Edoardo Bennato
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Edoardo Bennato (born 23 July 1946,
Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
, Campania, Italy) is an Italian singer-songwriter. He is the brother of the singer-songwriter
Eugenio Bennato Eugenio Bennato (born 16 March 1948) is an Italian folk musician and songwriter. He is the brother of the musician Edoardo Bennato. Biography In 1969, he cofounded the folk band ''Nuova Compagnia di Canto Popolare'', discovered by the author E ...
. He is considered one of the greatest Italian rockers, a genre that he has often combined with
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 ...
and
folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fo ...
. Guitarist, harmonica player and singer, he later began to propose himself as
one-man band A one-man band is a musician who plays a number of instruments simultaneously using their hands, feet, limbs, and various mechanical or electronic contraptions. One-man bands also often sing while they perform. The simplest type of "one-man ban ...
, playing at the same time also tambourines, kazoo and other percussions. His texts are often ironic, irreverent, and turned in a biting way against power, at any level and in any form it manifests. He was the first Italian singer to fill the
San Siro Stadium Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, commonly known as San Siro, is a football stadium in the San Siro district of Milan, Italy, which is the home of A.C. Milan and Inter Milan. It has a seating capacity of 80,018, making it one of the largest stadiums in ...
in Milan with more than sixty thousand people on July 19, 1980, and the first Italian singer to perform at the
Montreux Jazz Festival The Montreux Jazz Festival (formerly Festival de Jazz Montreux and Festival International de Jazz Montreux) is a music festival in Switzerland, held annually in early July in Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline. It is the second-largest annual ...
in 1976. Also, Bennato was the first singer to have released two albums only 15 days apart in March 1980: ''Uffà! Uffà!'' and ''Sono solo canzonette''.


Biography

Edoardo Bennato began his music career in the early Sixties (the first single was published on 1966) as one of the most creative and innovative songwriters of his time. His music distinguished itself for being an imaginative blend of
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 ...
,
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 ...
,
folk Folk or Folks may refer to: Sociology *Nation *People * Folklore ** Folk art ** Folk dance ** Folk hero ** Folk music *** Folk metal *** Folk punk *** Folk rock ** Folk religion * Folk taxonomy Arts, entertainment, and media * Folk Plus or Fo ...
influences and even hints of opera. He has been described as "a cross between Bob Dylan and Lucio Battisti". After his first album ''Non farti cadere le braccia'' ("Don't let your arms fall", 1973), where he was still finding his way between tradition and innovation, Bennato decidedly chose the latter, many of his songs being performed by himself as a one-man band, with a 12-string acoustic guitar, harmonica, kazoo and foot-drum. During this early period, Bennato's lyrics were characterised by biting satire and
irony Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique. Irony can be categorized into ...
, often addressed at the establishment and those self-proclaimed as "the good". His second album, ''I buoni e i cattivi'' ("The good and the bad ones", 1974), was an attack against the common-sense distinction between
good and evil In religion, ethics, philosophy, and psychology "good and evil" is a very common dichotomy. In cultures with Manichaean and Abrahamic religious influence, evil is perceived as the dualistic antagonistic opposite of good, in which good shoul ...
, between the righteous and the villains. "Arrivano i buoni" ("Here come the good ones") was particularly significant: "Here come the good ones, they are resolute and they've already made a list of all the bad guys to eliminate... so now the good have declared war against the bad but they guarantee that it will be the last war ever to be fought...". With ''Io che non sono l'imperatore'' ("I, who am not the Emperor", 1975) Bennato pushed his music more towards experimentation, still mainly playing his acoustic guitar. The cover of the album shows a plan for the Naples light-rail system that Bennato had developed for his final project as a university student. While it was highly praised by his lecturers, the plan was never approved by the city council, giving him even more reason to deride and mock the powers to be. "Meno male che adesso non c'è Nerone" ("Fortunately there's no Nero now") and "Signor censore" ("Mister censor") are among Bennato's best examples of pungent criticism of the system. With ''La Torre di Babele'' ("The Tower of Babel", 1976) Bennato's music became more sophisticated – more musicians contributed to the album, which contains tracks of a very wide range of styles. Bennato was clearly evolving rapidly and this album reflects this process. "Cantautore" ("Songwriter") is an amusing piece mocking those songwriters who, at the time, were taking themselves too seriously. In the following year, Bennato finally reached commercial success with ''Burattino senza fili'' ("Marionette without strings", 1977). This is a concept album based on the
Pinocchio Pinocchio ( , ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of the children's novel ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1883) by Italian writer Carlo Collodi of Florence, Tuscany. Pinocchio was carved by a woodcarver named Geppetto in a Tuscan vil ...
fairy tale. The central idea is that having one's own freedom and independence is always better than giving in to the system and its rules, even if it means renouncing to some advantages that the system itself uses as luring temptations. Most of the songs in the album became classics, not only of Bennato's repertoire, but also of Italian pop music in general, "Il gatto e la volpe" ("The cat and the fox") probably being the most famous one. After this big success, no new album appeared until 1980, when Bennato surprised fans, critics and the whole music biz with a very unconventional move: two albums in less than a month: ''Uffa! Uffa!'' ("I'm fed up!", 1980) and ''Sono solo canzonette'' ("They're only pop songs", 1980). The two albums together sold more than a million copies, against all marketing rules and expectations. Bennato was clearly at the apex of his creativity. ''Uffa! Uffa!'', the most experimental of the two records, is an album where Bennato blatantly disregarded all commercial concerns and let his creativity free to indulge in all kinds of directions, from medieval ecclesiastical chants to punk rock. The album also contained big hits but was generally overshadowed by the hugely successful ''Sono solo canzonette'', a concept album based on the Pater Pan fairy tale and affirming the value of fantasy and imagination over reason and logic. By this time, Bennato was the most popular Italian songwriter. Inevitably, this period also coincided with the start of a very slow but perceptible decline. In 1983 another fairy-tale concept album, based on
The Pied Piper of Hamelin The Pied Piper of Hamelin (german: der Rattenfänger von Hameln, also known as the Pan Piper or the Rat-Catcher of Hamelin) is the title character of a legend from the town of Hamelin (Hameln), Lower Saxony, Germany. The legend dates back to ...
appeared on the market (''È arrivato un bastimento'') but it wasn't as successful as the previous ones and this must have led Bennato to try different avenues. This he did with alternating fortune until the present day. Notably, on the occasion of the
1990 FIFA World Cup The 1990 FIFA World Cup was the 14th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was held from 8 June to 8 July 1990 in Italy, the second country to host the event for a second time (the first being Me ...
, which was held in Italy, Edoardo sang the official song of the event: "
Un'estate italiana "Un'estate italiana" (Italian, ), "To be number one" (English) or "Un verano italiano" (Spanish; both meaning "An Italian summer") is the official song of the 1990 FIFA World Cup held in Italy. The song was composed by Giorgio Moroder with lyrics ...
" ("An Italian Summer") together with
Gianna Nannini Gianna Nannini (; born 14 June 1954Who Is Who
''Bello e possibile'' ...
.


