Lucio Battisti
Volume 4

THE REVIEW

LUCIO BATTISTI - "Volume 4"

With "Volume 4" (1971), Lucio Battisti's relationship with Ricordi comes to an end. It is a collection that summarizes the period 1966-'71, with tracks taken from previous albums and others never released on LP.
The best track is the new Le tre verità, an almost psychedelic piece, with guitars prominently featured, where Lucio showcases the versatility of his voice, in a tense performance, between apparent hoarseness and surprising falsetto peaks.

Another interesting track is Dio mio no (from 'Amore e non amore'): 7 minutes of scorching rock, based on a single chord where the musicians go wild (with Dario Baldan Bembo’s notable Hammond), while Battisti unfolds his interpretative skills in a dramatic crescendo.
Adesso sì, by Sergio Endrigo, is one of the rare tracks recorded by Battisti that does not bear his signature: the interpretation (one of Lucio's first attempts) is rather unrefined. The original is better.
The Latin-tinged La mia canzone per Maria and the r'n'b Luisa Rossi, are pleasant but decidedly secondary episodes of the first album, from which also come 29 settembre, a delicate acoustic ballad, enhanced by beautiful harmonies and a sober arrangement, and the intense and refined, balancing between rock and melody Io vivrò (senza te), revisited also in the second album, "Emozioni" (!).
From "Emozioni" comes Mi ritorni in mente, which blends blues atmospheres and orchestral arrangements. Another blues is Insieme a te sto bene, in which Lucio shows he has nothing to envy about American bluesmen. This track had recently been released as a single with Pensieri e parole, reprised here: it is one of the most emotional moments of the record, an acoustic ballad in which Battisti experiments with daring solutions, alternating his voice on two opposing themes. This track, also thanks to Mogol's lyrics which combine simplicity and sophistication, more than any other anticipates what would happen in subsequent records.

"Vol. 4", in short, despite all the limitations of collections, is nevertheless a must-have record, as a testimony of Lucio Battisti's transition from the rhythm'n'blues of his origins to an original musical path, capable of uniting the taste for experimentation with the pleasantness of listening.