Fabio Celi e Gli Infermieri
Follia

San Giorgio a Cremano (Naples), late 1960s. Antonio Cavallaro, known as Fabio Celi, forms a group called Fabio Celi & i Pop. They will soon record a 45 RPM single titled "T'ho Vista Piangere" (1968) with the B-side titled "Un Milione Di Baci". The following year the band changes its name to Fabio Celi e Gli Infermieri and finds itself in the studio again to record the only long-playing album, titled "Follia". The record is shrouded in mystery because it is said to have been recorded in 1969, even though it gains a tiny slice of notoriety in 1975 following the group's only TV appearance on the program "Adesso Musica".

Now you might ask: "Well... what's so strange if a minor Italian Prog Group had little notoriety, given that it went that way for most of them?" There is indeed nothing strange, except for the fact that this interesting and innovative album had a very difficult journey to achieve even minimal visibility, due to the censorship by the conservative RAI (today as then). Censorship to repress and blind the truth of a decadent society full of "madness". Yes, because this album doesn't speak of knights, winged journeys, planets in antithesis with each other, or religion. It doesn't talk about what is common to our Prog; here it discusses wanting to be six feet five inches tall with broad shoulders like a wall cupboard to go around and "always fight", mocking a significant part of our society that manages to make violence a sadistic art ("L'artista sadico"). And again, over a very fun yet captivating Hammond riff, it highlights the madness of a judge sold to criminals, a deputy who traffics cocaine, an industrialist who sells weapons in Africa, and the ever-increasing prices of bread and gasoline, all garnished with shouts proclaiming "FOLLIAAAAAA!!!" with a laugh between sarcasm and malice. In this record, the rope (the noose that is tied around the neck of a horse or donkey to then drag the poor animal) is also called upon those who "for how many doses of powder" give it to the youth and those who "traffic cannons for the tribal chiefs", it is for them that Fabio calls for "the noose in the squares of our city". Then the album abandons itself to more relaxed tones but with words always full of anger, thanks to the naïve text and the melody of "Il Presidente", where a president with a tender heart speaks with the vocation to help his people and not to trample their bodies, even if he can't do anything because those who "put his people, his family up for auction" told him "you are nobody" and not to implement what he promised. It all revolves around a truly beautiful and poignant melody. In anesthetized tones, we also find the rhetoric "Uomo Cosa Fai" and the finale "Distruzione".

A group certainly without a filter on their tongue! It's a pity they didn't have any other opportunities to continue to express themselves. By the way, they were very interesting even live, where at the end of the performances when "L'artista Sadico" was played, Fabio Celi would emerge from a coffin, and when he began to shout proclaiming himself an Artist, the nurses would come and, after putting him in a straitjacket, would throw him back into the coffin! An album well played between classicism and R'n'B, so much so that if it is true that it was recorded in 1969, it is four years ahead, considering that the sounds it produced in Italy began to be heard from 1972 onwards. And it's worth mentioning that in Celi's way of singing, he not only anticipates Claudio Canali of Biglietto Per L'inferno but also the modern Caparezza (listen to believe!), even if Celi threw the truth in your face without metaphors, as Caparezza does today.

After "Follia", Fabio Celi e gli Infermieri recorded another 45 RPM single titled "Via Gaetano Argento 80141 Napoli" (1971), with "Fermi Tutti è Una Rapina" on side B, which always in protest tones with a flavorful touch of irony anticipates sounds that if exploited today as Fabio did would yield many good cultural profits to this decadent and null generation of ours.

"Follia" even if recorded 40 years ago amazes with its terrifying (unchanging!) relevance to the society it describes.

Fabio Celi e Gli Infermieri were:

Fabio Celi (Keyboards and Vocals), Ciro Ciscognetti (Keyboards), Luigi Coppa (Guitar and Harmonica), Rino Fiorentino (Bass) and Roberto Ciscognetti (Drums, Percussion).