Quartetto Cetra - Angela (Italy, 1971)
Who would have thought it? The Quartetto Cetra, during a television broadcast in November 1971, performed this song dedicated to the activist Angela Davis, unjustly imprisoned in the USA in the early '70s. Besides the fact that in 1972 two more songs were dedicated to Angela Davis ("Sweet Black Angel" by the Rolling Stones and "Angela" by John Lennon), it is worth remembering what happened to the Quartetto Cetra. The day after the television broadcast, they received an anonymous letter urging them to steer clear of certain topics and to stick to performing commercial songs like "La vecchia fattoria." The tone of the letter was also threatening (even back then, there were so-called "haters"). The four musicians were careful not to be intimidated, but it remains a fact that from then on, their performances on Rai TV significantly decreased, and soon they began participating in Swiss television broadcasts. A small episode of vulgar Italian censorship against a song with a meaningful and uncomfortable text for some so-called respectable people of the time.