Pino Daniele - A Neapolitan in Blues

Da San Martino vedi tutta quanta la città

col mondo in tasca e senza dirsi una parola

A piano, an oboe, strings and a mandolin, a D major, a breath of wind and a terrace overlooking the sea. Napule è is, above all, a voice. For those who loved him, Pino Daniele was many things. The man in blues, the half-black man and the Latin rogue, na jurnata 'e sole and quanno chiove, the thousand culure of the new metropolis that dreams of America and opens itself to the world in dialect, and the thousand fears of the old neighborhoods, the musician of the harbor and of feelings, appucundrìa and alleria, melancholy and saudade, the poet who becomes a people's leader and cries revolution, or the shy, reserved scarrafone who still believes in the stork and runs to his mamma'. Songs of protest, freedom and discontent, love and rage, poverty and beauty, the anthem of a generation and its last foothold. For everyone else, simply one of the most innovative and eclectic songwriters on the Italian scene, able to draw from tradition and free it from every convention, multiplying its expressive possibilities. No one has ever tied their name to that of their hometown in a bond so close, indissoluble, passionate and mutual: Pino Daniele tells the story of Naples, and the streets of Naples today speak of Pino Daniele, in a polite, discreet way that is not a spectacle made of his absence, but a celebration of a presence that is tangible, vivid and more alive than ever.

Neapolitan Power & Street Happiness

Naples has always been a fascinating and terribly complicated place, for historical, economic and social reasons. In the early Seventies the city hadn't yet woken up from the nightmare of the cholera outbreak, and it was already hostage to (and on the side of) organized crime; businessman Corrado Ferlaino had just taken over a team on the brink of financial collapse from the Lauro family and couldn't afford major investments, but in compensation the attacking duo of Sormani and Altafini packed the San Paolo full every Sunday, giving the disillusioned working class ninety minutes of escape from a troubled daily life that by day pinned its hopes on the ups and downs of the Fiat plants in Pomigliano d'Arco, and by night retreated into silences on the edges of legality.

In the arts, these are years of transition and reorganization: free radio stations are born (Radio Napoli City dates from 1975) and genres emerge that gradually bring the modern into the classic fabric, revitalizing a heritage that had long been stagnant. Crucial in this respect is the contribution of Roberto De Simone, who at the helm of the Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare devotes himself to meticulous philological research into the roots of Campanian folklore, pulling it out of the shallows of Palèpoli and laying the groundwork for an unprecedented form halfway between song and erudite theatre. Among the ranks of the NCCP is a very young Eugenio Bennato, who in 1978 develops the near-twin project Musicanova with the aim of emphasizing the repertoire of southern Italy through a koinè of cultures and an open-mindedness toward difference; the Zezi (workers who had left the Alfa Sud factories), on the other hand, set themselves up as champions of the less intellectual proletarian classes with an assault-ready combat-folk that extends into the visual arts as well.

Appearing in sequence on the charts are Alan Sorrenti, whose mother is Welsh, who makes his debut in progressive rock (“Aria” came out in ’72) before moving on to disco music; drum man Tony Esposito (whose debut “Rosso Napoletano” pairs tribal rhythms with esoteric suites); the awkward, rebellious rocker Edoardo Bennato (Eugenio’s older brother), who writes songs in a 1950s/60s style and speaks the language of fairy tales (the concept album “Puppet without strings” turns “The Adventures of Pinocchio” into allegory); and Squallor, who instead go all in on goliardic, outrageous filth. Enzo Gragnaniello founds Banchi Nuovi, applying vocal styles that emulate Otis Redding and Tom Waits, making him, alongside Edoardo De Crescenzo, a pioneer of Black American music on this side of the ocean, while Massimo Ranieri prefers a sober, ever-relevant style, confirming himself as the interpreter par excellence of light pop songs, both original and traditional (all of it bolstered by the invaluable promotional work of Renzo Arbore and his Orchestra).

This premonitory phase heralds the eruption of the Naples-Power volcano, which day after day shakes the country, its epicenter to be found in the borderless ethno-lounge of Peppe Barra and Enzo Avitabile: the evolving magma feeds on tammuriata rhythms and Mediterranean fusions deliberately stoked by elements outside the local culture, thus opening the way to a broader world vision led by the virtuoso saxophonist James Senese, Neapolitan by birth and African-American by origin, who in 1975 founds the most important Italian jazz-funk group, Napoli Centrale, delivering three essential albums (“Napoli Centrale“, “Mattanza”, “Qualcosa ca nu’ mmore”) crucial to the movement’s development, within which the then-unknown Pino Daniele fits in perfectly.

Vico Foglie, schools, frogs and mice

School never ends at school, the world is full of people who don’t know, and the truest, most instructive books are those written without ink, in the cold of the alleys or in the scorching heat of shadeless squares.

(Pino Daniele)

Giuseppe Daniele is born on March 19, 1955 at number 20 vico Foglie in Santa Chiara (today via Francesco Saverio Gargiulo), in a vascio, the typical ground-floor southern Italian home with direct access to the street. The eldest of six children, four boys and two girls, his mother is a housewife, while his father works as a casual dockworker, in conditions so modest that he can’t even afford to buy him his yearly school photo. So, to make things easier, when Pinotto (as his closest friends affectionately call him, because of his size) turns five, he goes, not without a pang of nostalgia, to live at piazza Santa Maria La Nova with his adoptive “aunts” Lina and Bianca (two well-off ladies for whom his mother occasionally worked as a cleaner), who can guarantee him at least a decent home, on the third floor of a building where Ennio Nicolucci, his future road manager, also lives with them. “I’ll never forget vico Foglie, my grandparents and the deli across the street, but piazza Santa Maria La Nova, the church and the alleys between the Post Office and the Istituto Orientale became the real backdrop of my childhood, split between notebooks and sidewalks, the Canottieri rowing club and football matches,” the budding bluesman will later recall in his autobiography — and it’s in that very house, sitting on a sofa, that he sketches out “Napule è”, the start of an extraordinary musical adventure thanks to which he will later be able to buy the apartment and give it to his family as a gift.

First, though, there’s the usual school routine to get through, starting at the Guglielmo Oberdan school on via Carrozzieri, where he ends up in class with a scapegrace from vico Cerriglio, the narrowest alley in Naples, one Enzo Gragnaniello, who can hardly be called the class swot, seeing as he’s held back four times in fourth grade — but he too has a future in music ahead of him (the two remain close friends and will collaborate several times over the years). For middle school he attends the Ugo Foscolo in Piazza del Gesù, where he stands out for his good manners and conduct; high school, on the other hand, he reluctantly completes at the Armando Diaz technical-commercial institute, more to please his parents, who wanted him to become an accountant, than out of any ambition of his own — so much so that he never goes to collect his diploma (still carefully kept in the Institute’s archives on via dei Tribunali 370, in the heart of the city).

Pino, in fact, loves o’ blues and would have preferred to enroll directly at the Conservatory two hundred meters away, inside the Church of San Pietro a Majella, home since 1826 to one of the most prestigious music schools in Italy, but the family’s finances are simply too tight, so he has to make do with a black chrome Eko X27 electric guitar, which he strums self-taught on the front steps until, with his first savings, he manages to afford a teacher and a red Gibson Diavoletto, spotted in a shop window along the little slope leading up to San Sebastiano.

Whenever he can, he performs at neighborhood parties, chasing a passion that blossomed at the age of twelve in the midst of the Beat generation, thanks to his neighbor Salvatore Battaglia, who got him hooked on Django Reinhardt, the Beatles and Elvis Presley — but his first time on stage is a disaster: “I never liked having eyes on me, and I hit an embarrassingly bad note; it taught me that being the center of attention comes at a great cost,” he will later admit, having learned from the experience. After that rough night, he decides to form New Jet with Gino Giglio, another former classmate, with whom he plays weddings and street events, but it’s with the following group, Batracomiomachia, that he achieves something of real worth: Paolo Raffone on piano, Gianni Battelli on violin, Rino Zurzolo on double bass, Enzo Avitabile on sax and flute, Rosario Jermano on drums and Enzo Ciervo on vocals — all figures of real stature who will, in one way or another, change his life, supporting him in various capacities, some more than others, pretty much right up to the year 2000.

They cut their teeth working on a couple of dance and mime shows, which earn them the goodwill of industry insiders and of Antonello Venditti, who invites them to open one of his shows in Arzano. Ciervo makes available the rehearsal space, a small tuff cave in the Sanità district on vico Fontanelle, where they can indulge themselves in peace without disturbing the neighbors — and which in those years is the setting for rich jam sessions with rising stars like Bennato, Osanna, Bob Fix and Corrado Rustici. “Gianni Battelli picked the name Batracomiomachia,” explains longtime bandmate Enzo Avitabile, “and we liked it a lot because it smacked of witchcraft and myth, even though, frankly, we knew very little about wars between mice and frogs, or about Homer. We used to alternate our own material with two-voice improvisations: usually it was me and Pinotto taking turns with Enzo, who earned a bit of a reputation as Geremia Blue. We’d often gather at Jermano’s place too, along with Dorina Giangrande, a fine backing vocalist who later became Pino’s wife; Rosario was hugely important for the recordings on Rovex and for his critical clarity.”

Senese, what warmth, the early days, Terra mia

Once he’s paid his dues, in 1975 he’s finally offered what might be called an “official” chance by Mario Musella, James Senese’s right-hand man in Showmen (the embryo in fieri of what would become Napoli Centrale); unfortunately, though, things don’t go as hoped, since Pino can’t read sheet music and can only rely on his ear — still, producer Tony Mimms cheers him up, urging him not to lose heart (the material will resurface in 2012 on a posthumous Musella LP titled “Arrivederci”).

His recording debut is thus postponed a few months, until Jenny Sorrenti (sister of the more famous Alan) wants him on her debut album “Suspiro”, recorded in Rome at Bobby Solo’s Chantalain studios (which he set up by blending the names of his children, Chantal and Alain). Jenny is coming off a lackluster apprenticeship with the acid-folk trio Saint Just, and for her solo launch she chooses to rely on seasoned musicians such as Lucio Fabbri of Pfm, Peter Kaukonen (brother of Jorma of Jefferson Airplane) and, indeed, Pino Daniele, who is by now the talk of the town. On this occasion, Bobby Solo himself is also struck by the young man’s skill and decides to take him on tour to Antwerp, where they stay twelve days opening for Fats Domino. On his return from the trip to Belgium, Gianni Nazzaro is waiting for him and hires him for backing vocals on “Mo me ne vado” (featured on “Le due facce di Gianni Nazzaro”).

In short, little by little things seem to be looking up, and Pinotto gains confidence and self-esteem, to the point that in 1976 he picks up the phone and calls none other than his idol James Senese. “This is Daniele Giuseppe, I’ve listened to Napoli Centrale, I want to play with you.” The band is already full, but the saxophonist invites him over anyway to meet in person, and the moment he sees him he takes an instant liking to him: that chubby jack-of-all-trades with the face of an Indian and the build of a bouncer wins him over, so he carves out a role for him as bassist in concerts. There’s a bit of wariness in the audience, since Pino is the outsider — someone yells at him: “Learn to talk right!” — and he shrugs it off with irony: “No need to talk right, what matters is knowing how to play.” James stands by him and spurs him on, and the results show: it’s a pivotal moment, as in that remarkable ensemble he gets to know top-tier musicians who will leave a decisive mark on his growth. “The Senese planet is a galaxy of its own; the way he works reflects the talent and creativity he’s always tried to pass on to others, and his sax bears the scars of a life lived in Naples. Between us there was a constant dialogue made of glances and energy — what you’d call feeling,” Pino Daniele will later say in gratitude, by now tempted by the idea of going solo on the advice of his friend, former aeronautical designer Rosario Jermano, who pushes him to adopt a slang favored by the lower-middle classes, to give voice to the social and cultural revolution then underway in the city’s neighborhoods.

