In the shadow of giants

During the golden age of Italian singer-songwriters (the '70s–'80s), in the shadow of first-rate stars, a generation of songwriters grew up who remained – more or less – under the radar. Some had their own moment of glory, climbing the charts or turning out at least one hit; others are barely remembered by name today. All of them deserved a better fate than the one a cruel destiny reserved for them: finding themselves competing with the most extraordinary and unmatched generation of singer-songwriters in Italian music history.

Former bassist of Stormy Six – whom he left over a militant turn he didn't share – raised between philosophy studies and Milan's underground scene revolving around the magazine Il Re Nudo and the Festival del proletariato giovanile, Claudio Rocchi is a noble spirit, drawn to mystical and distant worlds. A fish out of water, then, in the Italy of the Years of Lead. Signed by Ariston, who saw in him a new Lucio Battisti, he proved to be an incurable anti-star, stubbornly pursuing his own artistic path, which culminated in "Magic Flight No. 1" (1971), where his melancholy poetic streak merges with a sincere love for Eastern music. "La realtà non esiste" is a bewitching pantheistic hymn: a delicate acoustic piece where piano and dreamy vocals underline how divinity also dwells within its own creation, and how the perception of things is often stronger than reality itself. A hymn to human sensibility, intoned like a mantra. For a brief time it will even manage to win over the public, propelling the LP into the Italian Top 5. Then oblivion will set in, punctuated by periodic tributes of esteem from fellow musicians, among them Franco Battiato, who will craft for Alice a splendid cover of this very song.

Alberto Camerini – Macondo

Playing guitar on “Magic Flight No. 1” was none other than the future “Rock’n’roll robot” himself, the harlequin of Italian music, who, despite a stretch of popularity thanks precisely to that famous 80s hit – followed up by “Tanz bambolina” – would eventually fade progressively out of the spotlight. And yet, Alberto Camerini also boasts a remarkable solo output, which revealed him to be an eclectic figure, capable, through his eternal Carnival persona, of unmasking the contradictions and empty simulacra of Italian society. Listening to his songs, we can almost see them running about, the many puppets that populate this hyper-reality: “La gente, gli sconvolti, i danzatori, i maghi, i clown, gli scocciatori, i parlatori, i politici, i filosofi, i poeti, i giocatori”, as he sings in this bizarre “Macondo”, released in 1978. In other words, a way of experimenting and debunking through curiosity, irony and madness.

Donatella Bardi – No (Donatella)

Also on the aforementioned record by Rocchi, a female voice made its appearance: it belonged to this other great outsider of Italian song, who unfortunately left us far too young, at 45, in 1999, due to coronary failure. Daughter of the painter Mario Bardi and sister of guitarist Lucio Bardi, born in Turin but adopted by Milan, Donatella would go on to work with Rocchi on four more albums, before her stints with Alberto Camerini and Eugenio Finardi in Il Pacco, and with Demetrio Stratos and Paolo Tofani of Area. In 1974 she recorded this album for Elektra, “A’ Puddara è un vulcano”, with her brother Lucio on guitar. With her limpid voice and lyrics as committed as they were naive, she forged a kind of trait d’union between the hippie culture of the 70s and later indie generations, taking refuge in a cloud of utopian lightness right in the midst of the leaden "anni di piombo" years. This “No (Donatella)” offers a taste of her talent, steeping the theme of generational conflict in an unsettling psychedelic mood. Trivia: another Donatella (Rettore, herself one of the first Italian female singer-songwriters) would use that same name in a song in 1981, achieving rather more success with it.

Flavio Giurato – Orbetello

Among the "cult" outsiders of Italian song, a place of honor belongs to this Roman singer-songwriter, son of a Consul General in Uruguay (and brother of TV journalist Luca). After his LP debut with “Per futili motivi”, a concept album about the story of a boy during the fascist era, it was with his next record, “Il tuffatore” (1982) that, also thanks to the TV support of the far-sighted “Mister Fantasy” hosted by Carlo Massarini, he managed to achieve a fraction of the success he deserved throughout his career. Flavio Giurato's songs shun the traditional verse-verse-bridge-chorus structure, freely following the narrative instead, while the sonic atmospheres blend acoustic and instrumental passages with catchy melodies, like the one in this delicate “Orbetello”, at the heart of his new concept – a love story born during a tennis tournament (“Tu sei nel mio cuore dal torneo di Orbetello/quando è libecciato e non si è giocato”), interwoven with reflections on youth in those years and ironic touches. Adding extra shine to the track are prog-style horn flourishes and, above all, the piano of jazz musician Toto Torquati, who drives a pulsing, relentless rhythm. An absolute tour de force, followed by the even more ambitious album “Marco Polo” (1984).

