Ron - At the Centre of the Music

A gentleman of Italian music. With a career spanning over forty years that speaks for itself, between memorable songs (written for others, like "Piazza Grande", or for himself, like "A City to Sing About") and a constant contribution as a musician to giants of Italian songwriting, Dalla and De Gregori above all. Rosalino Cellamare, known to friends as Ron, is a model of restraint and style. He confirms it once again in this informal chat, in which he almost puts us to shame by graciously replying with the formal "lei" to our over-familiar "tu". Now, though, after so many years spent behind the scenes, the former kid from Dorno (Pavia) has decided to put himself "At the Centre of the Music". With a new album, titled "A Unique Embrace", which also features a never-before-published "letter" from his friend Lucio Dalla.

Let's start with your new album, "A Unique Embrace", released last spring. What's new about it?

I really enjoy putting myself on the line and switching things up, even though you're usually not supposed to do that when something's working. So, as soon as I had these songs in hand, I called up a couple of arrangers I knew, Roberto Vernetti and Michele Clivati, who did a great job on the sound. I'd already written almost all the songs, with the help of Mattia Del Forno, a really talented writer. It's an album that talks a lot about me, about who I am, about how I am... In the end I'd never really said that before, I'd never thrown myself in headfirst like this. Up until now I'd always talked about giants, little girls, fairy tales, big squares, cities to sing for...

"A City to Sing About" was actually autobiographical too, though...

Yes, in the end it is, but I only sang it, since it's actually a cover of "The Road" by Danny O'Keefe, later re-recorded in 1977 by Jackson Browne and translated by Lucio Dalla. But it's definitely the song that best sums me up, even though I didn't write it myself.

An approach more centered on you, then, but one that doesn't forget other stories, including current events like Malala's, for example.

Yes, I wanted to write a song specifically about this young, courageous Pakistani blogger who defied the Taliban to defend girls' right to education. And then there's also "L'inguaribile voglia di vivere", a song I dedicated to all ALS sufferers, also because I'm an ambassador for AISLA Onlus, the Italian Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association.

The album also has a real gem: an unreleased track by Lucio Dalla.

That's right, it's called "America" and it's a lyric from 1992 in which Lucio, for the first time, wrote about me. It was a period of great artistic form for me, everything was going well, records were selling, you could do whatever you wanted, money was flowing through the record labels... before it all collapsed, that is. And yet I could never manage to be happy, I kept looking at my colleagues' gardens and they always seemed greener than mine. I just couldn't find peace, basically. So Lucio, who couldn't stand it anymore, instead of telling me about it over dinner, over a glass of wine, decided to do it by writing this lyric. And he told me: "Keep it, it's called 'America', but if you want you can change the title...". I only picked it up again now, after so many years, and of course I didn't change a single word, I called it exactly "America", also because it makes sense. And I'm glad I included it on the album, because it's about me, told through a friend's words. A friend I was working with a lot at the time, who knew me well.

How did your friendship with Dalla begin? Where did you two meet?

Back then there was no X-Factor, Amici, none of that stuff... There were talent contests for new voices, and as a kid, from the age of 12-13, I started doing the rounds: everyone was always taller and bigger than me... So at one of these contests a talent scout from RCA showed up, noticed me, and I was called to Rome for an audition: there was a singer-songwriter who was going to play us a song that might even have a chance of going to Sanremo. I was a country boy, still in school, my father had to take me there, and he later signed my first record contract too. We arrived at these huge RCA offices, full of photos of singers... Morandi, Pavone, etc. I was so nervous. After a couple of hours of waiting, we started to think we'd been played for fools. Then, at a certain point, a guy came in pushed in a wheelchair, all in a cast from head to toe, only his beard and glasses sticking out... it was Lucio Dalla!

What had happened to him?

He'd had an accident with his Porsche on the Grande Raccordo Anulare and had actually been picked up by the then Minister of Health: that's why he arrived late. And that's when our great friendship began.

And how did things turn out with the song for Sanremo?

He entrusted it to me, I did the audition for Sanremo, but the song was rejected. I was supposed to go to the festival as a duet with Sandie Shaw, the barefoot singer, but the far-sighted jury wouldn't hear of it... it was "Occhi di ragazza".

Very far-sighted indeed... (we laugh)

Yeah, right, and then it became a worldwide hit, sung by Gianni Morandi.

At the last Sanremo Festival you sang a Dalla song, "Cara". Is it your favorite? And in general, which of Lucio's songs do you love most?

There's a Lucio song I'm very attached to, which I sang at the concert held in Bologna after his death, and it's "Henna". It's a fantastic song and it's the one Lucio loved most. But at Sanremo they asked me to sing something a bit better known, so I chose "Cara", which also meant a great deal to me, because when he wrote it I was there, along with the musicians... I played piano on it, guitar, I saw him there, curled up on the carpet, struggling to write that lyric that just wouldn't come to him... That's why I chose it, and it's an extraordinary song, one that I think came out really well too.

Was Sanremo an experience you enjoyed? Will you do it again?

Well, I don't know. Every time you say: "Never again." But then there's always this big problem of letting people know you've done something new, and you never quite know how to go about it... Last year, for example, I made an album called "Way Out", where I picked out the songwriters I liked best, from Damien Rice to John Mayer, from Badly Drawn Boy to Alexi Murdoch. I translated them with great care, but it was a complicated album, hard to bring onto TV too, and it was distributed terribly, so it was practically impossible to get it noticed. Sanremo remains essentially a great opportunity to get yourself noticed, all the more so in a difficult period like this one. So I gladly accepted the offer to take part, and this "A Unique Embrace" went down well right away, even though in the end they chose the other track, "Sing In The Rain", which I liked just as much, but it seemed to me less suited to a context like the festival, less intimate.

