Fabrizio De André
1991 Concerti

THE REVIEW

1991: a man takes the stage with a guitar in hand, greeted tumultuously by the crowd, he sits down, smokes a cigarette, and when everything is ready, a beautiful music begins the concert, there's a moment of waiting, and right after there comes that warm and mature voice that accompanied the singer-songwriter in his 50 years or so. Isn't that exactly how you imagine Fabrizio De André, in one of his beautiful concerts? Because that's precisely the feeling it gave me when I heard the album. I liked it from the first guitar chord, his first live album of the "90s".

It starts with a beautiful "Don Raffaè" with perfect arrangements, stringed instruments and drums moving in an exceptional harmony, sung in Neapolitan dialect, it tells one of the many stories that are unfortunately found in southern Italy, where the mafia rules and the population (even the law enforcement, which in the song are "half corrupted"), must abide by these laws to live. It speaks of a brigadier who, to support his family, must cover for or obey the local lord: Don Raffaè. Next is "La domenica delle salme", a beautiful song with an openly political character. Both songs are found on the last album made then: "Nuvole".

"Fiume Sand Creek" talks about the extermination of the Indians at, as the title suggests, Fiume Sand Creek, a field of bloody clashes, with quite touching verses: "They took our hearts under a dark blanket, under a dead moon we slept without fear". Followed by two other tracks from the album "Indiano: "Hotel Supramonte" which talks about the kidnapping that took place in 1979 together with Dori Ghezzi, and "Se ti tagliassero a pezzetti". While in the first part of the 1st CD we find more recent songs, here appear "the old glories" even lost by foreign singers and musicians (e.g. "Il gorilla" by Georges Brassens, ). But I really liked the version of "La canzone dell'amore perduto" (which perhaps I like more than the original version) and "Il testamento di Tito" with that flute arrangement in "Middle Eastern" style. To conclude, "La canzone di Marinella" with "PFM concert" arrangements.

The second CD features the tracks from "Creuza De Ma", plus some from "Nuvole" in dialect. Beautiful to listen to: "Creuza De Ma", "Jamin," "Sidun and others are of impressive beauty, that really remind you of the smell and culture of the Mediterranean land, and you listen to those songs with various ethnic instruments, as if it were a brush making a thousand shades on a canvas, while your mind is accompanied by a thousand images and sounds you feel inside, their beauty on the live doesn't lose anything. For me, one of the model live performances of Fabrizio De André where with his guitar and his more mature "fifty-year-old" voice, he makes you appreciate the little good music left in Italy.