Stefano Testa – Il dio sulla ferrovia

Recently "dusted off" by the praiseworthy label Snowdonia, which with “The Silence of the World” (2012) introduced him to indie audiences after years of oblivion, Stefano Testa (born 1949, a Roman who lived for a long time in Porretta Terme, near Bologna) can boast above all a cult 1977 record, “Una vita, una balena bianca e altre cose”, whose orchestrations aren't far removed from the contemporaneous “L’Eliogabalo” by the Sicilian singer-songwriter/actor Emilio Locurcio. Well-structured musically and steeped in the contradictions of the movement during the 1976-77 biennium, torn between political militancy and personal experience, the record is also dense with literary references, from Cesare Pavese (“Una vita”) to Herman Melville (“La ballata di Achab”), all the way to the introspective world of Jorge Luis Borges in this splendid “Il Dio sulla ferrovia”, laced with subtle prog undertones, with Testa's deep, intense voice painting a song not far from the lyrical heights of Claudio Lolli's “I've Also Seen Happy Gypsies”.

Gianni Nebbiosi – And Then Someone Said

A former saxophonist with Canzoniere del Lazio, Rome's Gianni Nebbiosi chose over music a respected career as a psychoanalyst. It was Francesco De Gregori who rescued him from obscurity in 2018, dusting off one of his 1973 songs, “Che razza de città”, dedicated to the (eternal) problems of the Eternal City, and reviving it on tour. Back then, Nebbiosi was a young folksinger spurred on by his encounter with Giovanna Marini and by a militant ideology, applied to the grim reality of psychiatric asylums. He devoted a mini-LP to the subject, “E ti chiamaron matta”, in 1972, marked by a spartan, stark folk sound in the tradition of Dischi del Sole: just voice and guitar, with occasional touches of piano, organ or clarinet (all played by Nebbiosi himself). Giovanna Marini backs him on second voice also on this heart-wrenching, indignant “E qualcuno poi disse”, which tells of a patient's desperate, ultimately futile attempt to return to a normal family life. Nebbiosi would carry on between Il Canzoniere del Lazio and Alberomotore (with Ricky Gianco), before effectively ending his musical career to devote himself to psychoanalysis.

Gianfranco Manfredi – Quarto Oggiaro Story

Born in Senigallia in 1948 but Milanese by adoption, Gianfranco Manfredi soon came into contact with Italy's countercultural scene, taking part in the activities of Il Re Nudo, somewhere between anarchist situationism and rock festivals. After his LP debut with "La crisi" (1972) and a stint as a songwriter for Donatello, he carved out his own niche with the album "Ma non è una malattia" (1976), whose ballads pilloried the language and clichés of the "new left". A particular highlight is the irreverent - and hilarious - "Quarto Oggiaro Story", in which, addressing a supposedly uncommitted friend in the tone of a militant, he pokes fun at proletarian expropriations (“Davanti al supermarket saccheggiato/ avevi in tasca una scatola di tonno dello Wyoming/ si vede che la tua coscienza politica era scarsa”), cinematic idols ("il Bertolucci… la Cavani S. Francesco e i sette nani… Scapponsanfan' dei fratelli Taviani") and literary must-reads ("io ci ho qua il Kerouac, ci ho qua il Garcia Marquez ci ho qua il teatro di Fo… E tu te legge Agata Criste co' Totonno poro criste"). The contrast is made even more comic by the abrupt musical shift from psych-funk atmospheres to a village-fair tarantella. A wild, thoroughly entertaining track.