Discography

* ''
Non farti cadere le braccia Non, non or NON can refer to: * ''Non'', a negatory word in French, Italian and Latin People *Non (given name) *Non Boonjumnong (born 1982), Thai amateur boxer * Rena Nōnen (born 1993), Japanese actress who uses the stage name "Non" since July ...
'' (1973) * ''
I buoni e i cattivi I, or i, is the ninth letter and the third vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''i'' (pronounced ), plural ...
'' (1974) * ''
Io che non-sono l'imperatore Io, IO, iO, I/O, i/o, or i.o. may refer to: *Io (mythology), daughter of Inachus in Greek mythology, and lover of Zeus who was turned into a cow * Io (moon), a moon of Jupiter Arts and media Fictional elements *Scylla Io, one of Poseidon's Ma ...
'' (1975) * ''
La torre di Babele LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figur ...
'' (1976) * '' Burattino senza fili'' (1977) * '' Uffà! Uffà!'' (1980) * '' Sono solo canzonette'' (1980) * ''
È arrivato un bastimento "È", "è" is a letter. *The letter E with a grave accent. *In English language, English, the letter ''è'' is sometimes used in the past tense or past participle forms of verbs in poetic texts to indicate that the final syllable should be prono ...
'' (1983) * ''È goal! (Edoardo Bennato live)'' (1984) * ''Kaiwanna'' (1985) * ''OK Italia'' (1987) * ''Edoardo live'' (1987) * ''Il gioco continua'' (mini LP) (1988) * ''Abbi dubbi'' (1989) * ''Edo rinnegato'' (1990) * ''Capitan Uncino'' (1992) * ''Il paese dei balocchi'' (1992) * ''È asciuto pazzo 'o padrone'' (1992) * ''Se son rose fioriranno'' (1994) * ''Le ragazze fanno grandi sogni'' (1995) * ''All the best'' (1996) * ''Quartetto d'archi'' (1996) * ''Sbandato'' (1998) * ''Gli anni settanta'' (2 cd) (1998) * ''Sembra ieri'' (2000) * ''Afferrare una stella'' (2001) * ''Il principe e il pirata'' (2001) * ''L'uomo occidentale'' (2003) * ''Totò Sapore e la magica storia della pizza'' (2003) * ''La fantastica storia del Pifferaio Magico'' (2005) * ''Canzoni tour 2007'' (2007) * ''Canzoni tour 2008'' (2008) * ''Le vie del rock sono infinite'' (2010) * ''Pronti a salpare'' (2015) * ''Non c'è'' (2020)


References


External links

* *
Edo's Fan Club
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bennato, Edoardo 1946 births Living people Musicians from Naples Italian male singers Italian singer-songwriters Nastro d'Argento winners One-man bands