Rino Gaetano
Sotto I Cieli Di Rino

THE REVIEW

June 2nd is never an ordinary day for me. Inevitably. Unfortunately.

On June 2nd, 1981, in Rome, due to a road accident, Salvatore Antonio Gaetano, known to everyone simply as Rino, died. Occasionally, Via Nomentana, the sad site of the event, still resounds with the ghosts of that cursed dawn that swept away the irony and smile of a young Calabrian singer-songwriter from the seventies, but not his thoughts.

Rino Gaetano was like that, he loved theatrical flair, and his death exemplifies it. Damnably. Like the time he appeared on television with a chicken on a leash, or like the time at Sanremo, a long-standing mirror of the populist-moralist-bigoted-puritan-well-meaning Italian landscape (clearly, not just musical), he showed up dressed in a tuxedo, top hat, and sneakers. Rino Gaetano was like that.

He wrote songs with such catchy tunes that those who hummed them, and still hum them today (perhaps in the shower, while shopping, or walking the dog), didn't understand all the anger, indignation, disgust hidden in those lyrics. In which Italy was mostly mocked. The homeland of saints and poets and navigators and penitents and "revaluators". Well, perhaps the latter term I used might sound a bit odd, but lately, it’s all the rage. Especially in Italy. Where everything is "revalued", scandals, trials, the shabbiest crimes, dead singer-songwriters. So, as with Ivan Graziani before and Lucio Battisti afterwards, it’s been decided to revalue Rino Gaetano, indeed.

And in the summer of 2003, out of nowhere, appeared "Sotto I Cieli Di Rino", a collection of the minstrel's most beautiful songs, Calabrian by birth, Roman by adoption. A full twenty-six tracks, divided into two CDs. Actually, in my opinion, the tracks are twenty-five, because the remix of the famous "Ma Il Cielo E’ Sempre Più Blu", is more of a folkloric act than anything else. However, for those who want to know or re-listen to Gaetano’s repertoire, there's a treat in store. "Aida", "Nuntereggae Più", "Gianna", are just some of the precious pieces contained in this collection.

While to you, beautiful little Italy, today Rino Gaetano would say: "I swim butterfly, and you do the frog... you know you have to swim... anyone swimming alone, drowns more..."