Daniele Pace – Piccerè

But when it comes to caustic, irreverent wit, no one can compete with Daniele Pace, best known as a member and founder of Squallor. Of Apulian descent but born in Milan, the "Italian Serge Gainsbourg" - as he was nicknamed for his unmistakable rolled r's delivered in a cavernous voice - was also, and above all, a formidable songwriter, working behind the scenes of Italian pop music, from "Nessuno mi può giudicare" for Caterina Caselli to "E la luna bussò" for Loredana Bertè. In 1979, during a break from Squallor, he recorded this solo record, "Vitamina C", which went almost unnoticed except for the 7-inch "Che t'aggia fa" (known as the theme tune of the TV show "La sberla"). The song we've picked out, however, is the poignant "Piccerè", driven by a steady piano and Pace's sensual whisper, delivered in his unmistakable Neapolitan dialect. It was rescued from obscurity above all thanks to director Pietro Marcello, who used it in a stunning sequence of his film "Martin Eden", set in a timeless, bygone Naples.

Tito Schipa jr. – Sono passati i giorni

Another legendary outsider of Italian song, the son of the celebrated tenor Tito Schipa was born in Portugal and grew up between the United States and Paris, before moving to Rome, where he fell in with the beat scene. In 1966 he became the host of evenings at the Piper club, where he debuted with a beat opera, "Then an Alley", based on Bob Dylan songs arranged as rock opera. Taken with the formula, he would return to it several times, starting with "Orfeo 9", one of the first Italian rock operas, which spawned both a record and a film. His debut as a singer-songwriter came in 1971 with the release of this single, "Sono passati i giorni". More than a song, it's a kind of "meta-song" reflecting on the genesis and the forgetting of an old, forgotten tune - a metaphor of sorts for the passage of time, built on swelling music, onomatopoeic sounds (from the car engine to the cassette sliding into the car stereo), vivid, imaginative lyrics, and an intense performance by Schipa, who would go on to divide his career between music, filmmaking and teaching dramaturgy.

Mario Panseri – Sulla spiaggia d'inverno

Born in Rome, the nephew of jazz trumpeter Nunzio Rotondo, Mario Panseri soon moved to Liguria, first to Vado Ligure and then to Cairo Montenotte. He was signed by Rca, but after a self-titled debut LP, arranged by Gian Piero Reverberi, and the follow-up "Adolescenza", inspired by Alberto Moravia's novel "Agostino" and produced by Vincenzo Micocci, he moved to Polydor, for whom he recorded this third LP, "Sulla spiaggia d'inverno", underpinned by Niko Papathanassiou's "synthetic" production and Yorgo Pentzikis's arrangements. The melancholy title track is a heart-melting piano ballad, set on an ideal, metaphysical shore amid seagulls and the distant lapping of waves, in which the full intimate intensity of his lyrics shines through, delivered in a vocal style close to the best of Luigi Tenco. It's not the only gem on a surprising record, which also features more rhythmic, electronic tracks with an irreverent mood not far removed from early Alberto Fortis. At the time, however, it went almost completely unnoticed. Long since retired from the scene, Panseri passed away at just 50 years old, in 1995, of a heart attack.

Gianni D'Errico – Antico teatro da camera

A sad story too is that of Brindisi-born Gianni D'Errico: he died at just 26, hit by a car shortly after finishing the recording of this album, which was released posthumously in 1976. In the few years of his brief career, however, he left behind more than one gem, also collaborating with Caterina Caselli, Patty Pravo and Maurizio Vandelli (Equipe 84), who produced this debut album of his, firmly rooted in prog, with a Battisti-esque aura hanging over it, and metaphysical, visionary lyrics that nonetheless touch on themes uncomfortable for the era, from homosexuality to reincarnation and suicide. Pressed in a limited run, it is now considered one of the rarest Italian singer-songwriter vinyl records. The intense title track, with its blazing, sinister instrumental coda, is its most precious distillation.

Stefano Rosso – Letto 26

Shaped by nightclubs and taverns, Rome's Stefano Rossi didn't put much effort into cooking up a stage name, simply swapping out the last letter of his surname. In return, he churned out (an apt verb, given his past as a baker's boy) a handful of thoroughly enjoyable songs, including the famous "Una storia disonesta", which slyly legitimized the joint in the fiercely anti-drug – yet still post-1968 – Italy of the time. With his rolled r's, conversational tone, and sound poised between American folk-country and Roman popular song, he showcased delicate melodies and refined fingerpicking arpeggios. Like when he told, in his own way, the story of his hospital stay on "Letto 26" for a tonsillectomy – a pretext for a poetic, melancholy glimpse into his life in Trastevere, on the epic Via della Scala, seasoned with his trademark (self-)irony.

