Rigo
Water Hole

2016 opens with a new year of music featuring the release of an original, significant album by Rigo.

The songwriter and singer-songwriter publishes a collection of songs written in English.

The sound recording at The Garage in Arezzo is decidedly unusual, with the loving care of Fabrizio Simoncioni (Litfiba, Negrita, Ligabue, and many others both on an Italian and international level).

His arrangement of the microphones, few, creates an environment that is the frame within which the music moves and dances.

In the studio, always together and simultaneously, without monitors or electronic gadgets, Rigo on vocals and acoustic guitar, the imaginative and persuasive Robby Pellati rhythmically drives the album using objects he invented and the great Franco Anderlini who uses his "spiritual harp" to provide emotions that are hard to describe in words.

All live, all as if the recording were a point of no return.

As it indeed is.

The album consists of seven original songs, with strongly literary suggestions and theatrical flavors, sealed by the presence of the great Danio Manfredini, who interprets the words of Raymond Carver before "The King Of Love."

These are years of change... They are always years of change, but what worries is the collapse of the presence of beauty in everyday life.

Music, a highest expression of human feeling, is reduced to numbers of likes on Facebook or YouTube, relegated to the active representatives of the past century's scene who still speak with due relevance.

Rigo's album seeks to do what is no longer achievable; capture precious moments, lost feelings, the beauty of our most intimate being.

Antonio "rigo" Righetti voice, reading, electric bass, acoustic guitar

Robby Pellati drums and percussion

BIOGRAPHY

The release of a new album, in essence, has changed in recent years. The songs are fundamental, and so is their live performance, perfected over decades of experience.

Rigo's musical "story" begins in the early eighties, in the heart of the Po Valley.

Great unmissable concerts in those years (the Clash in Piazza Maggiore in Bologna, Bruce Springsteen in Zurich, Weather Report with Jaco Pastorius, Talking Heads, and all the avant-garde sound scene) provide the spark to ignite a passion that is in continuous renewal.

Initially, Rigo plays with various local bands, from new romantic to rockabilly, from presumed fusion or jazz-rock to punk rock, everything becomes part of the evolution of our artist.

In 1984 he joins The Rocking Chairs, with whom he records four albums distributed by Emi, two of which are made in New York and Nashville respectively and released in Germany, the Netherlands, and Japan.

The experience in the States has a very strong impact on him, America is in full Reaganomics, and after dreaming for years of a kind of promised land, a vision borrowed from the music scene, he finds the land of social injustice and inequalities but also a place that continues to produce great music and excellent musicians.

After the experience with The Rocking Chairs ends, Rigo, always with Robby (Pellati, drummer and inseparable adventure companion, together for 23 years now) plays both in studio and live with The Gang, an established band between the social urgency of the Clash and Italian songwriting.

In the fall of 1994, he is called by Luciano Ligabue to replace the bassist of Clandestino for a gig in Essen, Germany.

Luciano entrusts him with forming his new band, Rigo involves Robby Pellati on drums and other members who will work with Luciano both in studio and live until 2007.

The years with Luciano are full of very important and stimulating encounters, from Fabrizio Barbacci, who produces Buon Compleanno Elvis, the soundtrack of Radio Freccia (recorded at Southern Tracks in Atlanta) up to Fuori come Va, the experience of Pavarotti and Friends, various live performances at San Siro and the Olympic Stadium, theater tours, Campo Volo concert.

Fabrizio Simoncioni is the engineer who establishes a relationship of trust and friendship with our artist, leading him to work on both "Songs from a Room" (2005) and "Smiles & Troubles" (2009).

Fabrizio Simoncioni provides fundamental creative and technical input in the making of "Angeli & Demoni" for Irma Records, where Rigo, Robby, and Mel Previte apply themselves to songs in Italian.

In January 2015 "Rivoluzione e Sensi" is released by Maremmano I-R-D., a further step forward for Rigo's songwriting and skills.

Meanwhile, Rigo continues to lend his bass to the great actor and singer Danio Manfredini, with dates in major Italian theaters and festivals, as well as becoming a member of the Lowlands, with whom he often plays abroad.

In September 2015, Rigo releases a limited edition of the "Water Hole e.p.", featuring three songs, one original by Rigo titled "Henry's Siege Mentality" and two covers of legendary tracks, "Golden Brown" by the Stranglers and "Heroes" by David Bowie.

The e.p. is a callback to the extraordinary music consumption season in which Rigo was formed and a preview of the new CD "Water Hole" to be released in January 2016 by Rivertale Productions.

Rigo, along with Robby Pellati, brings his live show wherever there is a stage, continuing to cover miles and live experience to tell his stories.

"Since I started playing, I have always believed that the inner necessity is the true driving force of every artistic experience, no matter what our field of action is, a book, a song, a painting (but also a movie, the design of a chair or a photograph), everything starts from the insuppressible need to share a concept of beauty.

During my formation (which is still largely ongoing after twenty-five years!), I have had the opportunity to play with many musicians, from Willy De Ville to Elliott Murphy, from Robert Gordon to Mick Taylor, from Luciano Pavarotti to Luciano Ligabue, from Richie Kotzen to Uli Jon Roth, from Steve Wynn to Plastilina Mosh just to name a few, both live and in studio, in Italy, Europe, and the United States; what has remained with me is clearly the acceptance of the Mystery of music, that low vibration that stirs the strings of the soul just as my electric bass is felt inside the chest cavity.

"I believe that "genres" represent an obsolete and outdated concept, (there are no genres for Bob Dylan or Marvin Gaye, just as there are none for Marcel Proust, Truman Capote, or Ernest Hemingway). This project starts from the desire not to close within the comfortable shores of a specific genre but from the instinctive aspiration to let oneself go into the 'mare magnum' of inspiration."