The key is to layer blues over tradition, restlessness and daring, and so he begins writing diligently — radio jingles, fragments, personal lyrics: before long, “O’ posteggiatore”, “O’ padrone”, “Ca calore” and “Fortunato” end up on an Agfa C60 tape that Claudio Poggi, journalist and talent scout for the weekly Super Sound, hands over to EMI director Bruno Tibaldi, earning praise and, above all, a contract that Pino rushes to sign at the label’s Rome offices, arriving in a white Fiat 500 after hastily tearing up Alitalia’s letter summoning him for a flight-attendant job interview. He’s about to take off up the charts: his hopes are indeed rewarded halfway through the year (June 15, 1976) with the single “Ca calore/Fortunato”, recorded in the capital at Claudio Mattone’s Studio Quattro Uno on via Nomentana 1111, at the time probably the best-equipped studio in Italy.

From its very first cries, you can tell something important is being born: Pino listens to Cream, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson and Miles Davis, while also mastering madrigal writing, Murolo and Libero Bovio, so as not to be smothered by a single stereotype: his debut album Terra Mia, from April 1977, is already his masterpiece. He's backed by an extremely sharp crew of musicians, proof of which lies in the meticulousness of the arrangements despite EMI having allotted only a shoestring budget. On double bass, once again Zurzolo, on horns Avitabile, and on percussion the trusty Jermano (all veterans of the Batracomiomachia era), joined now on keyboards by multi-instrumentalist Enzo Vitolo, Piero Montanari on bass and Luca Vignali on oboe, while Poggi reinvents himself as executive producer: "Napule è" isn't just any opener but a monument, a plaque dedicated to the city and its people, left to disorder, chaos and indifference.

Napule è mille culure

Napule è mille paure

Napule è a voce de' criature

che saglie chianu chianu

e tu sai ca' nun si sulo

Napule è nu sole amaro

Napule è addore 'e mare

Napule è na carta sporca

e nisciuno se ne importa

e ognuno aspetta a sciorta

A clear admission of powerlessness set to verse, which doesn't seek to be self-pity or victimhood, just an unanswered prayer and a cry for help in the hope of escaping it all, symbolized by the voce de' ccriaturi and even more by that clod of earth offered as a gift by little Salvatore Daniele, his younger brother pictured on the cover. It immediately becomes his manifesto, though paradoxically it's the only track on the record not written by Pino Daniele himself but by Antonio Sinagra, a master of strings and orchestration (today a teacher at the Avellino Conservatory), who recalls its genesis: "When he came to my apartment to let me hear the demo, I immediately understood something crucial: Pino wanted to break away from convention. Classic Neapolitan song, a child of melodrama, has affinities with the chanson français or perhaps with the moresca, but he was aiming elsewhere — he had built this kind of nursery rhyme with no chorus, a bare structure, and he wanted a fitting introduction, so I chose eight bars for oboe and mandolin: the oboe produces a sound that evokes the Middle East and retains something ancient, the mandolin contrasts with the husky, unshouted vocal delivery".

As is inevitable in these cases, over the years "Napule è" has been overused, distorted and even butchered — we've heard it millions of times, yet we'd never dare say "to the point of exhaustion", because, it must be said, it has a truly beautiful melody, one that conjures the same enchantment as ocean waves, seemingly alike yet never quite identical to one another, magnificently recreated here by a vibrant string section that Sinagra added later on, together with the horns. Destined for immortality. That said, it's not the only strong point of an album, Terra Mia, which immediately brings into focus the coordinates of an unconventional, non-aligned approach: behind sarcastic, playful sketches lie, in fact, social commentary, character sketches and psychodramas typical of a Neapolitan identity lived first-hand. "My role is to tell stories, and when I write I'm autobiographical, I talk about what belongs to me and is in my roots, I can't tell other people's stories. In my opinion, an emotion is the only thing worth communicating, whatever the cost". That's why he decided to dedicate "Fortunato" to a real taralli vendor who used to push his cart between rows of hanging laundry, shouting to catch the attention of the women on their balconies.

Furtunatu tena 'a rrobba bella e pe' chesto add'à allucc'à

è na vita ca pazzeja p'e vie e chesta città

and women on their balconies

old folks, young folks and kids

some say it's the soul of this city

The weapon of choice is a raw, authentic dialect, and never mind if many won't understand it (in its first run the album sells barely 5,000 copies) — after all, the goal is to slip in among ordinary people and give common folk a wake-up call, people kept in the dark about shady dealings, whether it's fraud and construction speculation concealed in an innocuous "Tazzulella 'e cafè" ("They're putting up buildings/doing crazy things/and instead of helping us they stuff us with coffee"), or destinies shamefully left to the will of others ("The truth is we're either stupid or not good enough"), or worse, burned away at the lottery counter (the foul-mouthed "Ce sta chi ce penza", "people write down their numbers/they need the Madonna's help/while we bleed ourselves dry/but let's be done with this story"), or the omertà faced by a guaglione caught stealing (the syncopated blues "Maronna mia", "I'll give him such a beating!").

Mission accomplished, thanks in part to the forward-thinking radio show "Alto Gradimento" by Arbore, Boncompagni, Bracardi and Marenco, who were among the first to send sunny, carefree tracks out over the airwaves ("O' padrone" and "Libertà" echo Bob Dylan and Rino Gaetano, "Che calore" Italianizes the title of his very first single, "Ca calore") alongside others more sorrowful and downcast (the fatalistic sonnet "Chi po' dicere", the aching melo about loneliness "Cammina cammina", and above all the poetic title track "Terra Mia", a bittersweet letter to his homeland, second in emotional pull only to "Napule è").

Donatella Brighel's enchanting female vocals on "Saglie saglie" and on the little theatrical sketch "Suonno d'ajere" (starring the Pulcinella mask) close out a debut that rewrites the rules and shakes up tradition, much as "O' sole mio", "O' surdato nnammurato", "A luntananza" or "Torna a Surriento" had managed to do between the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Terra Mia also inaugurates a distinctive genre that Pino Daniele himself dubbed taramblù or tarumbò, a kind of blend, in both words and substance, of tarantella and blues — the two great cultural wellsprings the artist draws from — whose vast potential, as early as 1978, extends into cinema ("Tira 'a carretta" features in the soundtrack of Sergio Corbucci's film "La mazzetta", a comic crime caper set in the streets of Naples with Nino Manfredi, Ugo Tognazzi and Marisa Laurito). The same year he lends his bass playing (under the pseudonym Ngtù Mabuto) to "O' nemico mio" by Napoli Centrale (the LP "Qualcosa ca nu mmore"), and then writes both lyrics and music for "Dimane" by fellow artist Peppino Di Capri.

1979 – Oggi voglio parlare...

The moment is a fertile one: Pino wants to "write like Luigi Tenco", so he takes risks and dares to try an original sound: the self-titled Pino Daniele from 1979 marks a turning point, since it still starts from a strong sense of local identity but, compared to the previous LP, widens its territorial horizons to embrace sounds with an international scope, drawing on the skills he picked up in Napoli Centrale (blues/rock, Miles Davis and Weather Report). On these foundations come tracks of the highest technical level, dense, unruly yet at the same time mature and well balanced. It's a historical period in which a certain politically engaged songwriting tradition channels its subversive energy mainly into lyrics (Pierangelo Bertoli/"A muso duro", De Gregori/"Viva l'Italy", Gaber/"Polli d'allevamento", Rino Gaetano/"Nuntereggae più" and Guccini/"Amerigo"); our man, by contrast, tells the stories of humble people with an almost obsessive attention to arrangements, where in this case the words must simply sound, whatever meaning one wants to give that term: pronunciation becomes an integral part of the song's musicality, as theorized in the old song traditions from the 1500s through the 1800s.

The centerpiece is the now-legendary "Je so' pazzo", released as a single in May: it draws on the last public speech of Masaniello, who in July 1647 led the popular uprising against a new tax on fruit, later withdrawn by the Spanish government after days of unrest. Following the agreements reached, he was invited to court by the ruling powers, but at that point the crowd turned against him, accusing him of colluding with the authorities and of having gone mad, before imprisoning him and executing him with five arquebus shots — only to mourn his death once the oppression in the city grew harsh again. The story is emblematic of the impulsiveness, contradictions, generosity and ignorance that the song's narrator wants to redeem in different times and circumstances, with biting rhymes that assert his right to protest without mincing words ("Nella vita voglio vivere almeno un giorno da leone"), since, unlike the 17th-century original, the "Black Masaniello" conceived by Pino Daniele declares himself mentally unstable and therefore beyond the reach of the authorities' prosecution ("E lo Stato questa volta non mi deve condannare"). Black because "I painted my face black to be noticed", but the real reference is clearly to a new blues style with explosive rhythms, underpinned by a Mississippi-delta-style harmonica riff; the real challenge, though, is getting past censorship and airing on TV or radio that forbidden line which fans regard as gospel truth:

Masaniello è crescut, Masaniello è turnat

jè so' pazzo, nun ci scassate o' cazzo!

Denim jacket and straw hat on his head, the twenty-four-year-old performs the song at Festivalbar and immediately scores an enormous hit, while national broadcasters (Domenica In, for instance) are forced to fade out before the ending. In any case, "Je so' pazzo" is just one of twelve equally dazzling gems set into the record's imaginative core, each shining for a different reason: hard to choose between "Je sto vicino a te", an account of a pure feeling shielding against the dirty world; the lively samba "Chillo è nu buono guaglione" (which debunks the taboo of transsexuality by listing the sacrifices of a young man setting aside money for the operation, dreaming of living a normal life: “E mi chiamerò Teresa/ scenderò a far la spesa/ me facce crescere ‘e capille/ e me metto ‘e tacchi a spillo”); the haunting minute-and-a-half acoustic invocation "Viento"; or the tender "Ninnanàninnanoeè" written for his little daughter Cristina (just born to Dorina Giangrande, who became his wife around the time of Terra Mia and also provides backing vocals on this album).

By mutual agreement with producer Willy David from Romagna, Italian is once again banished in favor of dialect, which for each of us is the language of the pulse, of the subconscious, and of one's own family history; nevertheless, the lyrics tackle themes not necessarily tied to Naples but rather more existential, bound by that subtle thread of melancholy typical of those who live near the sea: this is an ever-present element in Daniele's personal mythology, reaching, in the wonderful "Chi tene o' mare", the bitter conclusion "chi tene o' mare, o ssaje, nun tene niente" (the sea as a resource to be admired but never possessed; unforgettable too is Senese's sax solo, which lights up even the radiant interlude "Na jurnata 'e sole", of an entirely different mood and joie de vivre).

The traditional ballad "Donna Cuncetta" ("O' tiempo de cerase è già fernuto", with American Karl Potter on congas) is a metaphor for anyone struggling to get by with the self-sacrifice and wisdom of an elderly Southern woman, mistakenly believed by some to be the singer's own grandmother: in fact, the reference here is to an actual cult surrounding a skull — otherwise known as the "sweating head" — kept at the Fontanelle cemetery and known as Donna Concetta, in memory of the first devotee who caressed it to ask for a favor (even today, if the hand of whoever rubs the relic comes away damp, it's taken as a sign that the prayer has been granted; science explains the miracle through the humidity of the underground recess where the reliquary is kept).

