Maurizio Biancani: “My first meeting with Vasco Rossi”

By courtesy of the author and the publisher we are publishing a preview of an extract from the book “The Alchemist of Sound”, by the finisher and producer Maurizio Biancani, published by Fernandel and in bookstores from tomorrow.

Calmly, and pronouncing the sentences well, Gaetano Curreri explained to me how things had gone. A certain Borgatti, a smooth music producer who churned out cassettes in his studio in Casalecchio di Reno, had agreed to produce Vasco’s debut album and had directed them to the recording studio of Gianni Gitti, someone who mainly recorded videos for TV but who also knew about audio recordings, and whose laboratory was right in front of ours. But when the drummer, named Attila, the only one in the band to have had professional experience with artists of the caliber of Fred Bongusto and Ivan Graziani, was told that he should play in the corridor, he sent him to hell.

Gitti didn’t resist, and told him: “I’m like that, but right across the street they just opened a real recording studio.” It was there. We had already had other professional exchanges with Gitti. «It’s not easy to find a producer… and having found it is a real blessing» I said, following Vasco out of the corner of my eye, who had started wandering around the studio looking around the drum box and the recording room. «No, it’s not easy. Before finding Borgatti we toured the seven churches” confirmed Curreri. And he added: «We were in RCA, in Rome, but nothing. A representative who brings us records to the radio had arranged an appointment for us and we went with the auditions of Silvia And Jenny. A person in a white coat brushed us off and told us he would let us know. Even in Milan, in other record companies, they told us the same thing. At the Ri-Fi in Corso Buenos Aires, the owner’s son, Tonino Ansoldi, told us: “You are too particular, it’s not the right time”.

“At that point I was really tired of walking around,” said Vasco, lighting a cigarette. «How did you get to Borgatti?» I asked. «Thanks to Stefano Scandolara, someone who is part of Punto Radio. He wrote for Mina and Vanoni and knows everyone in the business a bit” replied Curreri. Then he added: «Stefano knows Borgatti very well, a publisher who made his money with smooth music cassettes, and convinced him to invest in us with a forty-five rpm record.» Vasco, standing in front of the grand piano, said: «It seems like we’re in a real recording studio… the American-style ones». A hint of pride filled my chest. Beginnings are never easy, in any field and for anything, and the arena in which you fight to emerge can demolish any passion if you don’t have the support of someone who tells you from time to time that you’re doing well, that everything is ok. «We want to record two songs: Jenny And Silvia» Curreri said, handing me a cassette tape on which they had recorded the melody and lyrics of the two songs that Borgatti had agreed to produce.

They left not before making arrangements to start working on the album. Intrigued, I listened to the two songs I was supposed to work on. She left first Silvia. The melody was pleasant, catchy but not banal. The text shocked me. It is the photograph of a teenager who checks her breasts in front of the mirror and caresses them. It seemed to me that Vasco was mentioning a part of the female body but referring to a broader universe, that of adolescence and the difficulty of accepting oneself as one is. I listened carefully to the ending, it was very strong, it talked about masturbation, but it did it delicately. I liked it and moved on to the second song, Jenny is crazy. This text also struck me. It was different from the first, where the main theme was the body and the relationship with it; in Jenny the focus was the relationship with the mind and society. It’s the story of a girl who can no longer bear a life that doesn’t seem to belong to her. She is an marginalized girl who is admitted to a clinic in the hope that one day she will heal. People say she’s crazy. I let out a sigh of satisfaction at that poetic and painful response in the face of civil society’s indifference to the discomfort. I couldn’t help but think that despite the Basaglia law, which would soon decree the closure of mental asylums, the problem persisted. And perhaps it would not have been resolved simply by closing the mental hospitals, but by opening ourselves to what is different, and accepting it for what it is, without wanting to change it.

In the days and weeks following that first meeting, as we rehearsed the songs, I often observed Vasco in action. I was intrigued and wanted to know more. So it was that I accepted his invitation to go to the nightclub in Modena where he was a DJ. It was a Wednesday evening, her evening, but it was also the evening of the girls of Reggio Emilia. They came in droves from Reggio and many young people from Bologna who were looking for “fortune abroad” did not want to miss that appointment with their future soul mate. That evening the influx was truly remarkable and we didn’t know which way to look. Miniskirts were now the official uniform and the eyes of us kids bounced like pinballs from one side of the disco to the other. As soon as I entered, I saw Vasco in front of the mixer, in the typical attitude of someone who does that job: the bottle of whiskey at hand and the look of someone who’s having a hard time. However, he was at ease and the people in the room had a lot of fun with his music. I studied him as he played record after record, when suddenly he did something that left me speechless. He grabbed an acoustic guitar with a certain certainty, sat down on the steps of the turret of the DJ station and, drawing attention, said: «Come on, now I’ll show you some of my new songs». I swear I thought about leaving before the ruckus broke out, before glasses and bottles started flying around the room to convince Vasco to go back to the mixer. And instead…