Francesco De Gregori

Francesco De Gregori OMRI (born 4 April 1951) is an Italian singer-songwriter.

In Italy, he is popularly known as "Il Principe dei cantautori" ("The Prince of the singer-songwriters"), a nickname referring to the elegance of his lyrics.

He is often referred as singer-songwriter and poet, although he prefers to be identified simply as "artist".

De Gregori was born in Rome to a middle-class family, to Giorgio and Rita Grechi, and he spent some of his youth in Pescara before returning to the capital.

His elder brother, Luigi, was a musician and had a personal career with the name of Luigi Grechi (the mother's surname), chosen later to avoid confusion with the more famous Francesco.

Influenced by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and the Italian singer-songwriter Fabrizio de André, De Gregori started to perform his songs (mainly personal translations of American folk songs) at the Folkstudio, in Rome, which was already frequented by his brother.

On one occasion De André himself is said to have listened to De Gregori's work and appreciated it.

Later De Gregori formed a band with his friends Antonello Venditti, Mimmo Locasciulli and Giorgio Lo Cascio, who all had success as singer-songwriters in the following years.

RCA Music, however, continued to trust in De Gregori's qualities: this trust was repaid the following year, when De Gregori released one of the most successful Italian LPs of the 1970s, Rimmel.

This work contained several of his most famous songs: this time De Gregori's talent for unusual and poetic lyrics intermingled in a more mature way with the music.

Lucio Dalla provided musical ideas for "Pablo", the unusual story of a Spanish immigrant in Switzerland.

Jazzy themes were present in songs like "Quattro cani" ("Four Dogs") and "Le storie di ieri" ("The Stories of Yesterday").

De Gregori made his debut as a professional singer in 1972 with Theorius Campus, in collaboration with Venditti.

The LP included the early masterpiece "Signora Aquilone" ("Kite Lady"), but Venditti had more songs and, having a better voice, earned better consideration by the label.

The duo subsequently broke up.

De Gregori's next album, Alice non lo sa (1973), was a commercial failure.

However, the title-track, the mysterious "Alice", scored some success in several popular music shows and is still included amongst his best works today.

The 1974 album Francesco De Gregori (also known as the "Sheep" due to the unusual cover by Gordon Fagetter) showed even more experimental and sometimes obscure lyrics, and again was a failure.

The latter, a song about the years of Fascism, had been already released on De André's 1974 album Volume 8, as it had been written during a stay in the Genoese singer's Sardinian estate.

Titanic has been recently declared the best Italian LP of the period 1975–2005, in a poll conducted for the authoritative Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera.

The following year de Gregori released a mini-LP containing his most long-standing success, La Donna Cannone, a song that De Gregori asked initially Mia Martini to sing.

Bufalo Bill (1976) confirmed De Gregori's qualities, and contained at least two classics: the eponymous song and "Santa Lucia", the singer's own favourite.

However, during a concert held in Milan in 1976, De Gregori, who had always declared his inclination to left-wing ideas and ideals, was fiercely contested by a group of extreme left agitators.

In a mock "trial", they accused him of using a left-wing message solely to sell records and insisted that music should be free.

De Gregori was at risk of injury in the fray, and decided to quit his musical career.

During the following two years he therefore worked as a bookstore and music shop clerk.

The episode, known as the "Palalido incident", influenced several works by other Italian singer-songwriters, such as Roberto Vecchioni's "Vaudeville".

The "Palalido incident" was one of a number of such incidents.

At this time, De Gregori married Alessandra Gobbi whom he had known since High School, and they had two sons, Marco and Federico.

In 1978, however, he returned with another inspired album, De Gregori, containing one of his most famous songs, "Generale".

He declared that he felt this song much too important for him to continue staying away from the music world.

The following year he joined his old friend Lucio Dalla with a highly successful live tour, entitled Banana Republic, and published a studio LP, Viva l'Italia featuring American musicians.

The title track was later adopted as the Italian Socialist Party song, but De Gregori always opposed this choice.

After a pause of several years, De Gregori returned with the album Titanic, the first part of which was like a concept album devoted to the famous episode of the sinking of the eponymous liner.

The ballad "San Lorenzo", with a rare piano performance by De Gregori, concerns the dramatic episode of the bombing during World War II of the quarter in Rome by Allied planes.

The freshness of the music and lyrics made this an outstanding commercial success, as well as earning the praise of critics.

The 1985 album Scacchi e tarocchi ("Chess and Tarots"), was not as successful, but contained another classic, "La Storia" ("History").

De Gregori's new melancholic inspiration was confirmed by the subsequent Terra di nessuno ("No man's Land").

De Gregori recovered his bestseller status in 1992 with Canzoni d'amore ("Love Songs").

On the other hand, Miramare 19-4-89 showed a more bitter mood, but again was not as successful as his albums of the 1970s and early 1980s.