The scruffy "Il mare" and the BB King-ish little treat on the art of getting by, "Ue' man!" (in amusingly Anglo-Neapolitan slang, "Ca tutte quante amm'a campà/ nu poco 'è dollars to me"), bring the mood back to the surface. Closing things out is the impulsive "E cerca 'e me capi'", which still believes in the future and marches to the Revolution c'o cazone rutt (with torn trousers), and the soothing "Putesse essere allero", a quiet, textbook compendium of happiness ("I could be happy with a joint in my mouth, hands in my pockets, my daughter in my arms…", with Rosario Jermano's delightful vibraphone).

On the cover, a curious photographic puzzle by visual designer Cesare Monti: four shots taken in close succession, capturing Pino Daniele at the bathroom mirror (of a hotel in Milan) shaving. The first and last show the same time but different poses, symbolizing the cyclical nature of life according to Guicciardini's teachings, whereby events repeat themselves but are never perfectly identical.

I Want More: Nero a metà and Vai Mo'

Genius, vision, perception and instinct: Pino Daniele's talent had by now seduced an entire country, and his third album Nero a metà (released March 21, 1980) sealed that leap forward thanks to the right balance of American musical influences and respect for local tradition, jazz-rock phrasing and homegrown melody, Italian, English and dialect slang all at once. Backing him in this ambitious undertaking were some pillars of the "Neapolitan" scene who had by then risen to national prominence - the ever-present Senese, Avitabile, Vitolo and Jermano, bolstered by Gigi De Rienzo and Aldo Mercurio on bass, Tony Cercola and Karl Potter on percussion, Agostino Marangolo (former Goblin and Perigeo) and Mauro Spina on drums, and Bruno De Filippi on harmonica. Recorded at the legendary Stone Castle Studios in Carimate, in the province of Como (housed inside a castle with cutting-edge equipment that had already given birth to, among others, Lucio Dalla's "Com'è profondo il mare", Alberto Camerini's "Comici cosmetici" and Paolo Conte's "Un gelato al limon"), the album sets off again from the blends explored on the first two records, this time stripped of any superfluous folklorism in order to update the lesson of Carosone, who, starting in the postwar years, had likewise forged a winning persona by combining tarantella with exotic temptations.

The tracklist is made up of free-form pieces: free, wild, daring. The minor-key blues that opens the record, "I Say I' Sto Cca'", holds all the passion and childlike fervor of someone who'd like to improve the world by the second bottle of wine, but without a clear idea of how ("Me sento a guerra, il resto non lo so") - not that it matters, since there's always a fallback plan, and it's easy to guess which one: "music is all I have", the rock-and-roll slogan of "Musica, musica", which at just twenty-five years old already places the eccentric Neapolitan in the wake of the greats, those who with nothing but pen and paper managed to change the world around them and shape the mood of their times - Bob Dylan, Chico Buarque, John Lennon, Fela Kuti, Joan Baez or Peter Gabriel, to name a few. A lyrical-rhythmic insurrection befitting a true year zero, a child through and through of the 1968 protest movement: no one had yet managed to combine realism and social commitment with such naturalness, clearing away the immense wealth of sound from any postcard-style rhetoric. If we're to risk comparisons within our own peninsula, what comes to mind are Fabrizio De André ("Crêuza de mä") and Lucio Dalla, albeit with different timing, traits and urgencies. The feeling, though, is that, chronologically speaking, we are witnessing the last truly great thing to have happened in Italian music to this day. Between Naples and the Bronx, between madness and the blues, the artist overturns the popular format not out of aesthetic whim but out of performative necessity: it's impossible to measure the emotional impact of the dreamlike, liberating ode "Quanno chiove", which reworks a weather event into a catharsis of the soul and a rebirth into a new life; few know, however, that it was inspired by a prostitute living in the same building as the singer, whose faded routine he elevates into a bud of sublime poetry.

E te sento quanno scinne 'e scale

'e corza senza guarda'

e te veco tutt'e juorne ca ridenno vaje a fatica'

ma poi nun ridi cchiù

E luntano se ne va, tutta a vita accussì

e t'astipe pà nun murì

E aspiette che chiove, l'acqua te 'nfonne e va

tanto l'aria s'adda cagnà

It's the masterpiece of the album, alongside the narcissistic strut of "A me me piace o' blues", a fun, off-beat track that stirs up a debate around the pleonasm "A me mi" and, above all, the term "cazzimma" ("Tengo a cazzimma/e faccio tutto quel che mi va/ pecché so' blues e nun voglio cagnà'"), soon settled by the Accademia della Crusca with help from the musician himself, who clarifies: "Right, a cazzimma... anyone who isn't Neapolitan and has never had the chance to hear this term will rightly wonder what it means. It's a very popular dialect neologism that denotes heightened cunning, the constant practice of drawing water to one's own mill, at any moment or in any situation, perhaps even exploiting one's closest friends or relatives. It's the instinctive attitude of seeking and finding, always and in any case, one's own advantage, from major business dealings down to petty squabbles over who's paying for lunch or coffee". The song's only "advantage" is a place of honor in the singer's catalogue, since it instantly became one of his iconic hits thanks to the band's full-bodied sound and the rousing 'e sona mo'!' of the chorus, which pairs well with the irreverent, pulsing bass of "A testa in giù", the playful guitar strumming of "Puozze passa' nu guaio" and the talk-box experiments of the ironic "Nun me scuccià" (live and let live, since you'll die too eventually). "Voglio di più" distills pride and resignation ("Voglio di più di quello che vedi/ vivrò così cercando un senso anche per te"), while the gentle piano-and-double-bass ballad "Alleria" breathes out an irrepressible "voglia d'allucca'" (urge to shout).

More laid-back (though far from predictable in their rhythmic weave) are "E so cuntento 'e sta'" ("…cu tte, pecché me faje guardà senza vede'", the album's only true love song) and the tender bossa nova "Sotto o' sole"; closing the record is the cryptic Southern rumba "Appocundria", carved out between percussion and classical guitar.

Even before Pino Daniele was consigned to legend (the album sells 300,000 copies, enough for Rolling Stone to rank it seventeenth on its list of the greatest Italian albums of all time), the nickname "nero a metà" had already been coined as a tribute to Showmen frontman Mario Musella, who had died a few months earlier from liver complications and who was described that way because he was the son of a Neapolitan mother and an American father stationed in Italy because of the war (such parental pairings were very common at the time, and identical to that of Antonio Campobasso, author of the anti-racist book "Nero di Puglia", from which the title had originally drawn its inspiration). The establishment of the NATO base, with the resulting presence of American soldiers, turned the small clubs around the port into a hotbed of new trends and cultural exchange, and the benefits extended beyond romantic entanglements to Pino's own mixed-blood sound, whose declared dream at the time was to play with Eric Clapton: as we'll see, he would manage it later on, but for now he has to settle, so to speak, for opening the historic concert Bob Marley gives at San Siro on 27 June 1980, a year before the reggae prophet's untimely death from cancer.

During the warm-up, the bluesman gets a crowd of around 90,000 people fired up with "Sotto o' Sole", "Uè man!", "Chillo è nu' buono guaglione", "Voglio di più", "Je' so pazzo", "Musica, musica", "A testa in giù", "Quanno chiove" and "A me me piace o' blues", further cementing his reputation.

But while for most artists the third album is the one that cements their status (and Nero a metà is certainly no exception to the rule), the fourth, Vai Mo', from June 1981, can be considered even more technically refined and complete thanks to a sprawling range of influences, for which the label "metropolitan blues" often slapped onto it starts to feel too tight, even reductive.

I had finally managed to put together a strong band, all soloists with a background steeped in cross-pollinated influences, which inspired me to pursue a deeper exploration of melody. This album was very important and gave my music a new direction.

(Pino Daniele on 'Vai Mo'')

This is how the so-called "Supergruppo" came about, an enviable fighting line-up made up of Rino Zurzolo (bass and double bass), James Senese (tenor sax), Tony Esposito (percussion), Tullio De Piscopo (drums) and Joe Amoruso (keyboards and melodica), who sharpened the formula even further into a real turning point: Vai Mo' is no longer an algebraic sum of jazz, folk, funk and rhythm — tried and tested, yet still a niche proposition for our geographic and mental latitudes — but rather the place where all those ingredients are blended into one fluid, homogeneous whole. The jewel in the crown is the breezy, uninhibited stadium anthem "Yes, I Know My Way", where De Piscopo's drums set the pace for the other instruments to chase, with lyrics that amount to a knowing statement of intent from someone sure of himself and determined to follow his own convictions without bowing to commercial blackmail ("tu vaje deritto e i' resto a pere"), ready if need be to "cacciarsi a currea" (reach for his belt) in defence of his own independence.

The only single released, "Yes I Know My Way" introduced Pino Daniele to the mainstream audience and bolstered his credibility: it's just a tasty appetizer for the cocky, syncopated grooves that run through the rest of the album's tracklist, starting with "Ma che te ne fotte", another invitation to not give a damn and push back against oppression ("Oggi è solo lunedì/ si parla quaccheduno allucca cchiù forte"), and "Ma che ho", which doubles down at a brisk pace with gusts reminiscent of Police (the opening recalls "Canary In A Coalmine" from "Zenyatta Mondatta").

A vita è 'nu muorzo ca nisciuno te fa dà

e picciò stamme a sentì, pierde tiempo a te guardà

("Viento 'e terra")

The other monster track, "Viento 'e terra", tears down every last residue of the soul with a perfect synchrony of voice and musicality, because no one gives you anything for free and you have to bite into this life without regrets, placing firm emphasis on a sweeping, black-leaning fusion sound that would soak through his entire output in the Eighties.

There's no shortage of soft, melancholy moods either, evident in the Italian-Saturday-night swing & soda of "Un giorno che non va" and the pleading "Puorteme a casa mia" ("… addo' chi cade 'nterra se sape aizà", a proud nod to his own homeland, where falling down is as much a part of daily life as the urge to get back up), while in the mellow "Nun ce sta piacere" Joe Amoruso's piano intro is overtaken by Zurzolo's double bass, with a crescendo refrain of cascading clustered notes and an exquisitely delicate solo from Daniele.

"Notte che se ne va" is a sophisticated survey, at twilight, of the whole range of humanity that inhabits the night hours: there are those who sleep and those who work, those who pack their bags and those who smoke in the dark hoping time will pass faster, those who think of God and "chi se venne 'a vita mia": the light comes back on with Fabio Forte, whose trombone also illuminates the New Orleans-style divertissement "Have You Seen My Shoes".

It's also worth noting that both side A and side B of the vinyl edition close with two desolate miniature gems, "Sulo pe' parlà" (a minute and twenty-four seconds spent on one's knees at the confessional over a faint, wispy keyboard backdrop) and "È sempe sera", even more touching and even shorter, barely grazed by Tony Esposito's percussion: it lasts 1'17", exactly the length of the earthquake that struck the towns of Irpinia on the evening of 23 November 1980, causing around 3,000 deaths, to whom the lyrics are dedicated.

And so, a year after that tragedy, an entire city sings once more: on 19 September 1981, the dream-team behind Vai Mo' played a free concert in Piazza del Plebiscito (at the time used as a giant car park and coach stop) that was destined to become legendary. The band performed in front of two hundred thousand people, marking the high point of the Neapolitan experience as well as the career peak for every musician involved: "Unfortunately, though, like all perfect machines, it ended up sabotaged by the managers of the day, and from then on our paths diverged, each of us following the beat of his own drum", Daniele himself would later recall, deciding to get away in order to avoid being crushed by the city's restrictive, suffocating machinery. An understandable choice — too much affection can be stifling, and Pino never cared for excess or intrusion; the more malicious gossips also whispered about unsavoury company and dangerous habits he was trying to distance himself from for the sake of his health.