Goran Kuzminac – Stasera l'aria è fresca

Speaking of fingerpicking, equally polished and elegant is that of Goran Kuzminac, a singer-songwriter of Serbian origin who grew up in Trentino, where he moved with his family at the age of 6. Spotted by Francesco De Gregori, he was recommended to Vincenzo Micocci, then artistic director at RCA, and went on to work as an opening act on tours by Angelo Branduardi, Lucio Dalla and Antonello Venditti. Well-deserved success came in 1978 with this single, "Stasera l'aria è fresca", a brilliant folk-country number that showed off all his compositional flair and guitar technique: it also won the Castrocaro Festival and served as a launchpad for his debut LP "Ehi ci stai", from which the title-track single (with lyrics by Gianfranco Baldazzi) was drawn, going on to place second at Festivalbar. Fun fact: the song's addressee was his friend, singer-songwriter Grazia Di Michele, with whom the good-natured Goran was (unrequitedly) in love. A brief spell of popularity followed, complete with a tour alongside Ron and Ivan Graziani and the accompanying "Q concert", featuring three of their songs. He left us in 2018, quietly, as always.

Grazia Di Michele – Le ragazze di Gauguin

And here she is, then, the singer-songwriter who was the object of Kuzminac's affection, the ethereal Grazia Di Michele. She was one of the very first women in Italy to earn that title, starting with her debut LP "Cliché" (1978). To find female role models in the singer-songwriter tradition, you had to look beyond our borders – Emmylou Harris, Joan Baez, Carole King, Joni Mitchell. And it's the latter, in particular, who serves as a touchstone for Grazia, an original guitar-wielding songwriter who managed to emerge from the (Italian too) synth binge with evocative lyrics and classy performances. Just like the one with which she cast a spell over everyone in 1986, with the elegant, intimate style of "Le ragazze di Gauguin", the title track of her most successful LP. After that, she would resurface only sporadically, with mixed fortunes, overtaken by newer styles – including from other women – that were far more aggressive.

Rossana Casale – La via dei misteri

It was actually alongside Grazia Di Michele that this other refined homegrown chanteuse would share a Sanremo appearance, taking third place with the duet "Gli amori diversi" (1993) – despite being New York-born, she was for a long time relegated to the shadows as "Alberto Fortis's backing singer" (he was also her long-time real-life partner and the author of her first single, "Didin"). Yet once she broke out of her cocoon, blonde Rossana Casale proved her full worth as a refined songwriter and performer, shaped by American jazz – especially on this 1986 album, "La via dei misteri", a delicate treasure chest of intimate reflections enhanced by her elegant performances and Maurizio Fabrizio's polished arrangements. Take this velvety title track, part bossa nova, part jazz-pop by way of a night-club. Very few women in Italy would follow in her footsteps, among them the equally talented Chiara Civello.

Gino D'Eliso – Il mare

Nicknamed the "sovereign of Mitteleuropean rock" (after his 1980 track "Mitteleurock"), the Trieste-born singer-songwriter has, in truth, always remained a brilliant outsider. Fascinated by the multifaceted work of David Bowie, and after a stint as a DJ at Radio Capodistria, he made his debut in 1976 with the album "Il mare", which also earned him an award as best newcomer lyricist. Produced by Battisti's label Numero Uno, the record sits in that interstice between prog and the singer-songwriter tradition typical of the era, featuring some of the scene's finest musicians, such as Claudio Pascoli and Paolo Donnarumma. The six minutes of the title track still betray a progressive imprint, with vintage synthesizers, psych undertones and a pastoral flute reminiscent of Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. D'Eliso would later veer towards electropop and new wave shores, showing a versatility worthy of his idol Bowie.

Garbo – A Berlino... va bene

Speaking of Bowie, it would take a long time for good old Renato Abate, known by the stage name Garbo, to shake off the label of the "Italian Bowie," due to his clear ties to the approach of the Thin White Duke, especially the Berlin-era Bowie, forefather of so much new wave to come. But it would be unfair to overlook the distinctive personality of his style. As in this "A Berlino... va bene," with which, in 1981, he manages to forge a new style that – as Marco Bercella recalls on OR – pulls off the small miracle of making troubled existentialism coexist with radio-friendly appeal, jukebox and the mists of the Po Valley, truly becoming that taut thread later picked up by Matia Bazar with "Tango" and, several years later, by the new electric wave that, with Subsonica and Bluvertigo, reclaimed the charts in the second half of the '90s, but also, more recently, by Francesco Bianconi and his Baustelle.

