De André canta De André - Cristiano De André Live ["DeA sings DeA"] is a livetribute album by Cristiano De André, consisting of updated covers and remakes of songs written (or co-written) and originally performed by his late father Fabrizio De André, recorded during Cristiano's 2009-2010 tour of Italy (originally started on the tenth anniversary of Fabrizio's passing) and released as a CD+DVD bundle.[a] Similarly to De André Senior's 1979-1980 release In Concerto - Arrangiamenti PFM, it was followed by a Volume 2 in 2010, recorded during the same shows and released in the same 2-disc format.[1][2]
In 2017, Cristiano De André released a Vol. 3 as a follow-up to the first two releases, including twelve new covers and remakes.
All songs arranged by Luciano Luisi, except for "Mégu megún", originally arranged by Mauro Pagani; "Ho visto Nina volare", originally arranged by Piero Milesi; "Amico fragile", "La canzone di Marinella" and "Il pescatore", originally arranged by PFM.
"Nella mia ora di libertà" (F. De André/Bentivoglio [lyrics], F. De André/Piovani [music])
"Don Raffaè" (F. De André/Bubola [lyrics]; F. De André/Pagani [music])
"Cose che dimentico" (F. De André/Carlo Facchini [lyrics]; C. De André [music])
"Â duménega" (F De Andrè [lyrics]; Pagani [music])
Medley: "Andrea" (F. De André/Bubola)/"La cattiva strada" (F. De André/Francesco De Gregori)/"Un giudice" (F. De André/Bentivoglio/Edgar Lee Masters [lyrics], F. De André/Piovani [music])
"La collina" (F. De André/Bentivoglio/Masters [lyrics], F. De André/Piovani [music]) + Reprise (F. De André/Piovani)
"Crêuza de mä" (F. De André [lyrics]; Pagani/F. De André [music])
"Bocca di Rosa" (F. De André lyrics; F. De André/Reverberi [music])
"La canzone dell'amore perduto" (F. De André [lyrics]; F. De André/Georg Philipp Telemann [music])
All songs originally recorded and performed by Fabrizio De André, except "Cose che dimentico", originally performed by Fabrizio and Cristiano De Andrè.
Track 1 originally released on Anime salve
Track 2 originally released on Storia di un impiegato
Track 3 originally released on Le nuvole
Track 4 originally recorded in 1998, first released in 2005 on the collection In direzione ostinata e contraria
Tracks 5 and 8 originally released on Crêuza de mä
All songs were newly arranged by keyboardist, programmer and composer Luciano Luisi in a rock/hard rock style, with hints of prog rock and electronica. Described by Luisi on the documentary video Filming Around Tour, on the bonus DVD bundled with the original 2009 release, as "a cross between rock, metal, power pop and Emerson, Lake & Palmer", the new arrangements were, according to Luisi and Cristiano De André, a way to distance De André Junior's live performances from his father's studio and live recordings (which Luisi views as sacred and untouchable), while at the same time bringing them closer to Cristiano's own sensitivity.[3] All songs feature a prominent electric guitar, heavily distorted and often processed, played by Osvaldo Di Dio, as well as Luisi's vintage-sounding keyboards and synths. The only exceptions are a 3-song, fully acousticmedley on the second volume, and "La canzone dell'amore perduto",[b] at the end of the same volume, performed by De André Jr. on piano, backed by a soft guitar accompaniment by Di Dio and a double bass part by Davide Pezzin. PFM's influential 1979 arrangements (originally released on Fabrizio De André in Concerto - Arrangiamenti PFM) for "Amico fragile", "La canzone di Marinella" and "Il pescatore" were reproduced almost verbatim, although Di Dio's guitar is still more prominent in the new versions than Franco Mussida's in the 1979 ones.
Filming Around Tour (a deliberately ungrammatical portmanteau of "Filming around" and "Around (the) tour", meant as "About the tour"), is a short (37 minutes) documentary film, by filmmaker Daniele Pignatelli, about the making of the tour. It includes excerpts from behind-the-scenes interviews with Cristiano De André and the band, as well as full live performances of "'Â çimma", "Se ti tagliassero a pezzetti", "Amico fragile" and "Fiume Sand Creek".
At the start of the film, De André Jr. describes the tour as a "passing of the baton" from his father to himself, and, at the end, he states that he always felt his father's presence on stage.
