Mountain King Christmas Phone

Fernanda Pivano (1917-2009): the final trajectory of a "shooting star"



"Seen a shooting star tonight
And I thought of you.
You Were Trying to break into another world
A World I Never Knew. " (Bob Dylan)

Summer, what a strange summer. Summer is a bad football from plots still immature, and dead - at least this year - as you become exhausted from the heat. I recently posted in this blog fatigue of short memories of Michael Jackson and Willy De Ville, two different types, and several more that you can not. But in each, so as to all'indecifrabile Jacko that he was greedy for life De Ville, is tied a piece of my life, a personal recollection, a moment that - like them - will not return. I have not had time to take note of the death of that great guitar that was Les Paul (which today would be Jimmy Page and many others without the instrument, the Gibson Les Paul that he has shaped giving it its name?), Which another piece of music history and literature leaves. Two old men, they will say, "had given" - his 94 years, 92 her - but that huge losses! Notes and words that in spite of death still cling to this life.

I met Fernanda. It 'was one of those beautiful things, and suddenly a bright star who has crossed my sky when I had the impression that there were only clouds. In the grayness of years in which I put at the service of record (it was a major, those who still resist) my overflowing passion for music and an enthusiasm often useless, it could happen to spend some time with Fernanda Pivano, the one who translated Hemingway and made more understandable in our part of the early songs of Bob Dylan.

Never mind that I was burdened with awkward phone calls to ask newspapers and space for unlikely Chirping star. Nothing that I thought and said that Morgan was a misunderstood talent (we were in a few, but we thought) and the other side - which in reality was or should have known "my" part of it - were shrugged. Never mind if you do not answer the phone more to artists whose individual did not like the radio. One day in your life Fernanda Pivano arrived (or was, or Dylan, or someone else) and the sky changes color.

happens - past and present, to feel again a little 'there with her - I call types in the Minimum Fax Pivano They hired some editorial work, plus you have to write for a newspaper something about Dylan, which is performed in Rome, including the white marble of the Palace of Civilization and Labour. Ten years ago or so. Trust me, almost. She is punctual, the escort down the stairs, slow down for a salute to Frank Sinatra, then straight to the dressing room of Bob Dylan, "his" Bob, who had not seen for years. During the show she is sitting, and still, to travel with the memories. In the end I said shreds of life, exceptional views of a world that no longer see, and asks me if the next day to ask some details may disturb the concert and to dictate, then the piece that will send the paper. When I called

is tired but friendly, says the music keeps her alive, and that every ten books try to buy a record, but he never knows where to go. Do not see her again, indeed will see a video of Ligabue "I think so," where she will be the most precious cameo, wedged between clever words ("I think the noise of those who can be silent") and some quotes Sixties (the legendary Volkswagen van and those signs to make us read the text, as in "Subterranean Homesick Blues" by Bob Dylan).

Among forty-eight hours I'll be in Cleveland, where the Rock'n'Roll Museum is about to start a long weekend of celebrations for the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock. It will be the party that America that has arrived and has been understood in Italy thanks to the wise and passionate translations Fernanda Pivano. Now that his eyes, eyes that have met with those of Cesare Pavese, Jack Kerouac and Fabrizio De Andrè, were closed forever I like to remember her with a clear and hopeful commentary on the mid sixties seized after a concert Bob Dylan, "his" Bob Dylan:

"What a feeling, that pride, that happiness that night in San Francisco, waiting for the concert Bob, when Allen (Ginsberg) had taken me to a bar, before a small jukebox to listen to 'Mr. Tambourine Man '. Ginsberg explained that I was finally theirs, our message, was exposed without being able to elicit action of the complaint, and our dreams would come jukebox in the world. Our hopes were suddenly known to all, and our proposals to all illusions. "

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Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood: Live from Madison Square Garden, "the album of the year?


The great rock'n'roll records - "Pet Sounds" The Beach Boys, "Revolver" by the Beatles, the only Blind Faith, "Transformer" by Lou Reed, "Born To Run "Springsteen," London Calling "Clash," The Joshua Tree "U2," Murmur "and" Automatic For The People "by REM and many others - are an amphetamine if you listen to some music forever. Keep you awake and alive, in the hope that such miracles can happen again. Although this is difficult is no longer under the eyes and in all I-Pod. Overflowing, the latter (at least those who belong to my generation), caught by compilation of songs, reprints and the best that classic rock has provided and continues to offer. Part of speech - you say - and it is true, but in recent months in which membership of identity is something howled - it belongs to the ranks of readers of "that" newspaper, he seeks solace in "that" Tg, you look trying to capture "that" detail to confirm the impression to look like in something - the music can not escape the rule: it is a certainty, a marker that indicates the codes of our identity, or what remains in this flood of uncertainty.