Starting Over in Formia

Anyway, having left behind the Vai Mo’ tour and the triumph of Piazza del Plebiscito, still in 1981 he composes the music for “Ricomincio da tre”, the directorial debut of his friend Massimo Troisi, another true symbol of the cultural renewal of the Naples of those years, who with this film wins himself immense success, taking home two David di Donatello awards. They had met in Turin backstage at Enzo Trapani's television show “Non Stop”, which on October 27, 1977 had inaugurated a new era of Italian comedy right in the midst of the Rai reform: the comedian from San Giorgio a Cremano was part of “La Smorfia”, and between the two of them a sincere, affectionate bond took hold that also blossomed into an artistic partnership, united by the same goal of updating the image of Neapolitans, making it more real, truthful and cosmopolitan: thanks to their verve, the era of Totò and Eduardo seems to live again, and a spark of identification is lit in young people. The film's instrumental theme, measured and delicate, echoes the restless character of the protagonist Gaetano (played by Troisi), a shy young man who moves to Florence to travel and gain experience but, as he's keen to point out, not as an “emigrant” — a bit like the music of Pino Daniele, always in search of new outlets, who instead really does emigrate, with his whole family, to Formia, in the province of Latina.

Here, in the hamlet of Vindicio, he founds his own recording studios called “Bagaria”, which over time will give birth to some of his most debated albums; first, though, it falls to Bella ‘Mbriana (1982) to close that ideal Pentateuch of Wonders begun with Terra Mia, which marks out his golden period and further ennobles our artist's appeal thanks to the presence of Wayne Shorter on soprano saxophone (the start of a long series of prestigious collaborations) and Alphonso Johnson on bass (his solo on “I Got The Blues” is exceptional, a letter from the front sent by the singer to his little brother Carmine, nicknamed Giò with a Hendrix-like flourish, “O’ Giò, che voglia e te vede’”).

The album is again made at Carimate and mastered at Sterling Sound in New York by Bosè Rodriguez. The bella ‘mbriana of the title is the benevolent spirit of homes and workshops, which protects you but must never be offended, to ward off misfortune, as opposed to “o’ munaciello”, which is instead capricious and troublesome: the lyrics (still in “Neapolitanized English”, as Pino liked to call it) once again delve into folk themes and Neapolitan popular beliefs, but the stature of the two Weather Report members is essential in fueling openings toward a global register. In short, tradition and experimentation go hand in hand once again for yet another avant-garde blend, and the result is the most international, saturated and all-encompassing album of this pivotal phase, which starts from the ghetto and draws from a bit of everywhere.

Io non voglio andare in America, ma voglio costruire l’America nel posto in cui sono nato

“Tutta ‘nata storia” captures the diktat with neurotic energy, loudly clarifying the relationship between the singer and that America which gave him so much (the unchanged passion for Elvis, the youthful nights in the port clubs) yet cannot erode his native background, a thesis backed up by “Maggio se ne va”, which in the author's view is the most significant track: “I remember that Wayne Shorter wrote the melody down on a sheet of paper, and under the score he added a sentence I will never be able to forget: From these notes everyone will understand where you come from, and the wind will carry your melodies around the world”.

Nuje ca cercammo Dio

stammo pè sempe annure

nuje ca cercammo o’ bbene

nun simmo maje sicuri

E nun c’abbasta niente

e cchiù n’amma sape’

nun simmu maje cuntenti

e intanto maggio se ne va

We who seek God

we remain forever naked

we who search for goodness

we're never certain

and nothing is ever enough for us

and we're not allowed to know more

we're never content

e intanto maggio se ne va

Caresses of sax, scaffolding of piano and a bitter voice that digs deep: “Maggio se ne va” is a celestial hymn and an invitation to find meaning in this existence in every small thing, perhaps love exalted as the sole reason in the sentimental “Io vivo come te” (“my sun will rise where you walk, my sun will die where you live”), where the complex texture recalls George Benson every time voice and guitar melt into the same note. The whole album generally benefits from a hyper-effected production and surgically precise arrangements: the alluring title track “Bella 'mbriana” (used as the theme tune for the TV show “Sotto le stelle”) blends South American flavor with Mediterranean harmonies, while the evocative opener “Annare'” withstands the wrinkles of time with a few simple acoustic guitar passages graced by flute-synth and an easy-flowing lyric that calls out for freedom (“e curre, curre forte pe' nun te fa piglià, e anuje ce resta 'o tuorto 'e chesta libbertà”).

The jittery “Mo basta” ramps up the tone with a rock frenzy worthy of Talking Heads (echoing their “The Great Curve” from “Remain In Light“), while the lopsided funk-soul of “Ma che mania” and the jazzy instrumental “Toledo” — a tribute to one of Naples' busiest streets — are also notable. “E po' che fà” dispenses the purest poetry in minimalist blues suspended between six strings and keyboard arpeggios, and finally a short paragraph is owed to “Tarumbò”, a fierce anti-papal satire disguised in parlèsia, the slang that remained secret until the 1950s and was understood only by a narrow circle of musicians (but also by criminals, travelers and, originally, “posteggiatori”, a kind of street rhymers with their own reserved pitch, quite distinct from today's unlicensed parking attendants).

Che bellu jammone ma nun se fa capi'

s'affaccia 'o barcone e manco a vò ferni'…

e stu bacone non se ne fotte 'e niente

ccà ascimmo pazze si prejammo sempe

The term “jammone” is an augmentative of “jamme”, meaning “man”, so in context it can be read as “important man”, while “bacone” refers to an incompetent who does his job poorly — a none-too-subtle jab at the head of the Catholic Church leaning out from the window of the Apostolic Palace. Other Neapolitan artists have made use of the code, both on the mic (for instance, Enzo Avitabile with “Bàgano”, from the 1999 album “O-Issa”) and on celluloid (the irresistible “cartiloffista” gag in Lodovico Gasparini's 1982 “No grazie, il caffè mi rende nervoso”, again with Troisi and Lello Arena), but it's fair to say that it was “Tarumbò” that first brought parlèsia out into the open and made it accessible to the masses (in turn, the name “Bagarìa” means “racket”, “confusion”, but also a “foolish act” or something of “poor quality”).

Far from poor is the musical score on offer and the meanings worth unpacking, confirming that after Vai Mo' (regarded by some as Pino Daniele's final lectio magistralis) there's still life left: barely five years separate Terra Mia from Bella 'Mbriana, and while the city and its problems may not have changed much, the music certainly evolved.

1983, meanwhile, is a rich and varied year: Pino first steps into the role of producer for Richie Havens (one of the Woodstock stars, for whom he co-writes most of the tracks on the LP “Common Ground”, chief among them “Dear John”, dedicated to Lennon, and the duet “Gay Cavalier”), then explores the possibilities of rap with his friend De Piscopo (their “Stop Bajon” is a hit across half of Europe, and can be heard on the drummer's LP “Acqua e viento”), and finally pens “Terra me siente” and “Tiempo buono” for Gato Barbieri's “Apasionado” (which includes, among others, the theme from “Ultimo tango a Parigi” and is produced by Teo Macero, already known for his work with Miles Davis).

1984 – Keep on movin'… will this story ever end?

Probably so, but that moment hadn't arrived yet. Most critics in fact trace the start of the bluesman's unstoppable decline back to 1984. His sixth album Musicante, however, released in May, far from plunging into any supposed creative abyss, shows a still-high creative output that instead opens up different prospects: the arrival of former King Crimson man Mel Collins (on winds) alongside the vitality of the brilliant Brazilian percussionist Nanà Vasconcelos gets a jump on the world music explosion, breathing African inflections into the fabric of the record ("Graceland" by Paul Simon, just to name one, wouldn't come out for another couple of years). A bridge between Naples, the Equator and the distant coasts of South America, and a shift in communicative approach to be weighed as an opportunity — but what exactly is Musicante, and what is a 'musicante'? In Pino Daniele's own words, "it's the journeys, the tours, the battente guitar, Nanà's percussion, songs with a touch of Africa, a storyteller who travels along with his music and gets by with a bit of magic… that's what a musicante is! Most of the songs were written by the sea, partly in the Gulf, partly on the island of Tremiti, where the old Neapolitan dialect is still spoken, with the desire to relive the past through places steeped in history: 'Lazzari felici' is my peak, it will be hard to match that intensity again in the future". The emphatic high point of the album, it's a semi-acoustic sonnet with a sad music-box feel yet tinged with optimism, urging his people to live day by day without giving in to injustice (Roberto Murolo would offer a beautiful version of it on "Na voce, 'na chitara", in 1990).

Simm lazzari felici

gente ca nun trova cchiù pace

quanno canta se dispiace

è sempe pronta a sé vuttà

The catchy funky-dance "Keep On' Movin'" is the lead single, its easy-going beat offset by a raspy vocal and lyrics that are anything but trivial ("a trent'anni nun puo' capì e vulisse nu munno onesto, ma te diceno sempe o' stesso, 'ncoppa 'e sorde a gente nun guarda 'nfaccia a nisciuno"), while the intro of "Just In Mi" gestures with amusing nonsense vocalizing à-la Lucio Dalla before evolving into dirty rock. "Disperazione" serves up classic blues, while "Lassa che vene" dives back into the tradition of battente guitar, piano and mandoloncello. Behind the slow tread of "Stella nera", finally, lies the thorny theme of smuggling among sea wolves — also worth hearing are "Oi Ne", sarcastic and direct, and the blistering "Acchiappa acchiappa", where denunciation and injustice turn into inner revolt ("I'm alive, and as long as I'm alive you won't be able to touch me"). More predictable are "Io ci sarò" and "Santa Teresa", decent filler all things considered within this tasty pastiche of gypsy rap, back-alley dialect, lying silences and nostalgic harmonies, presented on 24 June 1984 at another epic evening, again at San Siro, this time supporting Bob Dylan and Carlos Santana.

A long tour followed, with a stop in Cuba for the Festival De Varadero accompanied by Zurzolo, Amoruso and Marangolo: guests at the Avana Libre, during their stay they met Adalberto Lara and Juan Pablo Torres, trombonist with Irakere who was recording "Algo Nuevo" at the time, and were so impressed by his skill on wind instruments that they brought him back to Italy to work together. Once home, Pino immediately wrote the music and lyrics for "Assaje", given to the voice of Lina Sastri and included in the soundtrack of "Mi manda Picone" (a feature film by Nanni Loy starring Sastri herself and Giancarlo Giannini, whose main song "Sonata d'ammore", credited to De Piscopo, was paired with "Assaje" on a 45 released by Bagaria), then returned the favour to Vasconcelos by handling the arrangements for the single "Rekebra" and producing his album "Nanatroniko", again through Bagaria.