Faust'O – Godi

Among the disciples of the Bowie-esque gospel of the wave variety we must also count Fausto Rossi from Friuli, known by the stage name Faust'O, an eternally borderline figure, irreverent and indignant. What briefly brought him up from the underground was above all his 1978 debut LP, provocatively titled "Suicide." From the cover alone, the reference to the body language of Bowie's Berlin trilogy is unmistakable. But Rossi decides to pull off the paradox of singing in Italian. And he does so on a concept album, the quintessential expressive vehicle of prog, with a hand from the ever-present Alberto Radius. His music is a cry against rampant conformism, with arrangements poised between unpredictable, violent art-rock and more reflective, chamber-like passages, over which progressive-style keyboards are grafted. Yet what drives the record is Fausto's incredible voice: capable of nimbly shifting from falsetto to darker tones, from delivering sweet-sounding words to hurling accusations and insults within a matter of seconds. As in this mocking "Godi," where the demolition of false myths continues by ridiculing Catholic sexual propriety, on a burlesque level.

Mario Castelnuovo – Sette fili di canapa

A Roman singer-songwriter and guitarist discovered by Amedeo Minghi, who secured him a contract with It, Vincenzo Micocci's label, Mario Castelnuovo made his debut with the magnetic "Oceania" (1981), followed a year later by this cult track that would also give its title to his first album, produced by Minghi himself. Presented at Sanremo in 1982, "Sette fili di canapa" caused an uproar with lines like "C'erano sette Cristi a Follonica ed un ateo sul Sinai bivaccava e aspettava," but above all because of its reference to hemp. "RAI even threatened to pull the song, they thought it was about drugs, the police showed up at my hotel and I had to explain the meaning of the lyrics line by line," Castelnuovo would later recount. Luckily, Italians were eventually allowed to hear this feat: an obsessive song, with a wave-like shadowiness, its voice hypnotically repeating the lyrics like a mantra, before opening up into a sort of "false chorus." With lyrics full of surreal, evocative and mysterious symbolism. A brief moment of glory would follow, culminating in another fine Sanremo single, "Nina" (1984), and then inescapable obscurity.

Mimmo Locasciulli – Sognadoro

A longtime collaborator of Francesco De Gregori, Abruzzo-born Domenico "Mimmo" Locasciulli, who earned a medical degree in Rome – half doctor, half singer-songwriter – joined the Folkstudio stable in the early '70s. It would take until 1982, however, for him to make a name for himself with the LP "Intorno a trentanni," thanks above all to the generational anthem of its winning title track. Around the same time he played piano and Hammond organ on his friend De Gregori's album "Titanic" (his, for instance, is the memorable piano coda on "La leva calcistica della classe '68"). And it's with the singer-songwriter of "Rimmel" that he worked on this 1983 album, named after this splendid ballad, with a radiant melodic opening, a touching Equipe 84-style falsetto and fine lyrics written by De Gregori. It's true that "Sognadoro" is about "hotels and seedy settings," as Locasciulli would jokingly put it, but it does so with poetic style and unmatched class: it could easily pass for an outtake from "Titanic."

Enzo Carella – Malamore

A mad hatter amid a world of chain-smoking accountants, Enzo Carella remains to this day, 46 years on from his surprising debut titled "Vocation," one of the best-kept gems of a musical Italy that fails to (re)recognize its own treasures. The Carella formula, a pop-rock sound tinged with funk and touches of prog, delivers doses of joyful Dadaism, irresistible nonsense and, in its best moments, a melancholy that never settles for the well-worn clichés of mainstream singer-songwriter fare. His partnership with the poetic genius of Pasquale Panella, later also joined with the legendary white albums of Lucio Battisti, produced 5 albums brimming with overflowing creativity. From his debut LP, "Malamore" stands out boldly, a pop marvel that blends the sinister freshness of Carella's melodies with lyrics devised by Panella that are downright convoluted. Something halfway between Renato Zero and Steely Dan, Gino Vannelli and Lucio Battisti. "Malamore" would enjoy a second youth thanks to the cover version recorded by Colapesce for his 2012 album "A wonderful decline" and to the excellent reworking that Riccardo Sinigallia conceived in 2019 for the soundtrack of the film "The ruthless one."

