Mia Martini
La Musica Che Mi Gira Intorno

THE REVIEW

Fragile, stubborn, melancholic, sincere, unstable, moody, transparent, reserved, monomaniacal, sorrowful—these are just some adjectives to describe Mia Martini. Born in Bagnara Calabra, she spent her early years between Ancona and Porto Recanati, studying piano and classical dance. But her real love was singing, and after many contests for new voices in '63, Carlo Alberto Rossi wanted to launch her as a Ye-Ye girl under the name Mimì Bertè.

She achieved a certain notoriety with the single "Il magone", which was followed by a couple of songs that did not succeed. After this experience, she disappeared from the music scene for a few years, and managed to resurface alongside her sister Loredana and Renato Zero in the early '70s. It is well known that for a very long time she was accompanied by the slander that she brought bad luck. This circumstance led her to fall into severe depression, marking her existence indelibly and causing her to leave the music environment multiple times. But music was her life, and each time, after long periods of isolation, she returned to perform on stage. Her last comeback was in 1989 with "Ancora tu nell'universo", a beautiful song written by Bruno Lauzi.

In '94, she released "La musica che mi gira intorno," a selection of Italian songwriter music. A CD in which she conveys to the songs her existential unhappiness, giving them a new characterization and new emotions, different and more intense than those of the authors themselves. The songs are all beautiful; Mia sings them supported by her remarkable interpretative talent, which in this record is more alive than ever. The success of the dynamic "Tutto sbagliato baby" (Bennato), "La musica che mi gira intorno", "La canzone popolare" (Both by Fossati), "Fiume Sand Creek" (Fabrizio De Andrè), "Dillo alla luna" (Vasco Rossi) is largely due to Fio Zanotti, who arranged the album with a vigorous rhythm, so that the singer's voice blends with it, without being overshadowed. The other songs are no less: "I treni a vapore" (Fossati) and "Diamante" (De Gregori) are already classics of Italian music. Also beautiful are "Stella di mare" (Lucio Dalla), "Hotel Supramonte" (Fabrizio De Andrè), "Mimì sarà" (De Gregori), and "Piccolo uomo" (Baldan Bembo, Lauzi)

Elaborating them from her own experience, Mia does not recreate the songs passively but penetrates them to the core, proposing them with new, never banal cadences. For a few months, it's been the CD I listen to most often because it always moves me. It begins with an anthem to love written by Mimmo Cavallo, titled “Viva l'amore”, the love that Mia Martini missed most of all.

PS In October 2000, the United States Congress apologized to the Indians for the Sand Creek massacre on November 29, 1864, when an armed group of irregular troops massacred a peaceful Cheyenne camp, killing 150 people and inflicting severe sexual mutilations on men, women, and children.