The intense year of 1984 closed with the magnificent Sciò Live, the singer-songwriter's first live album, gathering excerpts from concerts held in various locations between '82 and '84, and in some ways marking the end of an era (it's a double LP "rich in memories and exceptional encounters", among which the recordings from the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Olympia in Paris and the Petruzzelli in Bari stand out, closing with a crowd bath at the Mostra d'Oltremare in Naples, immortalised by Salvatore Piscicelli in the film "Blues metropolitano"). Bringing together the cream of the city's musicians in a single group and exporting Vesuvian pride abroad had seemed like pure utopia, yet it happened — though now most of his loyal lieutenants lay down their arms and set off on their own paths. This isn't about being cast aside or betrayed (as some grumbled) by a Daniele now on his way to global stardom, just a logical regrouping of the ranks: each of those involved would enjoy their own share of glory, with no hard feelings. Some time earlier, mentor Senese had already opted for a solo career (the eponymous "James Senese" and "Il passo del gigante"), now Tony Esposito too was breaking into the charts ("Kalimba De Luna" was that summer's earworm) and his old partner De Piscopo threw himself body and soul into "Passaggi da Oriente", with everyone's blessing.

Time Flies – Ferryboat

The seventh album, Ferryboat, from November 1985, then corrected course, favouring a generous infusion of electronics into the usual fascinating mutant hybrid, reaching in this record perhaps its expressive peak, at least in terms of sheer variety of backgrounds: climbing aboard the ferryboat are Steve Gadd, French percussionist Mino Cinelu, American pianist Richard Tee, Cubans Lara and Juan Pablo Torres and Argentine maestro Barbieri, alongside a dense cast of homegrown session players (the Zurzolo brothers, including the lesser-known Marco on flute, with Valentina Crimaldi, Elio Lupi and Antonio Avitabile on cellos, Caserta-born Larry Nocella on sax and many others besides), so the helm turns south on the globe, resolutely charting Latin routes. "Finally my first record recorded and mixed in Formia, I'm very attached to 'Quaccosa', my friend Paolo Raffone brought in friends from the Naples Conservatory to play it live, I was proud that my studio sounded so good… When I sang it I was wrecked and slumped in an armchair, it was meant to be a demo but it came out so full of emotion that I left it just like that", recalls Pino Daniele, who besides the melodic little piece mentioned above, carves out together with his new newpolitan squad at least a couple more songs of strong pathos, "Sarà" (tender and sincere, hoping for tomorrow, "you can't live and watch something that hurts") and the poetic "Amico mio" (gradually defused by a good-natured refrain). The eloquent "Dance Of Bahia" urges dancing around a beach bonfire "finché nun jesce o' sole", to be read as a metaphor for defying the world with energy until dawn and without restraint, since "o' tiempo vola" (and woe betide anyone who wastes it on show-biz frivolities, "guagliù, 'a dinto sti tarantelle i' voglio sta' fore/ penzo a me e nun m'a faccio cu' nisciuno"). Stunning is the title track "Ferryboat", which grafts effected vocals onto nervy rhythms, while the mechanised "Bona Jurnata" flaunts shimmering synths in the vein of Public Image Ltd. (recalling their "Rise"). The elegant soft-rock, à-la Paul Young, "Che ore so'" trades phrases with a lovely sax solo, while the livelier "A rrobba mia" mixes multi-ethnic tam-tam with jazz touches. "One" closes things without surprises, yet another Americanism given a Neapolitan twist, putting the seal on an LP that passed somewhat under the radar but was genuinely well made, even if far from the rebellious youthful roar of earlier records and more in line with the pop leanings of the albums that followed.

1987 – Buonasera Arabia

I sogni americani portano la guerra e nun se fa

blue jeans e tradizione questa volta non ci fregherà

("Watch Out")

The Ferryboat Tour hits the mark in Switzerland and France, with exhilarating live performances, and the chemistry struck up with the musical language of the other side of the Alps now shakes the artist's creative outlook, ever on the hunt for new challenges: after conquering the West, his sonic ambitions turn elsewhere. "My trips to France became increasingly frequent, and my interest in different ethnicities sparked in me the need to get closer to the new rock-arabe". Bonne Soirée (produced together with Allan Goldberg between Formia and Carimate and mixed at the Grande Armée studios in Paris) comes out on 15 May 1987 full of good intentions, but fails to storm the charts, never fully understood by fans, despite the warm reception from critics, who instead look favourably on a boundary-breaking record full of ideas that were ahead of their time.

It wasn't easy to pick things up again after the swan song that was Sciò Live, but the new supertroupe formed by Cleveland drummer Jerry Marotta (who had already played alongside Stevie Nicks, Tears For Fears and Elvis Costello), Welsh bassist with a father from Molise Pino Palladino (known for his stint with the Who), Campania-born Bruno Illiano on keyboards, and further still Mel Collins, Larry Nocella and Mino Cinelu, guarantees fireworks. We're on the eve of the First Intifada and the escalation of the crisis in the Middle East; Peter Gabriel's "So" and Sting's "…Nothing Like The Sun" come out, as well as "Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun" by Australia's Dead Can Dance, the self-titled debut by Enya and "Sirius" by Clannad; meanwhile Maradona is the city's new king and Naples is partying hard for its first Serie A title: Pino Daniele's melting pot takes stock of the moment, painting an extraordinarily contemporary fresco, ten tracks of astonishing compositional and (pyro)technical skill; if anything, it's the more vain, less hungry approach compared to the past that raises some eyebrows.

The break from previous albums is evident, as is the start of a gradual move away from dialect, though without giving up entirely on the odd line in Esperanto: among the most convincing are the speed-jazz "Boys In The Night", "Watch Out" (only available on the CD version, it definitively rejects the stars-and-stripes model), "Nu poco e sentimiento" (harmonic twists straight out of a Turkish bazaar) and "Baccalà", which range through Spanish-Neapolitan territory between electric guitar, Cuban salsa and Tuareg-carioca rock flare-ups.

Don't be fooled by the Palestinian keffiyeh wrapped around his neck on the cover: the Arabic influence isn't all-encompassing after all. "Mama, E!" dabbles in ethno-metal exoticism between Marrakech and India with "a steady gaze turned toward a more Eastern world" and some damp powder; sharper are the street-dub "Scrack", tackling the subject of drugs, the ethereal and elusive "Aria" and "Vita mia", a graceful return to the classic song form with a whiff of freedom.

Finally there's the sweet "Occhi grigi", the abstract synth-funk of "Guardami In Face" and the vivid title track "Bonne Soirée", built around off-beat drumming, an occasionally catchy chorus and the kind of certified virtuosity shared, more or less, by the whole tracklist — though often precious and self-indulgent, good for boosting the ego and perhaps for that very reason hard to swallow for purists craving a grittier, less conceited script.

Pinotto has grown up a lot and seems keen to show us just how good he's become: we already knew that, and stardom hasn't gone to his head just yet — aside from a bit of strutting — in fact, Bonne Soirée is a solid record worth revisiting without prejudice.

Drizzle, paperwork and red tape

That same year he plays guitar on the tracks "Mon Tube De L'Été" and "Sudance" on the album "L'Envoi De Bourdin" by France's Philippe Bourdin, and then the prolific partnership with Troisi gains another fundamental chapter. "Le vie del Signore sono finite" hits cinemas, written, directed and starring his friend, who picks up a Nastro d'Argento for Best Screenplay: the main theme "Qualcosa arriverà" stands as one of the high points of the musician's entire body of work, pairing beautifully with the pastel tones of a complicated love triangle set during the Fascist era (the whole soundtrack can be found on a mini-LP rounded out by "Qualcosa arriverà/instrumental version", "Promenade", "Nustalgia", "Chez Moi" and "Tarantarebe", five enchanting acoustic gems whose only flaw is how quickly they pass by).

A dive into singer-songwriter territory, revisited in sui generis fashion by Schizzechea With Love, his ninth album of new material, which in 1988 softens the course set by Bonne Soirée and closes out the Formia Quadrilogy: the spiced-up Afro contaminations are toned down in favour of a more dominant Mediterranean touch, with lyrics (a bit banal, truth be told) once again rooted in tradition — enough to earn the Premio Tenco for Best Album in Dialect (it climbs to number seven on the charts). "These are immediate songs, tossed out with the urge to just play, I realised that to do it well I shouldn't overthink it", Daniele explains. Guest of honour Steve Gadd on drums, alongside Danny Cummings, Cameroonian bassist Vicky Edimo, Danilo Rea and Chris White, the flautist borrowed from Dire Straits. "It was the first album mixed abroad, after meeting Gregg Jackman, at Advision Studios in London. I started leaning more on samplers; 'Cry' is one of the best examples of a Mitteleuropean-sounding song".

So America is no longer the promised land but a turning point, and the blues-fusion of his early days seems to be making way for a more accommodating pop sound. Still, the pedigree is the real deal, and here and there a few sparks of emotion still drizzle through, chief among them the slow overture "Gesù, Gesù" (a fade of strings and guitar chords introduces a gorgeous vocal contrast) and the idyllic "Jesce juorno" (bass up front, melodic arpeggios and sax embroidery), which ends up on the soundtrack of "Se lo scopre Gargiulo" alongside the aforementioned "Cry" (with its somewhat muddled new wave sound): the film is a comedy by Elvio Porta starring Giuliana De Sio as a nurse unhappily married to a wealthy scion.

The powerful "Tell Me Now" and the latin-flavoured "Cumbà" (applauding the courage of the Cuban people isolated by the economic embargo) switch gears decisively but never quite find their footing, and it's a shame that even the romantic "Canzone nova" ends up losing itself in tedium after a promising start. Better are "Me so 'mbriacato e te forever", syrupy in mood but never cloying, and "Schizzechea" itself (watercolour strings and piano paint the heroin addiction of his friend Peppe, who fell into that tunnel), while "Tra la pazzia e il blues" and "Al Capone" — a soul-rock invective against the Camorra built around the figure of the famous gangster (originally from Angri, in the province of Salerno) — feel more negligible.

The Italian tour still fills up arenas regardless, with three thousand people showing up at the Festival dell'Unità in Florence: the icing on the cake is the "Night of The Guitar", which lands in Italy in April '89. The event, conceived by Miles Copeland III, brother of the Police's Stewart, gathers together the finest guitarists on the planet — Jan Akkerman, Leslie West, Randy California, Steve Hunter and several others — and Pino Daniele is unquestionably one of them, putting on a show at Milan's Teatro Smeraldo alongside Robby Krieger, Pete Haycock and Phil Manzanera, with a memorable four-way version of his "Uè, Man!" (mistakenly listed on the official bootleg as "Hey Man"). It was a welcome boost in what was certainly not an easy time, as Daniele begins suffering from persistent coronary issues, corrected with four angioplasty procedures; on top of that, he's forced to undergo vocal cord surgery that results in an irreversible change to his voice.

But Pino is someone who knows how to fully enjoy life, with all its joys, hardships and obstacles: a mirror of these swings is Mascalzone latino from November 1989, whose main stylistic traits are lyrical cunning, unplugged phrasing and dynamism. Certainly not his best work, but in his own words "one of my favourite records, made entirely at home together with Bruno Illiano. I'd always dreamed of merging acoustic and electronic sounds, and I dedicated 'Anna verrà' to Magnani, who I consider the archetypal female figure of neorealism. Coming from songs in dialect, it was my first track entirely in Italian". It's without doubt one of his most intense, comforting and dreamlike ballads, delivered in a vibrant, heartfelt vocal performance that tugs at the heartstrings in memory of a bewitching, temperamental actress, ambassador of 20th-century Roman spirit and an unforgotten symbol of all women. Along the same lines are "Ammore scumbinato" and "Carte e cartuscelle", both marked by a palpable sensitivity.

