Francesco De Gregori
Bufalo Bill

THE REVIEW

"Bufalo Bill" is the album De Gregori himself prefers, the one he has always considered the most complete, ambitious.

Year 1976, the resounding success of 'Rimmel' is still just around the corner, its echo can be felt, and the dark moments of the Palalido and the protests are the farthest thing imaginable. Still very young, just twenty-five when he records "Bufalo Bill", frighteningly mature and probably the first album where the whole personality of De Gregori as a musician clearly emerges, previously too busy drawing inspiration from the socially aware folk of Dylan, the poetry of Cohen and De Andrè.

With "Bufalo Bill" he delegitimizes his accusers who saw in him only a boy with good readings, too attached to his "myths", good for filling diary pages. A new way of approaching singing, a new one for each song, a new sound sought and obtained thanks to the help of greats like Renzo Zenobi and lyrics that range from social criticism to the moving tribute to Tenco in "Festival" up to the splendid secular prayer of "Santa Lucia", perhaps the most beautiful song on the record. It starts off strongly with "Bufalo Bill", epic and beautiful, which is still one of the most beloved pieces by his audience, and I remember listening to it as a boy and wishing to be his friend Culodigomma... "Atlantide" then is a blow to the heart: majestic enough to leave you suspended in mid-air while listening and then... and then the primitive beat of "Ninetto e la Colonia", the overwhelming finale of "Giovane Esploratore Tobia" "gifted" by Lucio Dalla.

De Gregori will repeat these levels in the other masterpiece "Titanic" and in the subsequent mini "La Donna Cannone", but here you can feel all his desire to amaze, to challenge himself to stop being the new Dylan or the new whoever, but just Francesco De Gregori.