EugenioFinardi

The son of an Italian sound engineer and an American singer, Eugenio Finardi was born in Milan on the 16th of July, 1952. His first official release was the 1961 single "Palloncino Rosso Rosso," a song for children followed one year later by the contributions to a couple of similar compilations. In 1965, while on holiday in the U.K., he first listened to the Rolling Stones, and as soon as he returned home he asked his parents to buy him an electric guitar. Some years later he would join with guitarist Alberto Camerini to form the Dreaming Bus Blues Band, who would later change their name to Il Pacco, under whose moniker they would take part in the 1973 Re Nudo Festival in Zerbo. In the same year Finardi also released the single "Hard Rock Honey." Following the suggestion of Area’s singer, Demetrio Stratos, he signed with Cramps, and in 1975 released Non Gettate Alcun Oggetto dal Finestrino, an interesting blend of rock and political awareness. Released in 1976, Sugo revealed considerable artistic growth, especially in the lyrics of songs such as "Musica Ribelle," one of the record’s leading tracks, along with "La Radio." Albums such as 1977’s Diesel and 1978’s Blitz confirmed his status as one of the most incisive voices expressing the social frictions of those years. The latter included "Extraterrestre," one of his most successful tracks.

Released in 1979, Roccando Rollando closed the political chapter of Finardi’s career. Its follow-up, Finardi, was a more personal affair (its English version, Secret Streets, was released one year later), while 1983’s Dal Blu was a collection of lush electronic ballads, such as "Amore Diverso" and "Le Ragazze di Osaka." The live album Strade followed in 1984. In 1985 Finardi took part in the Sanremo Music Festival with "Vorrei Svegliarti," included in Colpi di Fulmine. A period of time spent in the States inspired 1987’s Dolce Italia, followed two years later by the interesting Il Vento di Elora. Released in 1990, La Forza dell’Amore collected new recordings of old hits (the only new song, its title track, became a big success), while 1991’s Millennio saw Finardi once again interested in sociopolitical themes and 1993’s Acustica was an unplugged live album. Occhi, issued in 1996, included an Italian cover version of Joan Osborne’s "One of Us," while 1998’s Accadueo (recorded with Vinnie Colaiuta on drums) included the single "Amami Lara," dedicated to the main character of the video game Tomb Raider. A collection of rare and unreleased tracks, La Forza dell’Amore, Vol. 2, was released in 2000, and the following year’s O Fado, recorded and released with Francesco DiGiacomo and Marco Poeta, found Finardi plunging into the Portuguese music tradition. The anthology Cinquantanni (2002, including new versions of old classics) was followed by 2003’s Il Silenzio e lo Spirito and 2005’s Anima Blues, the latter completely in English. Un Uomo, a four-CD set including both previously released and unreleased songs, was released in 2007. ~ Aurelio Pasini, Rovi

　　Thanks to his friendship with the band Area and their singer Demetrio Stratos, in 1974 Finardi signed with the label Cramps, run by Gianni Sassi. 1975 saw the release of his first album Non Gettate Alcun Oggetto Dal Finestrino. The album was a mixture of the style of Italian singer-songwriters and Rock’n’Roll. Camerini on guitar, Lucio Fabbri on violin, Walter Calloni on drums were among the musicians who played on the record, which included a Rock version of traditional Italian protest folk-song Saluteremo Il Signor Padrone, and original songs by Finardi - one, Taking It Easy, in English - with social commentary about metropolitan alienation, against the compulsory national service in the Italian army, and political prisoners. The album was influenced by both Prog-Rock, which was extremely popular in Italy, and Hippie idealism. Finardi became known from playing at Milan’s alternative Festival in Parco Lambro in 1976, introducing a Rock sound to the Italian genre of singer-songwriters who were often politically involved, and mostly somewhat derivative of Folk Rock, the early protest songs of Bob Dylan, and of the American West-Coast music of artists like Neil Young. Finardi looked to the more electric and up-tempo sound of Rock&Roll and The Rolling Stones, and his sound was also often influenced by Jazz Rock fusion, thanks to Area members Patrizio Fariselli and Ares Tavolazzi, and bass-player Hugh Bullen.

