Starfinancer

Some loves do not end, they make huge turns and then, invariably, they return. And the love between Antonello Venditti And Francesco De Gregori it is one of those there, an artistic attraction that has been going on since the 70s and that even when it seems to fail in reality it is only regenerating at maximum power. Never friends? The exact opposite: friends always. They started together with the “piano on the shoulder” fifty years ago at the Folkstudio in Trastevere, and now they find themselves back on stage for an entire tour, after an opening that could only have been in Rome. For them, the Olympic stadium.

And it is for this endless love that today Antonello and Francesco return to sing together in a world completely changed by the dreams of the era of Theorius Campus, their double-name debut album. Venditti and De Gregori wrote, played and sang songs that told the story of a country and change. Modulating the political and social path in accords and rhymes from the intensity of the 70s and also in the apparent disengagement of the 80s.

De Gregori and Venditti together have brought to light poetry too often offended by the news: so here are the latest Saint Luciathe launch of love beyond the border of the sky de The Cannon Woman, Alice that before being an excellent franchise of pizzerias it was a dreamlike journey into a boundless vision, which emerged from the rabbit hole in the collective song of an entire country, a country that still “doesn’t know”.

Over the years De Gregori and Venditti have flown over the dreams of generations and the crises of ideas starting from the Bob Marley concert at San Siro and then taking off from Modena to watch the changing colors of the political landscape from above. They have swung into the social abyss of Titanic, they brought Italy to the moon. They started from the street of Under the sign of Pisces and then return to the completely different world of Cristina’s birthday. They sang who we were, who we are and who we will be, music and words arranged from ideas to emotions without generational boundaries. And then you remember, the regrets and that magical strength of the songwriters that very few know how to evoke and that still today manages to transform yesterday’s disillusionment into a hope for tomorrow.

And alongside the great songs inherited from everyone there are also unreleased songs, covers and cameos, magnificent the engravings of Venditti in the version of Lella engraved by Edoardo De Angelisalienating the Coral red by De Gregori then put on record by his brother Luigi Grechi.

The art of songwriting is the pilot star for both and they both convey a love for great Anglo-Saxon authors – i Simon & Garfunkel of which the joint album of the two is so full, then of course Dylan and Elton Johnbut also Leonard Cohen, Billy Joel, Springsteen and its Little Steven. However, the passion for sound also comes to the ears, because De Gregori and Venditti are songwriters but they are also two expert musicians, raised in the era of the brightest sun of rock as well as in the wind of folk. And then yes the beautiful pens, but also the taste of the sound wave and the use of the recording studio as an instrument, from the references to the Electric Light Orchestra (to be listened again My religion by Venditti, with that sound a la Don’t bring me down) and in De Gregori’s most recent works, that rock elegance that vibrates in the classics of Jimmy Webbin the shadows of Johnny Cash and then obviously in the spells of Blonde on blonde on that road out of time and space following Mr. Tamburino in his Dylanian dream.

And in short, the love between Venditti and De Gregori was born under the sign of music but soon became fraternal and certainly between brothers, knives cannot be missing, but they will never be able to engrave such a close bond.

So in I and my brotherfrom the album What a great story life is, the two pass the microphone to each other like a bottle of wine and tell each other without sparing them, pouring themselves a drink “openly” while both “play footsteps to the one who is with you”. Here they are Antonello and Francesco, ready to sing to us once again who we really are. De Gregori known as the prince and Venditti Antonio known as Antonello (but also “the cicalone” or Toshiro, like Mifune), to make us understand who we were, and go back to dreaming who we would like to be. Easy for them, like smoking a cigarette together. And as if it wasn’t a miracle to succeed.