As for the rest, the album (from which the successful sailing team competing in the America's Cup regattas took its name and logo for the hull) settles into a frankly rather flat weave of classic riffs and gulf-area currents, with the odd point of interest in the up-tempo love song "Sambaccussì" and in "Faccia gialla" (the affectionate nickname Neapolitans use for their patron saint, San Gennaro — it's a prayer somewhere between the sacred and the profane, calling for justice and peace on earth). "O' mericano" salutes the many children of the marines scattered across the city, while "Giungla", "A speranza è semp' sola" and "Aria strana", with its flamenco-gypsy inlays, are liveliest in their mediocrity.

"N'ata stagione" (about the tragedy of migration by sea, with Stefania Labate on female vocals) adds little to an already thin and sparse script, aside from a couple of high notes that come naturally to him — though not enough to redeem Mascalzone latino, or this late-Eighties chapter, from an undeniable monotony.

The Nineties – We Thought It Was Blues…

…and instead the Nineties confirm an ever more evident break from the celebrated sounds of years gone by, marking a distinctly pop orientation, though still following a recognizably inventive trademark. The decade opens with an abrupt slowdown in live activity, due to a shaky state of health. Meanwhile, though, Pino keeps himself in shape in the most varied ways: he produces an album for the Calabrian band Orixas and the "Murolo And Friends" record ("Sta malatia" was supposed to become the official anthem of a Napoli side fresh off its second scudetto, but nothing came of it), writes "Tegolino" (the name of one of his cats), which little Rosita Bini performs at the Zecchino d'Oro festival, takes part in the Cinecittà charity mega-concert for Telefono Azzurro, and appears on "Io dal mare" by Claudio Baglioni, included on the Roman singer-songwriter's album "Oltre".

His eleventh studio album Un uomo in blues, released in January 1991, takes advantage of relatively greater time and energy to land the biggest chart success (it reaches number three) of this third phase of his career, built around the muscular pop-blues electric showcase "O' Scarrafone". The single enjoys heavy airplay thanks to an anthemic chorus whose simplicity sticks in the ear ("Oggi è sabato, domani non si va a scuola, oggi è sabato se non chiami ho un nodo in gola"). Yet it doesn't take much digging to find a clear message of solidarity with the so-called terroni transplanted to the North and with African friends, humble workers seeking their fortune, singled out by the sudden rise of the Lega and buried under fog and xenophobic parliamentary questions.

E se hai la pelle nera amico guardati la schiena

io son stato marocchino, me l'han detto da bambino

viva viva o' Senegal!

Not just political commitment, but also light, playful, classy lyricism (the mocking "E invece no", "Domani" and "Che soddisfazione"), with American jazz musician Mick Goodrick as guest star, who "opened my mind to new methods — from now on there will always be a bit of him in my music". "Leave A Message" and the crowd-pleasing "For Your Love" (whose verses echo the notes of "Yes I Know My Way") update the old, beloved bilingual script without quite managing to revive its former glory, while "Solo" and the less-than-transcendent "Un uomo in blues" are made listenable by top-tier performances (Harvie Swartz on bass and Gary Chaffee on drums).

As ever, the ballads are a given: "Gente distratta" is one of his most heartfelt, dealing with the difficult story of a teenage girl disowned by her family (“Qui nessuno ti ha perdonata/ quando di casa te ne sei andata/ quanti progetti in mente/ poi finire a guardare il cielo/amando, sognando, crescendo…”), while "Femmena" is a graceful duet with Dorina Giangrande, his wife for not much longer. Pino, in fact, tries to lighten the mood during his difficult post-operation recovery by having a laugh about it with his friend Massimo Troisi, who also suffered from heart disease (back in 1976 he had flown to Houston for mitral valve surgery), and on one of the many evenings they spend together, Massimo plays Cupid and introduces him to Fabiola Sciabbarrasi, who at the time modeled for Versace, Armani and other prestigious brands: between the singer and the model it's love at first sight, both leave their respective partners and move in together on Piazza Mazzini in Rome, in the Prati district, where they remarry and have three children, Sara, Sofia and Francesco.

It's in music, however, that the rapport between the two brilliant artists turns into magic, and in a period of major changes it sweeps away every uncertainty: "Quando" is a goosebump-inducing song, perhaps the most beloved of Pino Daniele's career, or at least the one with the greatest commercial impact (it won the Nastro d'Argento, the Globo d'Oro and the Ciak d'Oro for best soundtrack).

Tu dimmi quando, quando

dove sono i tuoi occhi e la tua bocca

forse in Africa, che importa…

It's the main theme of "Pensavo fosse amore... invece era un calesse", starring Francesca Neri, Angelo Orlando and Marco Messeri alongside, of course, the Neapolitan comedian himself, directing here for the last time. "Massimo, I wrote a song... will you make me a film out of it?", or again "You just have to suffer for two days and you've got a two-minute song, while to make a three-hour film I've had to suffer since I was a kid": that's how they liked to joke about their real, affectionate bond — never for show — in some hilarious bits brought to Gianni Minà's TV show "Alta classe", one of the rare public appearances that Pino Daniele (always shy and reluctant to step into the spotlight) had chosen to make right after the release, in autumn 1991, of the compilation Sotto o' sole (which restores the 1977-1980 repertoire; on "Saglie, Saglie" Troisi answers back by reciting over Pino Daniele's singing, and the adorable "O' ssaje come fa o' core", the only unreleased track alongside "Quando", comes from the unexpected pen of the actor and was likewise included in the film's soundtrack). An intellectual symbiosis that goes hand in hand and brings both of them to the top of their respective fields.

Coming back to Pino Daniele's individual path, 1993 marks a kind of return to normality with the resumption of live performances (on May 22nd and 23rd he lights up Cava de' Tirreni with Antonio Annona and Carol Steele on percussion) and the release of Che Dio ti benedica, his twelfth studio album and probably the last one still capable of delivering real emotional punch, thanks in part to the presence of heavyweight musicians — the biggest of whom is, at last, Pino Daniele himself again, who on the moving "Questa primavera" crafts an outstanding acoustic gem, the kind that would become ever rarer in a body of work that would grow increasingly uneven, half-hearted and resigned.

Il nostro amore suona forse un vecchio refrain

that stays in your head, so you sing it for me

⟦Q1⟧

⟦Q2⟧

⟦Q3⟧

"Mal di te" and "Sicily" still make the heart beat faster, especially the latter, which reworks in a romantic key an old Chick Corea Electric Band jazz instrumental: Pino adds lyrics and weaves them with his trademark falsetto into a lush tapestry of piano embroidered by none other than Chick Corea, who's practically playing at home in these parts, being originally from Albi, in the province of Catanzaro. Just a notch below, but still lovely, are "Un angelo vero", "Allora sì" ("⟦Q4⟧") and "Nuda", which remind us that sometimes a great song doesn't need to overdo it: all it takes is a voice, a guitar and a flight of fancy, "⟦Q5⟧".

"T'aggia vedè morta" is a charming digression into the blues territory he knew well (it was written during the car ride with Troisi to Viareggio, where the recordings of that historic episode of "Alta classe" awaited them); more marginal are "Soleado Up And Down", "Sono un cantante di blues" and "Fatte 'na pizza", which follow the same blueprint but develop it in a bland, colorless way. "Pace e serenità" and "Occhi blu non mi mollare" are harmless and easy-going, while the big lead single "Che Dio ti benedica" deserves a second look: in Italy it found easy glory (third place on the charts) thanks to a few shrewd tricks (a sensual video clip with Ornella Muti and the "...che fica!" line in a chorus that wasn't even all that catchy).

Matters of the heart

Marta: When there's love, there's everything!

Gaetano: No, that's health

E sona mo', from November 1993, offers almost in full the semi-acoustic concerts held a few months earlier in Cava de' Tirreni, which reassured fans of his renewed physical vigor — and at least for him, we might add, that's a stroke of luck, though sadly the same can't be said of his friend Massimo Troisi, whose fortunes take a decidedly worse turn just a few months later. A rogue fate always lying in wait, much like his life, wonderfully hanging by a thread: the actor slips away quietly on June 4, 1994, twelve hours after finishing filming of "Il Postino" in Ostia, due to a fatal cardiac failure brought on by rheumatic fever and the strain of a shoot he probably shouldn't have taken on. The grief over the loss is immense, intimate, searing, but life must go on and the page must be turned.

Pino needs a distraction, so right around that time he accepts an invitation from Eros Ramazzotti and Jovanotti (who share the same manager) to join them on a shared tour. The move causes a stir in the media, since it brings together three completely different personalities; the posters feature a sun leaning against a building sketched in marker by Jovanotti, a hopeful image of a crack of light breaking through reinforced concrete. The show on June 13, 1994 at the San Paolo can't be just another night: Massimo Troisi has been dead for less than ten days, and all Naples has left to hold onto now is its most illustrious son, who hasn't been home in a long time. The air is tense, and so as not to further stir up public unrest, Pino arrives at the stadium at dawn, while the city still sleeps, without anyone finding out. "He spent the whole day in the dressing room," Jovanotti recalls, "wrapped in a cloud of thoughts he kept to himself. He was quiet and restless; for him this wasn't just a concert, it was something much bigger. He tried to lighten the mood with a joke here and there, as he always did when talk turned to the legend he'd become. Then we went out on stage, and I witnessed the greatest demonstration of love a people has ever shown an artist who represents them.

That Naples recognized itself in Pino Daniele, because he had managed to celebrate it not through its masks but starting from reality and poetry; he had freed it from stereotypes and brought it into modernity without losing anything in humanity or culture". The ovation at the San Paolo is one of the most beautiful snapshots, matched by the triumph at Rome's Olimpico, while A.C. Milan denied permission to play at the Meazza: no great loss, as the three performed in separate sets, each joining in on the other's songs in turn, and given the extraordinary turnout (sold out even in Monza, Bari and Palermo), extra dates were added in Zurich and Brussels; once those were wrapped up, Pino was replaced by Luca Carboni, as he was busy in the United States recording Don't Step on the Flowers in the Desert, the album of his commercial consecration — or downfall, depending on how you look at it.

Half white

Italian as the dominant vocal choice, now serious and mature; North Africa as the starting point; the number 1 spot on the charts as the goal achieved, with 800,000 copies sold. "My friendship with Jovanotti has openly influenced my renewal; call it this great energy, but I always welcome being in tune with a new world in a positive light," Pino Daniele explains to the press, having also changed his look, now sporting short hair and a goatee. "I made this album with the goal of writing different kinds of songs, moving even closer to Moroccan sounds to blend them with my Neapolitan roots. Italy is going through a difficult time, not just politically but musically too: we need to help those who still believe in emotions, because whoever knows how to live their own feelings also learns how to communicate, and therefore how to do politics too. The album reflects these moods and is steeped in optimism, irony, tolerance and commitment. Vesuvius meets rap and black music to bring together the stress and the shared hopes of every metropolis in the world".

Plenty of good intentions, though they clash with a disappointing thinness of content: despite the enticing mix touted at the album's launch, in fact, of that "half black" sound all that remains is a faded pigment here and there in "Anima" (with the excellent Rita Marcotulli on piano), "O' cammello 'nnamurato", "Notte che fai" (jazzy in flavor) and "Un angolo di cielo". But for those who don't want to live on memories and are happy to settle for the white half, here's the thing: in a 1995 chart topped by "Spirito DiVino" by Zucchero, "Destinazione Paradiso" by Gianluca Grignani, "Le ragazze" by Neri per caso and "La donna, il sogno e il grande incubo" by 883, Don't Step on the Flowers in the Desert can pass as a decent compromise between crowd-pleasing singles ("Io per lei", "Resta cu' mmè" and "Se mi vuoi", the latter a duet with Irene Grandi) and rhythmic subtleties with some ambition ("Bambina" features Mike Mainieri on vibraphone and Alfredo Paixão on bass, "Fumo nero" has Maria Pia De Vito on backing vocals, "Se amore sarà" brings in Jimmy Earl from Chick Corea's band). As always, the instrumental pieces come out unscathed ("Oasi"), while the navel-gazing rap inserts courtesy of the Jovanotti/Saturnino duo in "Deserto di parole" and "Stress" are best left forgotten.