　　Finardi’s sound and style became a success in 1976, with his second album Sugo, and his third Diesel in 1977. The first included the counter-cultural youth anthem Musica Ribelle, and the hymn to pirate radio-stations La Radio; the second the love ballad Non e’ Nel Cuore, which were all released as singles. Finardi, who had started performing live often on his own with an acoustic guitar and sitting down, was now touring with a four or five-piece Rock band. His introduction of Rock’n’Roll in the genre of socially and politically aware Italian singer-songwriters was what made Finardi stand out and endeared him to the counter-cultural youth of late 1970s Italy, which in 1976-78 was in the midst of political upheaval and almost civil war, with the occupations of factories, universities and high-schools, demonstrations which ended in pitched battles with the police - often with fatal casualties - and the rise of political movements like Autonomia, the Indiani Metropolitani and terrorist groups like the Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse). This eventful period of Italian contemporary history is known as the Anni di piombo (Years Of Lead)and also as the era of the Movimento ’77, the youth movement for which 1977 was a pivotal year, somewhat an Italian equivalent of the Punk Rock upheaval in the US and Great Britain. The dramatic and eventful climate of the period was the result of the so-called Strategy of tension (Strategia della tensione): the confrontation between youth counter-culture and left-wing activists against an Italian government perceived as reactionary, repressive, corrupt, unstable, manouvred by the US, which disseminated disinformation and engaged in false-flag terror attacks blamed on the left in order to establish a more authoritarian regime. Finardi was a notable counter-cultural and musical protagonist of these years, with songs like La C.I.A. about the American Secret Services’ involvement in Italian politics, Soldi about consumerism, Giai Phong, about the Vietnam War, Scuola about the education system, Tutto Subito about the confrontational street demos of Autonomia, and Scimmia which chronicled Finardi’s past heroin addiction and subsequent self-detoxification through ’cold turkey’, a particularly relevant song for touching upon a subject that would become a growing social problem in Italy starting in the following decade, the 1980s. Songs like Voglio and Oggi Ho Imparato A Volare were optimstic hymns for the revolutionary youth of the Italian left, and Diesel celebrated both Finardi’s life on the road as a musician and the life of everyday working-class Italians. Finardi started to make his transition from this turbulent period of Italian history and its cultural landscape with the album Blitz and single Extraterrestre in 1978, and Roccando Rollando (Rocking and Rolling) in 1979, which contained Legalizzatela, his song-manifesto for the legalization of cannabis. Other significant hits were Patrizia, and the bitter-sweet ballad Le Ragazze Di Osaka in 1981.

　　Since then Finardi has lived periodically abroad, in London, UK, and in the United States. He has appeared at the Mecca of Italian commercial Pop music, the annual musical contest of the San Remo Festival, which would have been unthinkable in the 1970s. Through many different collaborations, he has released regular albums: among them one made entirely of songs with English lyrics, Secret Streets in 1982; the live album Strade (1984), Dolce Italia (1987), the entirely acoustic Acustica in 1993, for which he toured in the same ’unplugged’ mode, the re-reading of songs from his back catalogue Cinquantanni in 2002, his exploraton of spirituality Il Silenzio e Lo Spirito in 2003, and a return to his youthful love for the Blues with the album Anima Blues in 2005. Eugenio Finardi’s most recent works have a large audience, as proven by the success of the album Un Uomo (2007), a compilation of a 30 years long career, celebrated also in the show Suono in Italian theatres - and released also on DVD - in which Finardi tells his story through a series of monologues. His last work Il Cantante Al Microfono saw him accompanied by a classical music sextet. Eugenio Finardi’s albums from the 1970s are considered classics of Italian Rock, and he remains one of Italy’s most successful and influential Rock singers and musicians.

Albums

Non gettate alcun oggetto dal finestrino (1975)

Sugo (1976)

Diesel (1977)

Blitz (1978)

Roccando rollando (1979)

Finardi (1981)

Secret streets (1982)

Dal Blu (1983)

Strade (Live, 1984)

Colpi di fulmine (1985)

Dolce Italia (1987)

Il vento di Elora (1989)

La forza dell’amore (collection of remastered songs, plus 2 previously unreleased songs, 1990)

Millennio (1991)

Musica Desideria (1992)

Acustica (1993)

Occhi (1996)

Accadueo (1998; re-released in 1999 with one 1 bonus track)

La forza dell’amore 2 (2001)

Cinquantanni (2002)

Il silenzio e lo spirito (2003)

Anima blues (2005)

Un uomo (2007)

Un Cantante Al Microfono (2008)

Spacey Stacey/Hard Rock Honey (1973)

Soldi/Voglio (1975)

Musica ribelle/La radio (1976)

Non è nel cuore/Giai Phong (1977)