Fabriguitar

Andrea Mingardi - Datemi Della Musica – FULL ALBUM

Reaching a certain point in the career of a music enthusiast, I believe that listening to Mingardi could be one of the right indulgences for retirement. I mean in anticipation, unfortunately, I don't yet have the 115 years of age agreed upon by the unions with the government to access it. But I digress! Back to the point.
Mingardi, I was saying... Sarcastic about the inevitable misfortunes, like a real man who knows how to move forward instead of whining... there's a lot to learn on a philosophical level. He can make you laugh to the point of tears in certain Bolognese songs. Witty, deep, poetic lyrics when he stops playing around. He sings like a god on the record and, even on stage, he performs at the highest levels. A live talent. Skatch poetry, stunning improvisations. Exceptional musicians always, beautiful music blending rock, soul, and blues. Everything in uppercase.
In the Italian episodes, like this album I'm linking, I don't think it all works perfectly every time. The professor Vecchioni writes that the song is an art form in itself: it’s not poetry, it’s not music: it's a song.
Here in "Datemi della musica," there's EVERYTHING, but it's a bit disjointed. Beautiful lyrics, music, instrumental parts, arrangements, musicians, and his vocal interpretation... but perhaps it doesn't quite come together perfectly, which is why it's not a masterpiece of Italian song. Each of the musical, lyrical, and interpretive elements sometimes seems to stand a bit apart; always at high levels, but without fully blending with the rest. With exceptions, because "Il pagliaccio" and "Solo" flow almost like Dalla. He placed them at the end of the record, I wonder why.
In any case, an album like this would sit well alongside those of Alloisio or other engaged and profound '70s works, also a bit of Lolli, with the flavor of real life and the historical moment, with some edges but in full beauty and with a strong, cheeky ironic component that is not for everyone, rather a rare treasure.
These days I'm traveling across the Po Valley far and wide, at a pace that would be quite exhausting if I hadn't discovered this artist. He nourishes. He makes you think and enjoy. There’s sunshine and night, but even when it’s cold, he provides a soft blanket.

Gil Scott-Heron: The Bottle

Gil Scott-Heron -- The Bottle (Official Version)

I’m sharing this listening of Gil Scott-Heron. It talks about the bottle as the vice of alcohol and, it seems absurd for a song with moralizing content, it was a huge success in dance clubs around the world, to the point of being perhaps his most universally famous song. This is not the only production of Scott-Heron that has dealt with a social and political theme; in fact, it is more difficult to find his songs that don’t. I like to highlight this socially engaged vocation, noticing that the end of his human story—a painful one marked by jail, alcohol, and self-destruction—ended up leaving twisted traces like those of a cursed poet. In contrast, throughout his artistic life before the final phase, he had a social commitment that was so deep, felt, intelligent, and sensitive that it had nothing to do with respectability or bigoted moralism. He worked tirelessly for decades against drugs, alcohol, and the various social weapons that gradually destroyed the African American community from the inside. His political and social commitment and his coherence to ideal values were immense, as was his intelligence and culture, considering that he created a language of devastating power to present such concepts in a digestible form for the audience that needed it. Thus, in nightclubs, thus in the ghettos. He is considered "The Godfather of Rap," with rap musicians of every race and generation paying tribute to him continuously. This is to say that the definition of cursed poet that has somewhat been attributed to him is very off the mark, profoundly unfair… The cursed poet, for better or worse, exists but also creates. With being cursed, one earns, or at least predisposes to posthumous fame. For this man, however, the cursed dimension that destroyed him was a private matter, a shame even for himself. Who knows which weakness brought him there; it has never been known.