He sang with Pavarotti, Sting, Clapton, Paul Young, Brian May, Ray Charles, Miles Davis, Joe Cocker, Jeff Beck and dozens of other stars, as well as Andrea Bocelli, Francesco De Gregori… an endless, impressive list, “But I stay humble” could be his claim if Zucchero wasn’t the first to be surprised by his incredible story. “But how did I do it?” replies ANSA, reflecting aloud on his musical career, which is something crazy, according to the documentary that will be shown today at the Rome Film Festival and then on March 23-24. 25. October will be shown as an event in cinemas and will be distributed by Adler on 300 screens. The film by Valentina Zanella and Giangiacomo De Stefano, “which I said yes to as long as it wasn’t a celebratory documentary,” follows the human rather than professional journey of one of the most famous Italian artists in the world. “There is a lot more Adelmo than Zucchero,” he comments. In 2024 he will return live, “because that is my dimension”, on three dates in Italian stadiums (June 27th in Bologna, June 30th in Messina, July 4th in Milan), but then, as always, all over the place world, an “overdose of”. “Love” that will penetrate “because the program is always open to new desires”. The merit of the film, found in Zucchero’s archives (with funny gems such as the premiere in Castrocaro), is to give substance to his unique poetics, to film the places of his life, to listen to his story Many “far too generous” testimonies , the clips of his career around the world.
“I was born in Roncocesi sul Po in the lower Po Valley, a town like Peppone and Don Camillo, we called ours Don Tagliatella, a place with the communist chicken coop in front of the church where I went in return for playing the organ on Sunday altar boys. These are my roots, I return there and when I went to New Orleans and Louisiana for the first time I felt magnetically drawn, these landscapes seemed to me like those of my country,” he explains why his musical life is dedicated to the blues . Then Zucchero gradually becomes more insightful and talks about the uprooting he suffered – when he moved to Forte dei Marmi with his family at the age of 11 and went to school with a jar of his town’s soil that he could smell, when nostalgia arose – and about his desire to make music, about his first defeats, about the depression of the early 90s, “which didn’t make me enjoy the beautiful things that happened to me, about working with Pavarotti , from the Miserere with Sting, from the meeting with Paul Young” and then the rebirth by rebuilding himself privately, personally in the Pontremoli hut, always remaining “a person who feels good when he is not at home , because as Marvin Gaye said, home is where you hang your hat, and I do that in the hotels.” on the tour, a different one every night.
A “troubled” dimension, says Zucchero, quoting a definition from his friend Francesco De Gregori. “My soul is melancholic, I’ve tried to fight it but it always comes out. When things are going well, you can endure them, when things are going badly, it becomes depression,” admits the artist. “My perseverance, my stubbornness got me this far, but I didn’t want anything, mine was a life need, it was enough for me to be a musician and start a family, I didn’t even dream of making an album, instead they happen Things, with talent certainly, with luck too, but also independent of my will. In dark times, the thought of getting better scared me, and yet things moved forward, I’m the first to be surprised.” In his opinion, a key lies in authenticity. “All of my artistic collaborations were created with People who I thought were real, stars who remained authentic and I could only work with them, then there is entertainment on stage, everyone is an actor, but when you write, when you rehearse, you feel.” That you have that can only be achieved with people who remained authentic, at least for me. Luciano Pavarotti, for example, was a giant who, however, never gave up the trump card with old friends by speaking in dialect, but always remained what he was before him a large”. The film’s premiere is also expected this evening in the Auditorium Parco della Musica, followed by a celebration of Sting with Trudie Styler, among others, on the terrace of the Bernini Hotel.
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