Eugenio Finardi (born July 16, 1952) is an Italian rock singer, songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist.
Life
Eugenio Finardi was born in
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
, Italy, on July 16, 1952, in a musical family: his father Enzo was an Italian music sound engineer and his mother Eloise an American opera singer; at age six Finardi made his first record,
Palloncino Rosso Fuoco, a children song.
Finardi became part of a thriving music scene in Milan in the late 1960s. Rooted in the
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
, classic
rock and roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...
and the hippy
counter-culture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
, he was active in the left-wing youth movement of those years. In 1969 he formed his first rock band The Tiger. Soon he started playing with
Alberto Camerini, a singer and guitarist born in Brazil, who a few years later would be instrumental in introducing American and British
new wave and
techno-pop
Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s ...
to Italian pop music. Together they even emulated the US film
Easy Rider
''Easy Rider'' is a 1969 American independent drug culture road drama film written by Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper. Fonda and Hopper play two bikers who travel through the American So ...
by travelling on motorbikes from Milan to Amsterdam. The scene Finardi became part of included among others bands like Area and
Stormy Six
Stormy Six were an Italian progressive and folk rock band founded in Milan in 1966. They performed and recorded until 1983, mostly as a sextet but occasionally as a quartet, a quintet and a septet. Although their line-up changed considerably o ...
,
Claudio Rocchi and female singer-songwriter
Donatella Bardi. Finardi made a living by day teaching English, in which he was fluent because of his American mother, and as a musician by night, as singer, guitarist and piano-player.
After forming the band Il Pacco with Camerini, Finardi recorded a single in English in 1973,
Spacey Stacey/Hard Rock Honey for
Numero Uno, the first Italian independent record label started by singer-songwriter
Lucio Battisti
Lucio Battisti (5 March 1943 – 9 September 1998) was an influential Italian singer-songwriter and composer. He is widely recognized for songs that defined the late 1960s and 1970s era of Italian songwriting.
Battisti released 18 studio albums ...
and his writing partner
Mogol, who had a long string of Italian and international hits under their belts, and who had introduced in Italian Pop music different styles from the US and the UK, from the Rock music of
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
,
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
and
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...
, to Blues and Soul.
Finardi's single went largely unnoticed.
Early career, the 1970s
Thanks to his friendship with the band Area and their singer
Demetrio Stratos
Efstratios Dimitriou ( el, Ευστράτιος Δημητρίου; 22 April 1945 – 13 June 1979), known professionally as Demetrio Stratos, was a Greek lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, music researcher, and co-founder, frontman and lead singe ...
, in 1974 Finardi signed with the label
Cramps
A cramp is a sudden, involuntary, painful skeletal muscle contraction or overshortening associated with electrical activity; while generally temporary and non-damaging, they can cause significant pain and a paralysis-like immobility of the aff ...
, 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
Lucio Fabbri (born 25 March 1955) is an Italian composer, conductor, arranger, producer and multi-instrumentalist.
Born in Crema, Lombardy, Fabbri graduated in violin and then in the early 1970s he was a member of the progressive rock groups Il ...
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
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...
, which was extremely popular in Italy, and
Hippie
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
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
Folk rock is a hybrid music genre that combines the elements of folk and rock music, which arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music revival. Performers suc ...
, the early protest songs of Bob Dylan, and of the American West-Coast music of artists like
Neil Young
Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian-American singer and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Furay ...
. 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
Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...
fusion, thanks to Area members
Patrizio Fariselli
Area – International POPular Group, most commonly known as Area or AreA, is an Italian progressive rock, jazz fusion, electronic, experimental group formed in 1972 by singer Demetrio Stratos and drummer Giulio Capiozzo. They are considered o ...
and
Ares Tavolazzi
Ares Tavolazzi (born July 1948) is an Italian bass player and jazz musician born in Ferrara.
Biography
Tavolazzi studied cello and double bass in the Music School of Ferrara and began his career as bassist playing for Carmen Villani in a beat g ...
, and bass-player
Hugh Bullen.
Years of lead
Finardi's sound and style became a success in 1976, with his second album ''
Sugo'', and his third ''
Diesel
Diesel may refer to:
* Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression
* Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines
* Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engin ...
'' 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
Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tend ...
