Francesco Guccini
Note di viaggio

Almost a year later, Francesco Guccini released, in his name, two anthologies of his tracks revisited by others.
Note di viaggio n. 1: venite avanti and Note di viaggio n. 2: non vi succederà niente are the two albums with which the Author returned to recording, after L’ultima Thule, announced as the last album of his career with only unreleased tracks.
Guccini expressed interest and pleasure in seeing his classics sung by characters different in vocal style and generation.
Both collections are each enriched by an unreleased track: the beautiful "Natale a Pavana"—listen to believe; and "Migranti," the latter with more craftsmanship given the topicality of the theme.
As for the covers, they are twenty-two in total, eleven per album, and in the tracklists, there is a substantial alternation of male and female voices.
Without reviewing each individual track, I'll limit myself to listing those I preferred.
"Incontro" by Ligabue is truly heartfelt and was already used in the film Radiofreccia 25 years ago; also, "Scirocco" by the Sicilian Carmen Consoli suits her vocals and her land; the very personal version of "Stelle" by Giuliano Sangiorgi gives chills—listen to believe here as well; in the first collection, also noteworthy is "Quattro stracci" by Francesco Gabbani. But I think the best is "Canzone delle osterie di fuori porta" sung by Luca Carboni and Samuele Bersani, two patrons of the Osteria da Vito at the dawn of their artistic journey. A song truly fitting for the two artists.
In the second set of songs, "Autunno," sung by Emma and Roberto Vecchioni, stands out for its poetry, as does "Vedi cara" interpreted by Vinicio Capossela. But there are two versions that deserve applause more than others: "Farewell" with Jack Savoretti and "Culodritto," dedicated to his daughter Teresa 35 years ago, sung by Levante.
An honorable mention for Fabio Ilacqua, who will then arrange Canzoni da intorto, and Mauro Pagani, a great musician and arranger of all the tracks of the two Note di viaggio, in addition to being a performer, with Manuel Agnelli, of the famous "L’avvelenata".

Both albums were released with BMG, after 45 years spent with EMI.

I give the albums a 3.5 overall; for the selected repertoire alone, it would even be a 4, but some unconvincing and overly crafted interpretations take away half a point from the entire initiative.