On one track from "A Unique Embrace", namely "Sabato animale", there's also a duet of yours with Dargen D'Amico, one of the best Italian rappers. Do you think it's true — as some of your fellow songwriters say — that rappers have by now replaced you when it comes to really telling the story of society?

Partly yes, also because nowadays a lot of young people who want to sing don't write anymore, there hasn't been a "regeneration" among songwriters. Everyone wants to sing, everyone wants to become famous, but in a different way. I actually run a school called A City to Sing About, and to everyone who comes I always say: "Don't just limit yourself to singing, try to bring out who you are too." Many of them do manage to achieve success, but the first hurdle they run into is "what to sing", because they've got nothing of their own to draw on. And so record labels end up having to dig up material that in the end has nothing to do with them, and these kids get lost easily. There ought to be an X Factor for songwriters, even though I realize TV needs ratings, and so famous songs always draw a bigger audience — but these kids need to be helped.

You've written memorable songs for so many songwriters, above all "Piazza Grande" for Dalla. You also played a very important role in the "Banana Republic" tour by Dalla and De Gregori. And yet you've always stayed behind the scenes. Has this somewhat "sidelined" role ever weighed on you?

I think I'm a very lucky man, because I started in 1970 and here we are in 2014: I'm still here telling stories. I also consider myself lucky because in this music world, where everything is supposed to shine, where everyone is supposed to be sure of what they have and what they are and what they could achieve, I'm still someone who doesn't know what's going to happen out there in the crowd. I don't have an audience that starts screaming half an hour before I walk on stage, not because I've got leprosy, but because I've never presented myself as a star-studded singer. I've always felt more like a musician. I think there are plenty of figures like that in America and England. Italy, on the other hand, is the country of bel canto, of stars and of television...

So it's a less recognized role...

Yes, you know, three years ago I went to New York and walked the whole city on foot. I went to listen to music every night, and one time I ended up in a club run by Black musicians, playing extraordinary music, which also gave anyone who wanted the chance to get up on stage and sing. So I went back to the hotel, grabbed my guitar and returned there. I went up to the singer — a kind of Aretha Franklin, an absolutely incredible voice — and asked her if I could try. "Of course," she replied, "At midnight!" And so at midnight she called me up: "What's your name?" "Ron," I answered. And so she introduced me: "Ron from Italy." I launched into one of my songs with my guitar, "Anima"... dead silence, nobody understood a word of what I was saying, but something clicked, there's sometimes a magic thread that forms between whoever's on stage and the audience, maybe it's the great passion, the will to communicate, a musical feeling. So, once my song was over, there was a big round of applause and some of them came up to me and said: "Nice work, you'll see, you'll make it, keep going like that..." (we laugh)

A feeling you hadn't had in a long time...

Yes, I wanted to try this experiment, and it was the first time in a long while that someone was listening to me as a complete stranger, because here I started doing this job at 16. Deep down I also told myself that maybe we've done something good, in Italy, over all these years. But this little story is mainly meant to say that I really like to question myself and try to understand myself even more. Maybe someone else, on the other hand, is content with their success.

Speaking of that "Banana Republic" tour, which has remained a milestone in the history of Italian music, what do you most like to remember about it?

We were coming out of a political and social moment that was no joke... that tour reopened the stadiums to music after years of protests and incidents, like when a group of Autonomia Operaia extremists "put De Gregori on trial" at the Palalido in Milan. Those were years when it had become impossible to perform live in Italy, and even big international stars had stopped coming to our country. I was playing with Lucio in his band, and he mostly sang songs by Roberto Roversi, the author of the famous trilogy. And I remember how Lucio and De Gregori wanted to appear less wealthy, so they bought themselves a Dyane 6 and a Renault 4 respectively (we laugh a lot). It was the concert of the great return of music made in peace, in wide open spaces, in freedom. It only cost a thousand lire to get into those concerts, and there were at least fifty to sixty thousand people every night.

Is it true there was some tension on tour between Dalla and De Gregori?

No, actually those are rumors with no basis in fact. They were really very close, even though they were quite different in character, also because they were both really excited at the idea of finally being able to turn the page and start this new journey together.

Your own big personal success, though, came right after "Banana Republic"...

Yes, exactly a year later. With "A City to Sing About" in 1980.

And then from there came a string of hits: "Al centro della musica", "Una freccia in fondo al cuore", "Anima", "Joe Temerario", "Un momento anche per te"… Was that a period of great inspiration for you, or was it just easier to break into the charts back then?

Well, records sold a lot more, and the whole system was different too. When an album came out, the record labels would actually invest in it, from the video to the live shows. There was a real effort to make sure the record reached everyone.

Nowadays do you have to fend for yourself?

Yeah, exactly, for instance with "Way Out" I played the clubs, the pubs, myself — it was the first time I'd tackled that kind of circuit, after that strange American performance. And it was wonderful, maybe the best experience I've had in recent years. It's not easy singing for 200 people with the nearest one standing a metre away from you, but I felt completely at ease doing it.

(03/08/2014 – Extended version of an interview published in "Leggo")

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