Luigi Grechi
Campione Senza Valore

LUIGI GRECHI - "CAMPIONE SENZA VALORE"

Almost in silence, in the shadows, in the calm of his pause, the wanderer of poetry, the vagabond of notes has returned to speak. From the heart of wooded Umbria, in his late summer retreat, Luigi Grechi has gathered his closest friends and uncovered some gems of his original repertoire.

After an exhausting tour, in the constant search for human warmth, for the road, for the encounter, Luigi has stopped; a pause never so opportune in this fast & furious society. He has stopped and reopened his diary, resuming some reflections set aside only a few months ago and completing it with the missing page. Luigi carefully selects a few pieces, extracting them meticulously from his repertoire and presents them to us in a short and artisanal work. Four pieces that have meaning in this historical moment, not random, that express the urgency to recover Truth, the true sense of things, to discern false realities and sad pretensions from the core of existence, as always in Grechi's work.

The official reason for the reissue of these songs is that the old tracks are unavailable as they belonged to now out of print albums. Among self-produced tapes, mini-CDs, reissues, attempted productions, and official releases, reconstructing a precise discography of Luigi Grechi is a challenging task. Tentatively, we can talk about six official albums (the first three released in '75, '77, and '79 and the other three in '87, '99, and 2003) over exactly thirty years of non-continuous career. The libertine character, the uninterested and wandering soul, have led Luigi to detach from any publishing house (despite the commendable results achieved in 2003 with “Pastore di Nuvole”, a product of a serene relationship with Sony), to self-produce this mini-CD with the band consisting of: Dayana Sciapichetti (accordion, harmonica, piano, keyboards), Franz Mayer (double bass), Alessandro Valle (Dobro, pedal steel guitar, guitar).

In twenty minutes, we gladly listen again to "Dublino", a memorable track that also sees a contribution from the youngest DeGregori (Francesco). Played with verve, more pronounced country hues than before, and with a drawled but lived-in singing style. The best track, the most charged, is the lesser-known "Il pozzo numero nove", a beautiful and credible story, which Luigi explains thus at Maggie's farm in a recent interview: ”Gesualdo Bufalino, at a certain point in his book (Argo or of memory), opens a chapter writing approximately this way: "It was 1951, the summer was scorching, etc. I buy the newspaper and read 'The fire of well number 9 in Ragusa has finally been extinguished by the American expert Mr. Kinley'... It is thus a true story - or at least I presume so... I imagined the scene of the fire and its extinguishment by Mr. Kinley as seen through the eyes of a Sicilian family from a hill..."

"Tutta la verità su Manuela" and "Il mio cappotto", recovered from works of the '70s, pay tribute to the images and the flavor they already had in memory. Luigi Grechi, with this record, makes us reflect again, makes us ask fundamental questions without closing any inquiry, returns to a subject among his dearest, Freedom. Luigi seems to suggest that in the search itself lies true freedom. Freedom is the possibility of continually searching, of deeply exploring the things of life: "..I am a seeker, not a free man, he who professes to be 'free' is already a slave to his own label, is a victim of his own status, of his own staticity.." he seems to narrate in an instant paraphrase. Yet, in the track "Il mio cappotto", he warns us that freedom is searching, movement, not in a geographical sense, but eminent inner, spiritual exploration; it is inquiry among the humors and movements of the soul. Luigi Grechi has made the metaphor of the journey his entire artistic career, discontinuous, between stops, ascents, descents, different landscapes rich in charm, like on a pilgrimage along the paths of the Dea Musica. "..But is it really freedom to take another train and be a commuter for eternity?Is it really freedom to be sure that what you are looking for is a little further on?The truest freedom is to refuse any adventureto say to everyone: I am staying right here!To say to everyone: let's stay in our place, every day there is something to defend and protect at any cost.." On this occasion, Luigi the observer delves deeper, with a gentle and warm sentiment of human feelings, into the errors of our dwindling society, which seems to have forgotten warmth, feelings, and the essence of truth.

There is no rhetoric, there are no clichés, Grechi's page is imbued with early 20th-century Italian literature, tells surreal, amusing, and terribly sharp stories, it is never heavy, nor ever disengaged.

This work, in its artisanal modesty, is a small essay of Grechi's talent and credibility as an artist, never presumptuous, free from market logic, which often harms art, and the hysteria of record producers. An individual work, endowed with its own sense. A nice revival work, albeit sparse. Large tracks like "Il chitarrista cieco", "Rock della crostata", "Come state" from '79, or "Accusato di libertà" and "Buonanotte Nina" (the latter from a very young Francesco DeGregori) from 1974, still remain vacant and lost in time, deserving new life, and we hope to encounter them again, sooner or later, on the musical paths.

An auteur album with a thriftiness of means.