Pino D'Angiò – Ma quale idea

Also part of the precious – and never sufficiently protected – lineage of Carella is this ineffable artist born in Pompei, real name Giuseppe Chierchia. His name remains tied to his only – but colossal – hit, the 1980 single "Ma quale idea", which topped the charts (even in Spain, where it stayed at number one for 14 weeks in 1981). Beyond its brilliant lyrics – a sort of Fred Buscaglione transplanted into a disco – "Ma quale idea" reveals a style that was extremely modern for Italy at the time, a prototype of rap-inflected singer-songwriter craft halfway between singing and speaking, with sounds somewhere between italo-disco and funk, propelled by a groundbreaking bass riff composed by Pino D'Angiò together with Stefano Cerri, son of the great jazz musician Franco Cerri. An awkward, unmanageable figure for the short-sighted Italian record industry, he found more satisfaction abroad (he's the only Italian featured on the DVD "World Tribute To Funk", the complete funk encyclopedia curated by Sony Music, and he scored huge success with the dance hit "The Age of Love", described as "the first global expression of trance music"). By the time anyone finally remembered him, bringing him back on stage at Sanremo 2024 alongside Bnkr44, it would be too late: long ill, his vocal cords by then destroyed, Pino D'Angiò would pass away four months later.

Luciano Rossi – Se mi lasci non vale

Another delicate and ironic singer-songwriter, this Rome-born artist of Marche origins passed away in 2023 to general indifference. Yet he had his moment of fame, and also wrote songs for various artists, from Little Tony to Ornella Vanoni, from Bobby Solo to Lando Fiorini. Sporting Ray-Bans and a big 70s moustache, Luciano Rossi offered a breezy, melodic style that reached its peak with his only hit under his own name, "Ammazzate oh!" (theme tune of Maurizio Costanzo's radio variety show Quarto programma). But we'd rather remember him for an unexpected collaboration with Julio Iglesias, which brought the Latin heartthrob an international hit that sold eight million copies. Yes, that very "Se mi lasci non vale", with its sinuous disco-funk groove shamelessly echoed by Colapesce e Dimartino in "Musica leggerissima". And if they can get away with borrowing it, so can we...

Marco Ferradini – Weekend

The "Schiavo senza catene" ["Slave Without Chains"] of Italian song had well more than fifteen minutes of fame thanks to the celebrated "Teorema", one of the most beloved (and misunderstood) Italian hits of the 80s. For Lombard artist Marco Ferradini – who had previously played bass for Yu Kung and in his friend Simon Luca's Enorme Maria – there followed tours with Ron and as support act for Lucio Dalla, Mina, Ivan Graziani, Patty Pravo, Giorgio Gaber, Enzo Jannacci and many others, plus a Q-Disc recorded together with Mario Castelnuovo and Goran Kuzminac, produced by Amedeo Minghi. But essentially it all burned out within those two years: his subsequent career (which continues to this day) would go almost entirely unnoticed. Still, the Q-disc – titled precisely "Schiavo senza catene" – which contained his evergreen hit, the fruit of his collaboration with Herbert Pagani, was far from bad, thanks also to tracks like the desperate title track and this poignant "Weekend" (in the mountains... without women, without TV), with its graceful melodic vein and a delicate, romantic lyric in the style of Fabio Concato, in which the name Teresa recurs from his very first single ("Quando Teresa verrà", presented at Sanremo in 1978). Quality Italian pop, the kind that's hard to find on the charts today.

Nino Buonocore – Rosanna

Among the most delicate and melancholic exponents of Italian song, a rightful place also belongs to the Neapolitan singer-songwriter who, with this hushed ballad in 1987, sealed his shift toward softer, less rock-oriented sounds compared to his early work. Presented at Sanremo, "Rosanna" remains one of his few hits, thanks to its refined sound and reflective lyrics that paint feelings in pastel tones. A sonic fabric halfway between traditional Mediterranean singer-songwriter tradition and the jazz Buonocore would increasingly lean toward in the later part of his career, by then far removed from the spotlight. Still, there was no shortage of tributes and marks of esteem: Laura Pausini, for instance, included his "Scrivimi" on her 2006 album "Io canto". Small consolation, you might say – but still better than nothing.

