Luca Carboni on vinyl: a new listening experience

In the last room of the International Museum and Library of Music of Bologna, which until February 9th will host “Rio Ari O. Luca Carboni, 40 years between music and art”, the exhibition with which the Bolognese singer-songwriter exhibits for the first time his works, there is a surprise for fans and enthusiasts. On a canvas, a projector shows images taken from Luca Carboni’s personal archives, which portray him at the beginning of his career. In the background, one playlist puts together outtakes, auditions and alternative versions of classics from his repertoire, starting with “Butterfly”: what is reproduced is an almost new wave version of the song later included in 1987 in the singer-songwriter’s third album, the eponymous “Luca Carboni”, with fake English lyrics “When the record companies listened to it like this their mouths watered.

But shortly thereafter I completely reworked it. I removed the rhythm: the final version doesn’t even have a bass. I’d like to make a record to tell how songs evolve when one writes them. Maybe an album of demos entitled ‘Bozzetti’, in which I combine painting and music”, smiles Carboni. It would be a gift for the fans, who have never stopped making their affection felt for the artist in these forty years of career. And precisely the fortieth anniversary of the release of “… meanwhile Dustin Hoffman never misses a film”, which arrived in stores on January 27, 1984, inspired another.gift: what Sony Music decided to do not only to the fans, but also to Luca Carboni himself, reissuing his most iconic albums on vinyl, some of which were originally only released on CD or cassette.

“…meanwhile Dustin Hoffman doesn’t make a mistake in a film”: a surprising debut

The releases – already available on the Sony Music website and in shops – cover a time period of over twenty years, which is retraced the birth, growth and maturity of the Bolognese singer-songwriterwhose voice returns to resonate on the radio four years after his last single “La canzone dell’estate” thanks to the duet with Cesare Cremonini on “San Luca”: listening to vinyl is a way to rediscover the record of a cult artist through a new listening experience. We inevitably start from 1984 of “…meanwhile Dustin Hoffman doesn’t miss a film”, which for its fortieth anniversary returns to the market in the form of

180 gram blue marble vinyl and in version CD together with an autographed 45 rpm single with “We are wrong/Young people available”. Produced by Gaetano Curreri together with Roberto Costathe latter already a sound engineer for Stadio, by Lucio Dalla (who the previous year had entrusted him with the album of the electronic turning point “Viaggi amministrazione”), by Ron and by Ivan Graziani. In the nine songs, which mixed pop, rock and songwriting, Curreri played keyboards and piano, Ron the piano and Dalla – credited under the pseudonym Domenico Sputo – the sax. But among the musicians who entered the recording studio together with the very young Carboni there were also two stars of the Bolognese rock scene such as the guitarists Bruno Mariani (formerly in the Njervudarov Orchestra, the group that accompanied Claudio Lolli live and in the studio) and Jimmy Villotti (already alongside Skiantos and Paolo Conte): “I started listening to the music of my older brothers, the prog of Pfm, the Banco of Mutuo Soccorso, being the penultimate of five children I had three older brothers who listened to music, there were those who loved singer-songwriters a lot, those who loved the pop of Lucio Battisti, I fell in love with De André, Guccini, Dalla and let’s say of songwriters very early. At 14/15 years old I discovered punk, first the Bolognese one by Skiantos, a punk with more irony than anger which taught me a lot, and it was a great revelation, then also non-Italian punk. I had many different worlds inside, I had discovered the word of songwriters, the free musicality of prog, the possibility of doing things in a rough way without being technically virtuous offered by punk: perhaps in my first album you can hear a bit of all these worlds coming together in a synthesis made by me”, Carboni would say years later in an interview with “Rolling Stone”.

“Forever” and the turning points with “Luca Carboni” and “Mondo”

“Forever” of 1985, re-released on autographed 180 gram black and white vinyl (first edition colored vinyl).was a transition album. Recorded at the Fonoprint in Bologna and also produced by Costa, with songs like “Ci sei questo” and “Sarà un uomo” it resumed the sounds and atmospheres of the previous one, anticipating the turning point two years later with the eponymous “Luca Carboni”. Reprinted in 180 gram autographed crystal & white vinylas well as in CD accompanied by the 45 rpm record with “Silvia lo sabe/El bus de noche”the Spanish versions of “Silvia lo sai” and “Gli bus di notte”, is today considered one of the most important and beloved albums by the Bolognese singer-songwriter, who in this phase of his career decided to work with a smaller team , again led by Roberto Costa and composed of Bruno Mariani and the Stadio drummer Giovanni Pezzoli, almost as if they wanted to demonstrate to the masters Dalla and Curreri that they know how to walk on their own two feet: the references, this time, go from Vasco (impossible listening to the guitar riffs without thinking about the arrangements of Zocca’s rocker) to funk (“Continuate like this”), passing through the already mentioned vaguely new wave atmospheres of “Farfallina”, however distorted compared to the original version.

.Carboni took a new step aside in 1995 with “Mondo”which arrives in stores almost thirty years after its release for the first time on vinyl (double), 180 gram autographed. The artist reacted to the success of “Ci takes a beastly body” and “Mare mare” with a courageous album, recorded largely live with almost no post-production: produced by Mauro Malavasi, Dalla’s former right-hand man (there was his hand behind the sounds of “Viaggio ordini”, “Bugie” and “Cambio”), “Mondo” was recorded with the contribution of Mauro Patelli on the guitars, an exponent of the Bolognese rock movement of the early 80s with his LutiChroma, a band with which he earned a place among the most important groups on the scene of the period.

The intimacy of “Carovana” and the maturity of “The bands break up”

The next one was no less courageous.”Caravan”, dated 1998. If in “Mondo” he focused on direct recording, for the “Le Ragazze” album the singer-songwriter chose to record all the songs at his home with a computer, in order to obtain a minimalist and essential work: the result was a very particular album, partly naive, with an electronic sound, which fans can rediscover for the first time on vinyl. He would return to more choral composition and recording three years later with “LUCA”, this too printed on vinyl for the first time. The 2001 album, produced by Bruno Mariani, contained the hit “

You really love me”, which brought the album to the top of the sales charts. Closing the list of re-releases is “Le band si dissolving”, released in 2006 and now issued on vinyl for the first time. It is the album of maturity, containing contributions from friends such as Pino Daniele (who plays the guitar in “La mia isola”) and Tiziano Ferro (who duets with Carboni on “Pensieri al sunset”), produced for the first time entirely by the artist: “I took stock of the situation, I looked at the past, I took some time. This album came out in which I put myself to the test and did practically everything, from composition to arrangement to recording. I had the need to write songs without any mediation, which 100% satisfied my musical sensitivity of the moment, like a writer who builds his novel in solitude”.