D.ten years without Crumbas he was known as a kid, or Spider, as he was nicknamed, now an adult, by his Bolognese friends. Occurs today the tenth anniversary of the death of Lucio Dallaamong the most important and influential Italian songwriters of his – and not only – generation.
To remember it, Bolognahis city, pays homage to him with the exhibition-event Lucio Dalla. Even if time passeswhich will open on March 4 at Civic Archaeological Museum of the city and will document the entire human and artistic journey of the singer-songwriter. But this is only the first stage of a national route which will subsequently see it passing through a Rome in autumn – from 22 September at Ara Pacis – and in 2023, on the occasion of the eightieth birthday, a Naples it’s at Milan.
To better understand this emblematic character, we have heard Enzo Gentileimportant music critic and lecturer in various Italian universities of courses of History of pop and rock, who told us something more about Lucio Dalla. «We all know Lucio Dalla as a songwriter», Gentile began, «but he has acted as an incubator for many genres of Italian song. In the early sixties it was completely different from the artist we know today“.
In 2008 at “Che tempo che fa”. (Getty Images)
Lucio Dalla, an ever-evolving character
While other “colleagues”, including Fabrizio de Andrè«They have made a journey but in their evolution they have never been unrecognizableLucio Dalla instead it transforms a lot“.
In a 1963 record “he plays the clarinet in Edoardo Vianello’s group, while a few years later he participates in Sanremo with a great British rock group: he was chameleon“. In 1968 he did from forerunner to a Jimmy Hendrix concertbut in the nineties, complete with a wig, he also participated in the Festivalbar.
The artist during the 1966 Sanremo Festival, where he presented the song “Pafff… Bum!”. (Getty Images)
Its roots, therefore, «are very far from the song March 4, 1943, a song for which everyone knows him and which makes him the Lucio Dalla we have in mind today. But we can’t forget that he had 10 years behind him in which he did everything elseand they are fundamental years to understand the way in which he approaches music ».
He was a very figure faceted“Knew the jazz – in via Orefici, la walk of fame of Bolognese Jazza star was inaugurated in her honor on 14 September 2012 – very well, sang with De Gregori and also the texts by Roberto Roversi, great Bolognese poet. Had many levels of knowledge and we must not reduce them only to the dimension of songwriting ».
Enzo Gentile: “As a musician he was even better”
Indeed, as Gentile explains, “I venture to say that, perhaps, as a musician he was even more interesting than as an author, because we know that music comes to the author’s rescue. And he also did it with very original improvisations“.
Then, of course, he also knew how to use the word very well, “but he was born as a musician. And this it sets him apart from many other talented colleagues, which, however, only make the “song” and stop there. How De Gregorifor example”.
He was such a gifted musician that Pupi Avatiin various interviews, he revealed, with a smile, his jealousy of Dalla, due to the fact that he was an unbeatable clarinet player. So much so that one day, in Barcelona, on the Sagrada Família, the director even had … thought about killing him!
Lucio Dalla and Pupi Avati. (Getty Images)
Over the years, despite the changes in “gender”, “has kept the friendships of the experimental period, the one linked to jazz, because its expressive dimension was very varied. And it’s the best legacy of him, perhaps, because there was always a flash of intelligence, knowledge and ability to manage sound“.
His manifesto songs
Among the songs in which his whole personality emerges, «certainly there is Carusobecause there is inside theair and the Mediterranean melodygreat feeling, the sense of memory, a possibility of wandering beyond the verse », explained the critic.
“Then the coming year, prophetic song. It was 1979, and the song is just a great fresco of man in the presence of society and the world at that time. These songs are the manifesto of her, a lot recognized by the general public and that he always performed with great enthusiasm ».
Francesco De Gregori and Lucio Dalla on stage, January 22, 2010 in Bologna. The two in 1978 had co-written and published together the successful single “Ma come i marinai”. (Getty Images)
On the possible successors of Lucio Dalla, «I don’t see direct heirs», Gentile commented,« even if he he had discovered several talentsBesides Ron, who for years collaborated with him, e Samuele Bersani “. The latter was not a singer but one day, as a boy, «he brought Dalla a cassette of his and asked him to listen to it. And to do it immediately. After listening to her, Dalla takes him under her protective wing, as he had done with Luca Carboni. But these artists don’t look like him, for them it was a gateway“.
The legacy of Lucio Dalla
In Bologna so many characters owe him a lotbecause he was able to defend his expressive dimension contaminating the musicians aroundhe also did it with De Gregori.
His legacy, now ten years after his death, “is one great dose of irony, first of all”. For example, she loved basketball very much and had herself photographed on purpose with the players, he is so small compared to them.
Then «he was a very person dynamic, open and communicativewith this unpredictable love for art. He had also opened a gallery in Bologna and is his own home a museum of contemporary art. It was very expert and bought a lot of works“.
If he were to close it in a definition, «I would say that Lucio Dalla was many characters together, never mysterious but never quite known“.
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