Alice non lo sa playlist

Alice doesn’t know it. Songs by Francesco De Gregori

Francesco De Gregori’s repertoire has always fascinated not only the pure interpreters of Italian song but also our fellow songwriters, for whom it was certainly a way to pay homage to one of the most important Italian singer-songwriters. Even a rocker like Vasco Rossi wanted to try his hand at Generale, a delicate anti-war poem set to music with great sensitivity. We find De Gregori doing a duet with Fiorella Mannoia in L’uccisione di Babbo Natale, while Edoardo De Angelis tackles La casa di Hilde (with lyrics originally inspired by him, illustrating a situation he had actually lived through) with vocalizations by Lucilla Galeazzi. Fabio Concato, flanked by Fabrizio Bosso's trumpet, reinterprets Diamante in a jazz key (for whose lyrics De Gregori had consulted Zucchero) and even a fundamentally soulful singer like Fausto Leali gives in to the charm of La valigia dell’attore, a real anthem for those whose profession takes them around Italy from one stage to another. Mia Martini adds to her song-book the piece dedicated to her, Mimì sarà, a homage by De Gregori to one of the most intense artists of Italian song, referring to her stage name (Mimì Berté) used before achieving great success in the 1970s: a portrait in which the author perfectly becomes a female character who has always had to fight (and even too much) to garner success, in a show business world that contributed more than its fair share of absurd slander at the tragic end of her earthly course. Among the female characters that populate De Gregori's songs, a place of honor goes to La donna cannone, which Mango performs with his rich melodic phrasing, together with Alice, which Enrico Ruggeri revisits in his own way, alongside Fabrizio De André whose voice exalts a clearly political song, Le storie di ieri, but played entirely on the subtle allusions of poetry.