Francesco De Gregori
| Francesco De Gregori | |
|---|---|
Francesco De Gregori in 2008
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| Background information | |
| Born |
4 April 1951 Rome, Italy |
| Genres | Folk rock |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, piano, harmonica |
| Years active | 1972–present |
| Labels | RCA Italy, CBS |
| Website | www.francescodegregori.net |
Francesco De Gregori OMRI (born 4 April 1951) is an Italian singer-songwriter. He is popularly known as "Il Principe dei cantautori" ("The Prince of the singer-songwriters"), a nickname referring to the elegance of his lyrics. He has also been described by Bob Dylan as "folk Italian hero".
He is often referred as singer-songwriter and poet, although he prefers to be identified simply as "artist".
De Gregori was born in Rome to a middle-class family, to Giorgio and Rita Grechi, and he and spent some of his youth in Pescara before returning to the capital. His elder brother, Luigi, was a musician and had a personal career with the name of Luigi Grechi (the mother's surname), chosen later in order to avoid confusion with the more famous Francesco.
Influenced by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and the Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio de André, De Gregori started to perform his songs (mainly personal translations of American folk songs) at the Folkstudio, in Rome, which was already frequented by his brother. On one occasion De André himself is said to have listened to De Gregori's work and appreciated it.
Later De Gregori formed a band with his friends Antonello Venditti, Mimmo Locasciulli and Giorgio Lo Cascio, who all had success as singer-songwriters in the following years. De Gregori made his debut as a professional singer in 1972 with Theorius Campus, in collaboration with Venditti. The LP included the early masterpiece "Signora Aquilone" ("Kite Lady"), but Venditti had more songs and, having a better voice, earned better consideration by the label. The duo subsequently broke up.
De Gregori's next album, Alice non lo sa (1973), was a commercial failure. However, the title-track, the mysterious "Alice", scored some success in several popular music shows and is still included amongst his best works today. The 1974 album Francesco De Gregori (also known as the "Sheep" due to the unusual cover by Gordon Fagetter) showed even more experimental and sometimes obscure lyrics, and again was a failure. RCA Music, however, continued to trust in De Gregori's qualities: this trust was repaid the following year, when De Gregori released one of the most successful Italian LPs of the 1970s, Rimmel. This work contained several of his most famous songs: this time De Gregori's talent for unusual and poetic lyrics intermingled in a more mature way with the music. Lucio Dalla provided musical ideas for "Pablo", the unusual story of a Spanish immigrant in Switzerland. Jazzy themes were present in songs like "Quattro cani" ("Four Dogs") and "Le storie di ieri" ("The Stories of Yesterday"). The latter, a song about the years of Fascism, had been already released on De André's 1974 album Volume 8, as it had been written during a stay in the Genoese singer's Sardinian estate.
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