Francesco La Notte – Due vele

Acoustic guitarist on the Bolognese singer-songwriter's landmark 1980 album "Dalla", and later a solo singer-songwriter for the space of a single album ("Due vele", 1983), Francesco La Notte is today practically unknown, to the point that searching his name on Google barely turns up evidence of his existence. And yet that melancholic title track fit perfectly into the era of Concato, Ferradini, Buonocore & co. A piano-driven, singer-songwriter pop in muted tones. A slightly faded souvenir of a more peaceful era, which today sounds a little touching to revisit.

Enzo Maolucci – Immaginata

Among the now-forgotten names of Italian song, there's also this witty Turin professor, who graduated with the first thesis ever written in Italy on a rock music topic ("Beat e Beatles") and seemed destined for an academic rather than a musical future. He nonetheless managed to satisfy his passion for music with a handful of albums. More than his two rock-leaning LPs from the Seventies ("L'industria dell'obbligo" and "Barbari e bar"), what's worth remembering is his third album, "Immaginata", arranged by Aldo Russo, and this moving, ironic ballad that gives the record its title, about which he wrote: "Immaginata is not a female being, but an entire emotional situation ranging from the city to the romantic idea, to idealization; not of a woman, but of this whole strange, inner movement that in the Eighties must strike a normal, sensitive, intelligent person".

Francesco Messina – Marcia di Kioto

Sicilian by birth, Milanese by adoption, but a resident of Friuli for many years now, alongside his partner Alice (for whom he acts as producer and co-writer), Francesco Messina is not only a musician but also a photographer, graphic artist and cover designer. Long part of Franco Battiato's entourage, he debuted in 1983 with "Medio Occidente", its cover graced by a made-up Madonna and made with the help of friends such as Battiato himself, Giusto Pio, Stefano Cerri, Roberto Cacciapaglia and Alberto Radius. A supremely polished blend of minimalist, pop, electronic, world and ambient music, almost a vaporwave ante-litteram, distilled into this atmospheric, rarefied "Marcia di Kyoto", which winks a little at contemporaries like Japan. But the whole album is one of the hidden treasures of Italian music.

Juri Camisasca – Nomadi

Speaking of longtime associates of Franco Battiato, let's also remember this charismatic fellow traveler, whom Battiato met during military service and who remained in the maestro's orbit for years. Juri Camisasca set out with a guitar from the outskirts of Milan and ended up as a hermit on the slopes of Mount Etna, and his music has travelled just as many miles over the years. After a debut marked by acid progressive rock ("The Window Within", 1974), Camisasca's decision to become a monk translated into a series of mystically-toned albums, disguised as an earthy, cathartic electro-pop. Naturally, they all went largely unnoticed. Not everyone knows, however, that he also penned this famous song written for Alice ("Park Hotel", 1986), later also included on Franco Battiato's album "Fisiognomica" (1988) and on "Voce prigioniera" by Giuni Russo (1998). A track with mystical, evocative lyrics, wrapped in an airy, Middle-Eastern-tinged melody. A masterpiece. But it wouldn't be his only gift to Alice, for whom he would write some of his finest songs, largely gathered on her "Sun in the rain" (1989).

Gianmaria Testa – Le traiettorie delle mongolfiere

The debut album by Piedmontese artist Gianmaria Testa, released in France in 1985 and recently reissued, "Montgolfières" showcased the full luminous lightness of this railway stationmaster who had given up his permanent job for his passion for music. A storyteller with a warm, deep, intense voice, moving between jazz, folk and the popular song tradition with his West Coast-style arpeggiated guitar and his chansonnier spirit, following in the noble footsteps of Paolo Conte, Ivano Fossati and Fabrizio De André. This splendid "Le traiettorie delle mongolfiere" is a singer-songwriter folk ballad with guitar arrangements that add a delicately gypsy touch. He would go on to make excellent records, but they'd be noticed more in France than in Italy, where he died of cancer in 2016, at just 57.