A friend of mine "loaned" to live by Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood because I did not open the package arrived from Amazon: I'm on vacation! Through a rapid switch from CD to the laptop, these songs are finished to my surprise my new phone. The surprise has to do with the fact that even if I run this blog with enough ease wherever I may be, is still one that looks suspiciously as articles on new technologies, one that rather than reading the instruction booklet of the new hard disk recorder would pay the same amount invested for the miraculous machine. A short, which makes a smile of approval every time he reads the blog title "I'll be back to vinyl," the neighbor across, networking and music, and Maurizio Pratelli that for years stubbornly rejects requests for purchase of his collection of bootleg to Bruce Springsteen turns 33 while collecting dust ten feet off the floor. You understand the subject, but if you have arrived here, also because they are drawn from the poster-style "psychedelic sixties", are structured enough to read two boomers who have crossed the English rock history with quote blues in America.

"Live From Madison Square Garden, New York harbor in a project with all the features of the" cash-in "(" do case ": it went to the many-Who reunion tour, is the daily bread - and that bread! - when they go around the Stones, Springsteen is taking say that every time he comes flapping wings of the E Street Band) is an appalling record of cohesion, so beautiful in its classic rock shoot out to embarrass any jam band that casts today boxes and any training that try to achieve that balance between expressiveness and power of blues-rock repertoire that only the Allman Brothers can still afford. With similar expertise you can also get to play even if there is called Clapton and Winwood (but you try it, then we'll talk about, even counting that it is slowhands, the Stratocaster guitar on the Hammond B3 organ), but it seems really impossible , today, bringing together so many good songs to do a concert of original songs. Yeah, because a large part of the tribute to Jimi Hendrix (3 pieces, and how can we forget that even in "Voodoo Chile" was the original Winwood organ) is rewritten here a forty-year history that is almost all of the protagonists of this precious live. A story from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and the Spencer Davis Group, through then Cream, Blind Faith, Derek and the Dominos and Traffic is marked Clapton or Winwood. Hard to find two musicians who have scored so many experiences together basic in the history of rock and soloists have reached the same heights of popularity touched by disks as "Slowhand" (Clapton) and "Arc Of A Diver" (Winwood).


The beauty here is that it is not a case of turn up their nose as you do in the face of such products, and nothing is noted that in two thousand years Clapton has done nothing to unite his forces with those the other (the album with BB King, the fleeting reunion of Cream).


These songs, their amalgam, the pleasure with which everything comes to us, that sense of history that takes you by the throat and then puts you in the carpet, everything makes CD and DVD "Live from Madison Square Garden," a warm refuge Vintage Rock where everything works beautifully (just feel like we're good "Forever Man", which also comes from a blues in Clapton, which softened the pop). Between absolute gems as "Presence Of The Lord", "Glad," "Well Alright", "After Midnight," "Can not Find My Way Home" and "Dear Mr. Fantasy" and other excellent reworkings like "Cocaine" and "Georgia On My Mind" would not have marred a couple of pieces of high-ranking Winwood solo ("While You See A Chance"?), but raised the issue of unnecessary hair and the egg.

Record of the Year should be written a bit daring, 'without hesitation or shame, even if it brings sadness ruled the day when he dies Les Paul, the man who wrote the history of the electric guitar, and Clapton also.

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HEART AND SOUL: Farewell to Willy De Ville


He was bad, you know. But the text message popped up last night on my mobile phone has arrived earlier than expected: "It 's a sad day for our music: Willy De Ville is dead." Words written by a friend, with sincere sorrow. Now I have the sea in front and mountains behind, holding a copy of the Republic, which formalizes the death between her fingers and a fragile connection to the Internet does not allow me to turn to the Web There is too little to run, just the memory .
Wille De Ville those heels landing on my desk at the Savoy (no longer there, it was the early eighties New York) rattling the glasses. And 'that look sharp that I reached by many Italian stages (there so we really enjoyed, good Willy!). And 'those records that have flirted with punk and with rhythm and blues ("Coup De Grace" who did not have troubles are now on Amazon) that have grazed the pop ("Miracle" with Mark Knopfler: What a beauty!) And walked the streets of New Orleans. And 'those corners of Manhattan where they speak English, they happen all the colors and the girls named Rosita walk to the beat of Tito Puente.

's a music written with love, even with "heart and soul, wherever he was the studio where it was produced. Willy De Ville is in those tight jackets era Mink De Ville (his band, almost a rehearsal room with E Street Band to Alphabet City in New Jersey instead) and some sloppiness in the 'pirate in recent years. E '"Maybe Tomorrow", is "Could You Would You" is "Cadillac Walk", is "This Must Be The Night", is "Teardrops Must Fall" and "You Better Move On" is the best "Stand By Me" after those of Ben E. King (the original) and John Lennon. And 'I remember all these songs in any order and do I need to do for a long time. Because, as written by his press office, "Willy went to visit Jack Nitzsche and Johnny Thunders" (that is a wise sound mixer and another boy of rock'n'roll - see: New York Dolls). Right people to keep him company in the eternal silence that so quiet - we imagine - will not be.

Willy De Ville, who had only fifty-nine years - 59 as a good year for Cadillac - has spanned over thirty years of his career without ever leaving the closet too, without ceasing almost never the clothes but leaving the cult artist songs that only he pack knew that. Songs that have inflamed the Bottom Line or Olympia in the same manner in which flared when turned less money, the stages and festivals of the province. We enjoyed it so much, Willy, also for its uniqueness, and time will be greatly missed. There is little to add.