Talking about the songs from Crêuza de mä, Le nuvole and Anime salve written in Genoese dialect, Cristiano admits that he had a hard time learning all the words and their correct pronunciations, as he had never sung in Genoese before backing his father on his 1997-1998 Anime salve tour (his final one). He also states that De André Sr. had a habit of wrongly pronouncing the German surname 'Kreutzer' (mostly referring either to classical musician Rodolphe Kreutzer or to Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 9, popularly known as "Kreutzer Sonata" and dedicated to him) in a similar way to the Genoese word crêuza, and that the song "Crêuza de mä", which Cristiano included in the tour setlist, ended up being regularly referred to by all the band members, including himself, as "Kreutzer del mar", using the correct pronunciation of "Kreutzer" - i.e. "Kròiza".[4]
In an interview clip, Cristiano reveals the truth behind some of the nastiest, most cynical lines in "Amico fragile" ["Frail friend"], one of Fabrizio De André's best-known songs, and about its disconnected, stream-of-consciousness-like structure. The germ of the song was born during a summer evening which the De André family spent in their rural house in Sardinia with a group of friends; after dinner, everybody got drunk and Fabrizio was forced to sing in spite of him not wanting to. In his intoxicated state, he improvised a bawdy song[c] where he exposed all of his friends' defects and vices. After they had left, he retreated into the same garage where Cristiano is filming the interview, and wrote the whole of "Amico fragile" right away. The interview clip starts with Cristiano singing the first line of the song while performing its intricate accompaniment on acoustic guitar, displaying his prowess on the instrument; the film then cuts to his full onstage live performance of the same song, after which Cristiano talks about it.
Notturno dell'Amistade [literally "Nocturne of Friendship", from Sardinian], recorded live on 3 July 2010 at the medieval Castello Pallavicino in Varano de' Melegari, is a 3-song excerpt from a longer show performed by Cristiano De André with various guest artists as a benefit concert for Dori Ghezzi's charity organization Fondazione Fabrizio De André. The show included orchestrated and re-arranged versions of songs by Fabrizio De André, performed by all the guests.
"Disamistade" is arranged by trumpeter and composer Markus Stockhausen and performed by the local chamber orchestra Vianiner Philarmoniker with the Cappella Farnesiana choir. It features a new introduction for brass and strings and an expanded orchestration for strings and choir, also including improvised flugelhorn parts by Stockhausen.
"Franziska" features Spanish female quartet Malasangre (literally "Bad Blood", formed by sisters Maria, Marta and Pilar Robles with their cousin Pilar Crespo) and a radical flamenco-style re-arrangement by Malasangre themselves. It is played much faster than Fabrizio De André's original recording on L'Indiano, features prominent nylon-string guitars and is partly sung in Spanish. During the instrumental interludes between verses, the Robles sisters dance on their own.
"Valzer per un amore (Valzer campestre)" features a jazz-oriented orchestral arrangement and a trumpet part by Markus Stockhausen, as well as an excerpt from Dmitri Shostakovich's popular "Waltz 2", taken from his 1956 Suite for Variety Orchestra. A very similar arrangement, including a shorter Shostakovich excerpt, was adopted for the same song by British arranger and conductor Geoff Westley, on his 2011 tribute album Sogno n° 1.
Special thanks to all the musicians, the sound engineers, the tour technicians for their kindness, producers Michele Torpedine and Bruno Sconocchia, Pepi Morgia, Luvi De André, Dori Ghezzi, Fabrizio De André Foundation... and of course to Cristiano and Fabrizio De André.
^Unlike other similar releases, the two-disc, dual-format bundles of both volumes are not "special" or "deluxe editions", but the standard ones. As of 2020, they are still in print and available in the same formats.
^During live performances, Cristiano De André dedicates "Verranno a chiederti del nostro amore" and this song to his mother - his father's first wife, Enrica "Puny" Rignon. In the Filming Around Tour documentary, Cristiano states that, although he is very fond of Dori Ghezzi as he grew up with her, he still feels a great deal of filial love toward his mother.
^The tune to which De André improvised his bawdy lyrics is unknown, but it bore no resemblance to "Amico fragile". In a scene within the 2018 biopicFabrizio De André: Principe libero [i.e. "Free prince"], the singer, as portrayed by Luca Marinelli, sings a parody of "Il pescatore" using vulgar, scurrilous lyrics.