Live, though, there's really no contest: this is followed by a thunderous on the road stint with Pat Metheny, who had been such a big influence on him with "American Garage" and "New Chautauqua": 40,000 lire for a ticket was money very well spent for a staggering six-string convention delivered in Neapolitan dialect with a Kansas City accent, spread across Palastampa in Turin, Olimpico, Reggio Emilia, Cava de' Tirreni and Forum di Assago.

In 1997 Dimmi cosa succede sulla terra achieved even greater success than its predecessor Don't Step on the Flowers in the Desert (with over 900,000 copies sold it's the second best-selling record of the year, behind only Andrea Bocelli's "Romanza"), following the same sonic thread stretched at one end toward love themes or ecological concerns, and at the other toward the usual world music flourishes woven in by a dense roster of guests who, in the mid-Nineties, were still, to varying degrees, cutting their teeth before becoming full-fledged stars of the incoming millennium.

Clear from the album's title alone (and from the spoken prologue "Il pianeta delle parole") is a kind of inner conflict between the desire for isolation and the wish to engage with the world's affairs; not everything works as it should, though, and the new-age Arabisms of "The Desert In My Head" (a duet with Israeli starlet Noa) and "Scirocco d'Africa" (with Giorgia) get lost in arid riffs repeated to the point of irritation, while the more philosophical "Se domani pioverà" ("what lies between good and evil/ in this notion of the global village?") and "Continueremo a navigare" ponder, without answers, the possibility of an afterlife.

Among the singles, all catchy and syrupy, the best are the evergreens "Dubbi non ho" and "Stare bene a metà", yet it's the less ambitious "Che male c'è" that wins the 1997 Festivalbar: it's hard now to say which logic prevails, whether the aim was to win over new generations of fans knowing the result was guaranteed anyway, or the intention to play mother hen to the younger talent: the muddled funk-jazz of "Canto do Mar" mixes the Normandy landings and Saracen colonization with political outbursts ("Aggia parlà cu' Bassolino", with the willing Raiz of Almamegretta at his side), while "Non ho paura del mostro", which winks at fairy tales, is best forgotten.

Among the brighter spots, "Amici come prima" and "Questo immenso", though both are undermined by rather banal lyrics: that will also be the leitmotif of the chart-topping "Amore senza fine", which in 1998 smashes the charts and paves the way for the greatest hits collection Yes I Know My Way (containing two further unreleased tracks, the instrumental "Per te" and "Senza peccato", a grotesque reworking of "Yes I Know My Way" with Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill of Simple Minds).

1999 brings Like an Ice Cream at the Equator, on which a poetic streak long since put on ice finally melts away altogether, much like the "Neve al sole" of its ill-fated main refrain: more enjoyable are the second single "Cosa penserai di me", the trippy-blues "I buoni e i cattivi", the reggae of "Ladro d'amore" with Raiz, and "Sì, Forever" (the theme song for Vincenzo Salemme's "Amore a prima vista"), while "Alibi perfetto", "Stella cometa" and "Soldato dell'universo" sink into "Un viaggio senza ritorno" amid electronics that really don't seem to be his game.

Rossana Casale makes a tepid attempt at steering things toward jazz on "Da soli no" (the verses stand out), "Like an Ice Cream at the Equator" and "Samba In My Mind", without managing to turn around the fortunes of a record that is missing, there's no point dancing around it, the kind of shift one is always entitled to expect, for better or worse, given the stature of the artist in question. This time, let's not kid ourselves, it won't come, for various reasons, including an understandable physical and mental exhaustion brought on by numerous health troubles, a romantic stability that, as we'll see, is once again thrown into question, or more simply an adjustment to the times and conventions of pop music.

The Two Thousands – Cose inutili da dire

On September 12th Pino Daniele joins Zucchero on stage at the Arena di Verona during a stop on the "BlueSugar World Tour" and takes the opportunity to patch things up after some past spats, having once branded his fellow Emilian a pointless Joe Cocker copycat ("why should people buy Zucchero's records when the original is still alive?"), only to extend an olive branch a few months earlier backstage at Pavarotti & Friends. "Only strong people argue, but the peace was instinctive, immediate", Fornaciari recalls, continuing: "As soon as Pino started singing in my dressing room I got goosebumps and the tension dissolved into a hug, we both love the blues even though I'm more visceral and closer to the Memphis sound, he's closer to Motown, I think soul is our common denominator". A shame, though, that there's no trace of it even in Medina, released in February 2001, where the much-touted roots seem buried under a blanket of "cose inutili da dire" (useless things to say), as the refrain of the single "Sara" suggests (dedicated to his daughter, its ending vaguely recalls the contemporaneous "Desert Rose" by Sting), which, all things considered, turns out to be the most enjoyable thing on the record along with the most straightforward, least contrived tracks, namely "Acqua passata" (again in dialect), the pleasant "Lettera dal cuore" and "Tempo di cambiare", "Senza 'e te" and the gypsy-guitar "Mareluna".

"I spent two years thinking about this record, I went around looking for musicians to do new things, being Turkish-Neapolitan, a jazz man and a rocker, I headed toward the Mediterranean and Arab world. My relationship with Africa was an important source of inspiration, this LP represents the desire to find a different kind of song, it has lots of guests, it's an artistic need of mine: I could have done cabaret or gone into pure entertainment, but instead here I am still searching", says Pino Daniele about the genesis of a difficult album with plenty of themes to discuss, from Islamic culture to racial integration, from nostalgia for Naples to the decision to keep his distance from it, spending more and more time at his estate in Tuscany on the border between the towns of Magliano and Orbetello, in a quiet spot of open countryside ten minutes by car from the beaches of Argentario.

The electro-suk "Via Medina" dissolves into a chaos of strings, horns and percussion (Omar Faruk Tekbilek's zurna and baglama, with Lotfi Bushnaq on vocals), even worse is the frenzied flamenco-raï "Galby", shared with Franco-Algerian artist Faudel, the vapid "Africa a Africa e" and the funk/rap tug-of-war "Evviva o' rrè", where the former bluesman seems to be a guest of 99 Posse rather than the other way around. "Lacrima di sale" and "Gente di frontiera" don't add much, while the ghost track "Ahi, disperata vita" sparks curiosity, closing the tracklist with a 16th-century madrigal by Gesualdo Da Venosa.

In December, as a kind of appendix, comes Concerto Medina Tour, with Allison Miller on drums, Miriam Sullivan and Rino Zurzolo on double bass, and Mia Cooper on backing vocals. The following summer, meanwhile, brings another massive shared tour, with Pino Daniele swapping repertoire with fellow artists Ron, Francesco De Gregori and Fiorella Mannoia (documented on the DVD In Tour, released through the small independent label Blue Drag, founded by the singer together with his son Alessandro). He then writes the charming "Core fujente" for the soundtrack of the animated film "Opopomoz" directed by Enzo D'Alò, dubbed by many Neapolitan artists including Vincenzo Salemme, Silvio Orlando and Peppe Barra. The song refines an old poem by Pino titled "Core", already published years earlier in the autobiographical book "Storie e poesie di un mascalzone latino", published in 1994 co-written with journalist Mimmo Liguoro.

Among the worthwhile listens from this first stretch of the new millennium is certainly the intriguing Signature Steps (released in 2004 under the name Pino Daniele Project), which, despite its ups and downs, offers more than one point of interest. The album leans into madrigal-like forms and Gregorian chant with valuable help from maestro Gianluca Podio, who co-writes "Gli stessi sguardi" and "Ali di cera", sung a cappella by Monica Cognoli (soprano), Rossella Ruini (alto), Fabrizio Palma (baritone) and Roberta Colavalle (tenor), while the languishing "Concerto per noi due" features Sabina Macculli and Gianluca Terranova (with Roberto Gatto on drums), alongside Pino Daniele himself, of course, who here tries to fuse "sacred and Afro-Latin music, Baroque choirs and the soft rhythms of the Peter Erskine Trio". It's a cultured, restrained project right from the artwork, with black-and-white photos, jacket and tie: the jazz settles comfortably into the melodies (Alan Pasqua on piano), the real dilemma being those solemn a cappella choirs, which blend harmoniously with the context in the overture "Arriverà l'aurora" (brushed drums and angelic voice) and "La mia casa sei tu", but elsewhere feel jarring and throw the listener off.

It's almost impossible to pick out standout tracks, aside from the hugely successful single "Pigro" ("Quello che la gente dice adesso non mi piace…"); "Nuages sulle note", on the other hand, is a lounge-lizard cover of Belgian guitarist Django Reinhardt, with a structure (and soporific pace) identical to its twin "Sofia sulle note", dedicated to his other young daughter.

The lucky charm "Tango della buena suerte" cheers on Diego Maradona, suddenly hospitalized in a Buenos Aires clinic after falling ill, while "Isola Grande" ("Non c'è niente di più noioso, nostalgico e di sinistra") salutes Commander Che Guevara ("se ci fosse Ernesto lui sì che saprebbe cosa fare"). "Deja Vu" and "La mia casa sei tu" go back to old habits, while "Bella da vivere" (with its little Dire Straits-style guitar) and "La nostra estate insieme" (with its soft 60s nightclub lighting) fail to show up.

In short, it's his most ambitious and least direct project, but it shouldn't be dismissed; some would like to pin him to his past, but the musician keeps shedding his skin in search of fresh stimuli.

The follow-up, Iguana Cafè – Latin blues e melodie from 2005, finds precious few of those in its half hour, and despite the subtitle, the blues is scarce here too, fading into mambo piano-bar japes ("Narcisista in azione", "Maria" and the Perez Prado cover "Patricia"). As for melodies, though, when he wants to he can still pull unmatched ones out of his hat: see the smooth bossa nova of "Pensando amor" and the triptych "Serenata a fronn'e limone" (recalling the folk leanings of his early days), "Promesse da marinaio" and "Voci sospese" (bolstered by Amit's string quartet), all of which, like the instrumental "Marì", last little more than a minute.

The single "It's Now Or Never" is a pale rehash of "O sole mio" in its Presley version, which nonetheless manages to grab a decent amount of radio play alongside the soft "Occhi che sanno parlare"; "Melody", "Indifferentemente un ricordo" and "Ma che tempo che fa" are forgettable filler, the latter declaring "se nelle cose metti anima trovi più soddisfazione" ["if you put soul into things, you find more satisfaction"] — exactly what had been missing for far too long.

And so, at last, on 14 May, during the Naples leg of the Iguana Cafè Tour, James Senese and Tony Esposito are called back into service for an enticing nostalgia-tinged evening that reunites them on stage after a full 25 years. It's also the occasion to talk about a new album, Il mio nome è Pino Daniele e vivo qui, released two years later (2007), which takes shape as a kind of journey back home: Tony Esposito returns to his old post on percussion, though on sax, instead of Senese (who opts out), there's American Bob Sheppard, a former session player for Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell and Peter Erskine (the latter also now a fixture on drums). Joining them are many other musicians held in high esteem by Pino Daniele: regulars Dave Carpenter on double bass and Alfredino Paixão, Gianluca Podio on piano, Corrado Ferrari on tammorra, and Mariano Barba. "Collaborations help me engage in dialogue — when you play with musicians better than you, you learn about life."

