Fabrizio De André

Fabrizio de André (1940-1999) was a leading Italian singer-songwriter.

De André was born in Genoa on 18th February 1940. He studied law at the University of Genoa, but left before graduating.

His first instrument was the violin, and then he took up the guitar, playing in local jazz bands. In 1958 he recorded his first two songs: "Nuvole barocche" ("Baroque Clouds") and "E fu la notte" ("Then Night Came"). In 1962 he married Puny Rignon, a Genoese woman nearly ten years his senior. The same year the couple had their first and only son, Cristiano, who would follow in his father's footsteps to become a musician and songwriter.

Over the years that followed, de André, inspired mainly by Georges Brassens' works, wrote a number of songs which made him known by a larger public; his song "La canzone di Marinella" ("Marinella's Song") was recorded in 1968 by the famous Italian singer, Mina, and its author was acclaimed as the most important Italian "cantautore", or singer-songwriter.

De André went on to record a number of successful LPs of his songs. He divorced his wife Puny, and started a relationship with the folksinger Dori Ghezzi. In 1975 he began to perform in a series of memorable concerts (after his first performances of the early 1960s, he had always refused to appear in public, except for a couple of television broadcasts).

In 1977' having moved to Sardinia, the couple had a daughter, and in the following year Fabrizio de André issued a new LP,
Rimini. Most songs included in this album were written with a young Veronese singer-songwriter, Massimo Bubola.

1979 began with a series of famous live concerts from which a double LP is drawn; de André was accompanied by one of the most renowned Italian progressive rock bands, Premiata Forneria Marconi. At the end of August, de André and Ghezzi were kidnapped for ransom by a gang of Sardinian bandits, and held prisoner in the inaccessible Supramonte mountains. The couple was released four months later; no ransom was paid. When the bandits were apprehended by the police, and de André was called as witness before the Court, he refused to denounce his kidnappers and declared his own solidarity with them: "They were the real prisoners, not I", he said.

This dramatic episode, and the hard life of the Sardinian people, gave him inspiration for his following album, released in 1981. The album is anonymous, but, from the image of a native American appearing on the cover, the mass-media called it "L'indiano" (The Indian). The album contains one of his most famous songs, "Fiume Sand Creek": it relates the massacre of defenceless native Americans of 29th November 1864 by U.S. Army troops.

In 1984 Fabrizio de André turned to his native Genoese dialect and wrote, together with former PFM member Mauro Pagani, one of his most celebrated albums, Creuza de mä. The songs were a tribute to traditional music from every Mediterranean country.

In 1989 Fabrizio De André married Dori Ghezzi; the following year a new album was issued, Le nuvole ("The Clouds"), which included two more songs in the Genoese dialect, one in the Gallurese dialect of Northern Sardinia ("Monti di Mola"), and one in the Neapolitan dialect, the highly ironic "Don Raffaè". A new series of live concerts followed, from which a double LP (1991 Concerti) was drawn. In 1992 he started a new series of live concerts.

In 1997 de André started a new tour of theatre concerts and a new song collection, called
Mi innamoravo di tutto ("I Fell in Love with Everything") was issued. This tribute album included a version of "La canzone di Marinella" in duet with Mina. The Anime salve concert tour went on up to the late summer of 1998, when de André stopped at the first symptoms of a serious disease, which was later diagnosed as cancer. He died in Milan on 11th January 1999.