, the
Indiani Metropolitani and terrorist groups like the
Red Brigades
The Red Brigades ( it, Brigate Rosse , often abbreviated BR) was a far-left Marxist–Leninist armed organization operating as a terrorist and guerrilla group based in Italy responsible for numerous violent incidents, including the abduction ...
(Brigate Rosse).
This eventful period of Italian contemporary history is known as the
Anni di piombo
, partof = the Cold War
, image = Stragedibologna-2.jpg
, image_size = 300px
, caption = Aftermath of the bombing at the Bologna railway station in August 1980 which killed 85 people, the deadliest ev ...
(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
A strategy of tension ( it, strategia della tensione) is a policy wherein violent struggle is encouraged rather than suppressed. The purpose is to create a general feeling of insecurity in the population and make people seek security in a strong go ...
(Strategia della tensione): the confrontation between youth counter-culture and left-wing activists against an Italian government perceived as reactionary, repressive, corrupt, unstable, manoeuvred by the US, which disseminated disinformation and engaged in false-flag terror attacks blamed on the left 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
"Soldi" (; ) is a song recorded by Italian singer Mahmood. It was released on 6 February 2019, as the fifth single from his debut studio album, ''Gioventù bruciata'' (2019). Mahmood co-wrote the song with Dario "Dardust" Faini and Charlie Cha ...
" about consumerism, "
Giai Phong" about the
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
, "
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 optimistic hymns for the revolutionary youth of the Italian left, and "
Diesel
Diesel may refer to:
* Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression
* Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines
* Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engin ...
" 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
Blitz, German for "lightning", may refer to:
Military uses
*Blitzkrieg, blitz campaign, or blitz, a type of military campaign
*The Blitz, the German aerial campaign against Britain in the Second World War
*, an Imperial German Navy light cruiser b ...
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.
From the 1980s to the present
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 Sanremo Festival, which would have been unthinkable in the counter-cultural climate of 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 ' (1984),
Dolce Italia (1987), the entirely acoustic ' in 1993, for which he toured in the same 'unplugged' mode, the re-reading of songs from his back catalogue
Cinquantanni in 2002, his exploration 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. In 2012 he again entered the music competition of the
Sanremo Music Festival
The Sanremo Music Festival, officially the Italian Song Festival () and commonly known as just (), is the most popular Italian song contest and awards ceremony, held annually in the city of Sanremo, Liguria. It is the longest-running annual ...
with the song ''E tu lo chiami Dio''.
Discography
Albums
* ''
Non gettate alcun oggetto dal finestrino'' (1975)
* ''Sugo'' (1976)
* ''
Diesel
Diesel may refer to:
* Diesel engine, an internal combustion engine where ignition is caused by compression
* Diesel fuel, a liquid fuel used in diesel engines
* Diesel locomotive, a railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engin ...
'' (1977)
* ''
Blitz
Blitz, German for "lightning", may refer to:
Military uses
*Blitzkrieg, blitz campaign, or blitz, a type of military campaign
*The Blitz, the German aerial campaign against Britain in the Second World War
*, an Imperial German Navy light cruiser b ...
'' (1978)
* ''
Roccando rollando'' (1979)
* ''
Finardi'' (1981)
* ''
Secret streets'' (1982)
* ''
Dal Blu'' (1983)
* ' (Live, 1984)
* ''
Colpi di fulmine
A lightning strike or lightning bolt is an electric discharge between the atmosphere and the ground. Most originate in a cumulonimbus cloud and terminate on the ground, called cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning. A less common type of strike, ground- ...
'' (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)
* ' (1993)
* ''
Occhi'' (1996)
* ''
Accadueo'' (1998; re-released in 1999 with one 1 bonus track)
[The title is Italian longhand for H2O, the chemical formula of water.]
* ''
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)
* ''Sessanta'' (2012)
Singles
* ''
Spacey Stacey/Hard Rock Honey'' (1973)
* ''
Soldi/Voglio'' (1975)
* ''
Musica ribelle/La radio'' (1976)
* ''
Non è nel cuore/Giai Phong'' (1977)
* ''E tu lo chiami Dio'' (2012)
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Finardi, Eugenio
1952 births
Living people
Singers from Milan
Italian male singers
American people of Italian descent
Italian people of American descent