Giorgia lends her splendid voice to the lovelorn "Vento di passione" and "Il giorno e la notte", both of which have everything needed to impress; the real news, though, is that the band is back to playing properly: the single "Back Home" promises Santana-style guitar fireworks, "Rhum And Coca" manages not to overdo the Caribbean caricatures, and "Mardi Gras" (sung by Paixão) builds pleasant tropicalisms à la Jorge Ben. "Passo napoletano" flirts with electronics and "L'africano" with swing, while the almost chill-out "Ischia sole nascente" is a pleasant surprise: altogether a varied, unpretentious offering in which the artist can afford the luxury of being himself, and it shows. Indeed, even when imperfect ("Il blues del peccatore" and "Salvami"), the songs remain enjoyable and unfussy.

The album reaches number six on the charts and is taken on tour across Italy, starting in April from Palermo and closing on 29 May 2007 in Rome at the Palalottomatica, where Giorgia and Israeli singer Noa also join him on stage. A year later (16 May 2008), it's time for celebrations: the opera omnia produced by Michele Torpedine, Starting Again from Thirty, is released, celebrating his first thirty years in the business with a special dedication: "This album is dedicated to Troisi: out of discretion I won't speak of the friendship and affection that bound us. But working on this project I realised that when he passed away, a part of me went with him. Fighting windmills alone has been harder." The triple CD gathers the most intense moments of his long journey, forty-one landmark tracks, about half of them rearranged with the help of the Nero a metà band (Marangolo, Vitolo and De Rienzo) and the legendary Supergruppo in full lineup (De Piscopo, Senese, Esposito, Zurzolo, Amoruso), all together passionately in the same recording studio in Rome, plus a string of other musicians who accompanied him during that period — too many to list, though the names of Al Di Meola, Noa and Chiara Civello will suffice.

Among the batch are four very fine new tracks, "L'ironia di sempre", "'O munn va" (soundtrack to Alessandro Siani's "La seconda volta non si scorda mai"), "Anema e core" and "Acqua 'e rose", ranging between blues and Sade-style jazz-pop. The reunited dream team then gets a taste for it, and on 8 July lights up Piazza del Plebiscito once again, this time joined also by Giorgia, Irene Grandi, Avion Travel, Gigi D'Alessio and Nino D'Angelo. Yet it isn't quite the same, not so much through any fault of theirs, but perhaps because it was precisely the excess of collaborations that, over the years, had diluted the essence of the Neapolitan sound and the sense of mission behind Pino Daniele's music — though in 2009 he silences all doubters and returns in fine form.

Electric Jam is a well-crafted hard-blues mini-album that will delight fans of "Sesso e chitarra elettrica": the sound is powerful and crisp again across all six tracks (including "Il sole dentro di me", an unlikely pairing with J-Ax of Articolo 31; "Dimentica" and "Cuore di pietra" stand out), and the Electric Jam European Tour, which wraps up triumphantly in September in Capri, is capped off with a night at New York's Apollo Theatre (where Pino Daniele performs for the first time), followed three days later by a repeat show in Toronto.

The 2010s: from the great dream to his passing

A few months later, on 26 June 2010, Pino Daniele is among the headliners of the Crossroads Guitar Festival, the charity event organized by Eric Clapton at Toyota Park in Chicago. The Neapolitan joins Joe Bonamassa for a set with Robert Randolph And The Family Band on an afternoon that is, needless to say, stratospheric: kick-off at half past noon under a blazing sun with "I Don't Know Much About Love", followed by a reworked version of Freddie King's "Goin' Down".

Boogie Boogie Man, released on 23 November 2010 (originally planned as "Acoustic Jam", conceived as a natural follow-up to the previous EP), contains twelve tracks, most of them remakes of older songs. This time the duet with J-Ax, "Siente fa accussì", disappoints, as does the much-anticipated one with Mina, "Napul'è", warped by an electric makeover that instead seems to revitalize "Che Dio ti benedica" and "Io per lei", both more seductive than their original versions. "Je so' pazzo" with Mario Biondi also falls flat, while "Chi tene o' mare" (featuring Franco Battiato with verses in Sicilian) stirs moderate interest, and above all the new tracks "It's A Beautiful Day" and "Boogie Boogie Man", done in Allman Brothers style.

Meanwhile, the live dimension — always his natural habitat — continues at a frantic pace, and in life, one hopes, it's never too late to realize one's dreams: so too for Pino Daniele, who at a literal 56 years of age finally gets his well-deserved moment: on 24 June 2011, exactly one year after their first meeting backstage at the Crossroads Festival, he performs a concert together with Eric Clapton in Cava de' Tirreni, in a completely packed "Simonetta Lamberti" stadium. "It's like a racing driver getting to drive with Schumacher," Pino Daniele says of the evening, which coincides with a fundraiser for the Oncology ward of Naples' Pausillipon Hospital. The sixteen thousand in attendance witness a show they'll hardly forget: it opens with "Boogie Boogie Man" and the inevitable "Napule è", before making way for Mr. Slowhand's most requested numbers, "Cocaine", "Wonderful Tonight" and the masterpiece "Layla", sung as a duet to close the night.

The show with Clapton is the seal on a once-in-a-lifetime career which, thirty-five years on from Terra mia, is enriched in 2012 by a new (and, as it turns out, final) chapter titled La grande madre. This too isn't the easiest listen, but it's a price gladly paid for the freedom of expression won through his independent label Blue Drag, after he had decided, waking up the morning after the concert with Clapton, to set the major labels aside so he could write without obligations or pressure. New experiments, dubbed mèlo-rock, blend music and spoken-word recital in the opening "Melodramma", and hit the mark with the pop-blues of "Niente è come prima" and the delicate, piano-and-voice-only "Due scarpe" — two of the album's most convincing tracks.

The title track aims for the unreachable heights of the 70s and 80s with quick Clapton-esque guitar runs, even more evident in the cover of "Wonderful Tonight" and the instrumental "The Lady Of My Heart". "Searching For the Water Of Life" (entirely in English, lyrics by Kathleen Hagen) was written for a Save The Children campaign against child mortality, while "Coffee Time" and "'O fra" venture instead into improvised jam sessions.

Finally, there's the touching "I Still Love You" for voice and guitar, along with "Piedi nudi" and "Il primo giorno di primavera", promoted in March with a lengthy tour that, after Italy's major cities, crosses the ocean bound for New York, Boston and Washington.

In March 2013 he performed "Caruso" during the tribute concert held in honour of Lucio Dalla a year after his death, and then on 10 July the ever-reliable Pino took the stage at the Foro Italico for "Sinfonico", in which he reinterpreted his most important compositions in symphonic form, backed by the 50-piece Orchestra Roma Sinfonietta, once again conducted by Gianluca Podio. Between December and January 2014, the Palapartenope hosted "Napul'è-Tutta n'ata storia", five evenings centred on Neapolitan progressive rock, illustrated by its historic figures alongside younger players retracing their footsteps. Meanwhile, after nearly twenty years of marriage, his union with Fabiola Sciabbarrasi, already strained for some time, broke down for good because of another woman, Amanda Bonini, for whom the singer-songwriter fell head over heels. Once the divorce was finalised, Pino Daniele moved with his new partner to Tuscany, where he regrouped his ideas ahead of his upcoming commitments.

On 1 September 2014, Nero a metà was performed in full at the Arena di Verona with the former superband reunited in its entirety: James Senese on sax, Gigi De Rienzo on bass, Agostino Marangolo on drums, Ernesto Vitolo on piano and keyboards, Rosario Jermano on percussion and Tony Cercola on bongos, while Emma, Elisa, Mario Biondi, Fiorella Mannoia and Francesco Renga took turns on stage. The audience's standing ovation and the positive reviews convinced Pino Daniele to expand the project, which in December grew into a mini-tour of arenas in Conegliano, Bari, Rome, Naples and Assago (the last of which was released as the double live album Nero a metà live – Il Concerto- Milano 22 dicembre 2014, featuring the previously unreleased "Abusivo", nothing more than a modernised version of "O' posteggiatore", included back in '76 on the cassette tape handed to Poggi from which it all began). Finally, on New Year's Eve 2014 he took part in the traditional Rai Uno broadcast "L'Anno che verrà", live from Courmayeur, where he sang "Dubbi non ho" in what remains, to this day, his very last public appearance.

On the evening of 4 January 2015, Pino Daniele suffered a heart attack at his home in Orbetello and was rushed in desperate condition to the Sant'Eugenio Hospital in Rome, where, after failed attempts at resuscitation, he was pronounced dead at 10:45 pm from "cardiogenic shock". A sudden, tragic and painful loss, under circumstances that have never been fully clarified and still carry a shadow of suspicion today. Was it really his own decision to travel all the way to Rome without seeking help from local facilities? According to his last partner, Amanda Bonini, yes, while his ex-wife Fabiola Sciabbarrasi and the Daniele family's consulting doctor categorically rule out that the singer could have had the clarity of mind to make any kind of decision — indeed, it might have sufficed to take an ambulance to nearby Grosseto.

In any case, Pino Daniele's death undoubtedly took away one of the most important musicians of all time and a rare, pure, crystalline talent, as well as a man of reserved and gentle character — perhaps precisely for that reason always able to overwhelm with his voice and move audiences with his guitar, or, who knows, the other way round.

The news quickly spread around the world, provoking strong reactions, as was to be expected, especially in his native Naples, where on the evening of 6 January a crowd of a hundred thousand people poured into Piazza del Plebiscito singing those songs — his songs — which for almost half a century had given lustre to, enriched and made more beautiful the journey of a people and the history of a city.

The funeral took place in two separate moments: on the morning of 7 January at the Santuario della Madonna del Divino Amore in Rome, and in the evening in Naples at Piazza del Plebiscito, with an open-air service officiated by Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, while the urn containing the artist's ashes remained on display from 12 to 22 January in the Sala dei Baroni of the Maschio Angioino in Naples, allowing his native city to pay him tribute (it was later transferred and interred in the cemetery of Magliano, in Tuscany).

Amid the flurry of commemorative initiatives that followed his death, "Napule è" briefly became the official anthem of Napoli football club at the wish of its current president Aurelio De Laurentiis, while the city of Naples later named a street after him near his childhood home, in what had in the meantime become known as Vico di Donnalbina. "This is where Pino's story was born," recalls his friend De Piscopo, "on this street began the notes of someone who was without doubt one of the most important figures in Neapolitan culture." "I can think of few artists as beloved as him," concludes Tony Esposito, "his memory will stay alive, and his music will accompany each of us for our whole lives."

On 14 May 2018, more than three years after his death, the previously unreleased track "Resta quel che resta" was published, recorded by the singer-songwriter in 2009 but only recently rediscovered (his last official recording, instead, is "Da che parte stai", a duet with Clementino, featured on the Nola-born rapper's 2015 album "Miracolo!"). Finally, in 2019, during the second evening of the 69th Sanremo Festival, his two daughters Sara and Cristina received a lifetime achievement and memorial award presented by Claudio Bisio, while in October it was Poste Italiane's turn to honour the late bluesman with a stamp issued in five different colours. At the Museo Della Pace – MAMT, located at via Depretis no. 130 in Naples, visitors can also see a permanent exhibition called "Pino Daniele Alive", which, thanks to an agreement with the Pino Daniele Trust Onlus, offers free admission to its spaces.

(Photo in box by Antonio Siringo)

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