Bonus tracks

We open the bonus tracks section – not included in the playlist because they're sadly unavailable on Spotify – with one of the most eccentric "lone wolves" of Italian song. A would-be sailor forced to give up life at sea due to a rheumatic illness, Fanigliulo, from La Spezia, was discovered by Franco Ceccarelli of Equipe 84 and brought into the record industry by the ever-resourceful Caterina Caselli. He even found his way into Roberto Benigni's debut film, directed by Giuseppe Bertolucci, "Berlinguer ti voglio bene", playing the singer of an implausible band (Romeo e Los Gringos). Among the songs performed in those surreal scenes was also this poignant, highly theatrical "Davanti a me", with striking lines such as "Che sarà, la vita mia senza di te? Come quel fiume lì, come quel fiume lì, davanti a me. Correvo giù dai monti verso di te e tu eri lì, e gli occhi tuoi davanti a me". It was above all the 1979 Sanremo Festival that revealed his flamboyant talents to Italians, where he showed up with the provocative "A me mi piace vivere alla grande", a sort of scruffier "Vita spericolata" ante-litteram. He went on to collaborate with Vasco Rossi as well as Zucchero, but just as his talent was finally starting to reap its due rewards, he was struck down by a brain hemorrhage in 1989, at only 44.

Roberta D'Angelo – Cinecittà

Born in Marsala but adopted by Rome, D’Angelo is another ante-litteram singer-songwriter in a country that still didn't quite know what to make of her — indeed, she and her peers were dubbed “Le cantautori” (the feminine, grammatically 'wrong' form of “the singer-songwriters”, title of a 1975 project in which Roberta took part alongside Silvia Draghi, Nicoletta Bauce and the duo Simo e Susi). After a first, semi-clandestine self-titled LP and a stint paying her dues as a support act on tours with Baglioni, Venditti and De Gregori, in 1978 she released “…Abitare a Cinecittà”, which also features a track co-written with Serena Dandini (“Racconto”), but above all this delightfully witty “Cinecittà”, where, with a mocking and subtly ferocious tone, she reclaims the everyday mix of chaos and boredom of one of Rome's outlying districts, with lines like “Cinecittà, non c’è niente di divertente da fare se non stare ad aspettare… Abitare a piazza Navona è una questione di atmosfera…/ Abitare a Cinecittà invece è una questione di… fedeltà”.

Alberto Gaviglio – Qualcosa resterà

La Locanda delle Fate is one of the last bastions of so-called “spaghetti prog”. Hailing from the Asti area, the band split up in 1980 after recording a single album, the romantic “Forse le lucciole non si amano più”, considered something of a swan song for Italian progressive rock. Flute, guitar and vocals, as well as the author of many of the band's lyrics, Alberto Gaviglio would go on to attempt a solo career with little success, releasing this delicate single in 1981, in which the melancholy guitar arpeggios almost seem to evoke the gentle weeping of Harrison-esque memory. Gaviglio was an architect and taught for years at the Benedetto Alfieri art institute. He passed away in 2021 after a long illness.

Il Caso Bambati – Viva

Another glorious (and mysterious) shooting star of the 1980s, Marco Bambati, known to friends as Il Caso Bambati, managed to win the backing of the invaluable Carlo Massarini aka Mister Fantasy (who also introduces him in this video) as well as a few radio stations, carving out a niche following that perhaps still remembers him today. The credit goes to this splendid “Viva”, poised between synth-pop and italo-disco, with a great pulsing bassline and a contagious falsetto refrain reminiscent of an ante-litteram “Strange World” by Ke. A decisive contribution came from Ignazio Polizzy Carbonelli, pianist and singer with I Romans, and uncle of actor Riccardo, who handled the arrangements and co-wrote the track with Massimiliano Orfei and Ugo Ferrero. It was released on a major label, Rca, but never got the support it deserved.

Andrea Tich – Masturbati

We close out this roundup with another glorious craftsman and free spirit of Italian song. A talent left confined to the underground because he was constantly out of step with the times, with every possible hype; a “lone wolf” with a heart on fire, a keen observer of reality and everyday life, of the small things he knew how to bring out through singular, engaging songwriting. His debut album, “Masturbati” (1978), was produced by Claudio Rocchi and released by the legendary Cramps label. The title track is formidable, in which the singer-songwriter from Augusta — based in Milan — openly winks at sexual themes that were taboo at the time, yet never lapses into vulgarity, adopting the tone of a psych-folk nursery-rhyme minstrel, in a territory suspended between Syd Barrett and Frank Zappa. It would be the ever-reliable Snowdonia label that brought Andrea Tich back into the spotlight more than thirty years later, releasing his “We Were Born Vegetables” (2010).

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

04/02/2026