Francesco de Gregori

After performing at Italy's finest venues for two years on the Work In Progress joint tour with Lucio Dalla, for his next outing, De Gregori decided to return to his humble beginnings. The Pubs and Clubs tour was exactly that, De Gregori and his band performing in the kind of small clubs where in the early '70s the singer/songwriter begun to build his reputation as one of Italy's greatest cantautori.

The ironically titled Canzoni d'Amore (Love Songs) is actually one of Francesco De Gregori's most unforgiving, socially committed albums. As the hedonist 1980s of the Craxi Administration came to a close, the Italian political system began to crumble, unveiling in its wake a shameful trail of widespread corruption, financial crisis, and moral decadence. De Gregori denounces and dissects a society ravaged by indifference, bigotry, selfishness, and simple stupidity, reflected in issues such as the utter disregard for environmental concerns in the face of mounting pollution ("Adelante! Adelante!") and the contemptuous betrayal of personal principles and political ideologies ("Vecchi Amici," "La Ballata dell'Uomo Ragno").

Ever since the '90s, De Gregori started to record rather sporadically but released a seemingly endless string of live albums. Typically, these live compilations would include a selection of his classics, plus two or three new songs to boost the album's sales. Indeed, the biggest hits De Gregori has had in the past 15 years all belong to this category, notably "Il Bandito e il Campione" and "La Valigia dell'attore."

The celebrations of the 40th anniversary of "Sotto il segno dei pesci", among the album-symbol of the discography of Antonello Venditti, seem to never end. Started in September last year with the release of the unpublished "Sfiga" and the box set "Sotto il segno dei pesci - 40° anniversario", the celebrations went on with the concert-event at the Arena di Verona (which among the other things saw the Roman singer-songwriter find his friend Francesco De Gregori on stage - they debuted together, in 1972, with the album "Theorius Campus", then over the years removals, digs and rapprochements), with the appearance in Sanremo as guest and with a tour in the sports halls. Now comes "Sotto il segno dei pesci - The anniversary tour (Live)" - the live record of the forty-year album - forgive the pun.

The second LP for which he wrote both lyrics and music, Lucio Dalla was released by RCA Italia, and is generally considered among his finest works. It contains some of his most popular songs, such as "Anna e Marco", "Milano" and "L'anno che verrà". "Cosa sarà", written with Ron, is sung together with Francesco De Gregori. Forty years after its release, Sony Music celebrates the Lucio Dalla album with a remastered limited edition enriched with 3 extra tracks in new versions: Angeli (studio version),Stella di mare (demo Italian version), Ma come fanno i marinai feat. Francesco De Gregori (studio version). Furthermore the album is accompanied by a rich booklet with interviews written by John Vignola and with the original illustrations by Alessandro Baronciani, created specifically for this important anniversary.

The Antoniana Library in Padua holds a manuscript called Cantate alla virtù della Signora Maria Pignatelli. A true vocal anthology of the early 18th century, this period canzoniere contains forty-eight secular cantatas, almost all unpublished, by seventeen composers from the great artistic centres that Italy had around 1700: Rome and the Papal States (Bologna, Ferrara, Ravenna), the Duchy of Milan, Naples, the Kingdom of Sicily, and Venice.

Italy's foremost female rock singer, Gianna Nannini, was born in Siena on June 14, 1956, to a family that included a renowned industrialist and Siena Football Club president father and a Formula One pilot brother. Often described as the creative rebel in the family, Nannini attended the Lucca Conservatory throughout her entire adolescence, where she was trained as a pianist…