows “Niente da spartire”, a blues sung in a Dylan-esque style; a damn Bennatiano text, an authentic Bennato against the saviors of the homeland, the fake moralists, the do-gooders, and the professional sentimentalists for the benefit of their “faction”; Edoardo has never taken sides, has always stayed away from rallies, has never waved flags or ideologies: this song is his business card, those who have followed him forever know what he's talking about and here they find everything this rock minstrel has always been and continues to be: “a lunatic, a provocateur”; follows “La mia città”, a love song to Naples, always present in Edoardo’s records; he has never talked about a postcard Naples and does not do so in this song either, with however an invitation to hope for a better future that depends on the commitment of each of us; I really like the harmonica in this piece, very evocative; the penultimate track is “Zero in condotta” (first published in 1985, album “Kaiwanna”): a rock song, on a non-text; similar to the original, but with more room for guitars; it will be nice to hear it live again; contrasting with “Zero in condotta”, the album closes with a gem: “Non è bello ciò che è bello”; master Raffaele Lopez, Bennato's band keyboardist, conducts the orchestra; Edoardo dresses up as Rossini (as he has accustomed us in the past, I cite, among others, “Dotti medici e sapienti” or “In fila per tre”) and gives us an invitation in music to follow the heart and not always reason; Edoardo talks about his “Life in music”, about his mistakes with the related price one pays; it’s our life, it’s up to us to turn it into a dream; so closes a beautiful album, a great return; Bennato's friend, Fabrizio De André (to whom Edoardo dedicates the song that gives the album its title) had advised him to continue with music as long as he had something to say; that's why in 2015, 42 years after the first album “Non farti cadere le braccia”, we are still talking about this authentic rebellious spirit, always over the top, always shamelessly, damnably, and consistently ROCK