A “simple but exciting” Zucchero arrives at Porta Ferrada. The Italian singer, author of the hits ‘Senza una donna’ and ‘Baila (sexy thing)’, performs in an acoustic trio format, accompanied by the renowned Doug Pettibone and Kat Dyson, on the opening night of the Sant Feliu de Guixols .
The Porta Ferrada Festival starts its biggest stage this Friday, the Guíxols Arena, with one of the few international figures that this summer are running through our country, the Italian star Zucchero, with a concert that the exhibition presents as the opening act of its 59th edition. Singular, acoustic performance in a trio format, in which he will go through his songs “in a simple but exciting way.”
Approach related to his new album, ‘Inacustico DOC & more’, unplugged and expanded revision of the album ‘DOC’, which he released two years ago. A response to pandemic gathering? Zucchero indicates that he had been thinking of recording in that record for “a long time”.
“Before the pandemic, some acoustic versions had been posted on the networks and the reaction had been stupendous,” the Reggio Emilia singer tells this newspaper by email, who says he has been “creatively busy” for the last year, “working on acoustic themes, performing from home at the virtual festival One World or recording the duet with Sting for his album ”, he specified in reference to the song ‘September’.
Appellation of origin
After a cycle of records produced by the American Don Was (“I adore him; he’s like my brother”), Zucchero himself took the reins in this work, thinking of a “simpler and less produced” approach to this songbook. The acronym DOC (Denomination of Controlled Origin) are those that “in Italy are used for wine bottles”, and here they imply that the disc contains “genuine Zucchero music controlled by Zucchero”.
It is the latest production by an artist who, although in Spain is associated with some isolated hit songs, in particular ‘Senza una donna’ (1987) and ‘Baila (sexy thing)’ (2001), has dragged nearly four decades of trajectory around a notion of rock with a black substrate, in dialogue with soul, funk and blues, and open to appointments with broad spectrum figures, such as Eric Clapton, Sergio Mendes or Luciano Pavarotti.
His story took shape when, in 1984, he went to San Francisco to visit his friend Corrado Rustici, who after working in Italy with the Nova group was entering the Anglo-Saxon industry (he would work with Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin and George Benson).
“He introduced me to Randy Jackson, who happened to play bass in my band,” he recalls. “Back in Italy, we performed at the San Remo Festival and I released the album ‘Zucchero & The Randy Jackson Band'”.
Trio with powers
As an Italian not framed in the traditional balladism, Zucchero (real name, Adelmo Fornaciari) does not believe that he has confused the international public with his proposal of North American descent, “since your love for a style of music has nothing to do with the country from which you proceed, and because music can be whatever you want it to be ”.
Unlike his performance at Porta Ferrada four years ago, when he was accompanied by a broad band (with Brian Auger on keyboards), this time he performs with a brief but credentialed company: the guitarists Doug Pettibone, who has played on albums by Mark Knopfler, Lucinda Willians and Marianne Faithfull, and Kat Dyson,former member of New Power Generation, the band of the ill-fated Prince.
The concert ‘Inacustico’, by Zucchero, represents the start of a Guíxols Arena that in the coming weeks will host artists such as Sílvia Pérez Cruz, Pablo Alborán, Sergio Dalma, Bad Gyal, Vetusta Morla, Oques Grasses, Maria Arnal and Marcel Badamientos or the doublets of Iván Ferreiro with Xoel López and El Petit de Cal Eril with Pau Vallvé.
The festival includes five other stages, among them the ‘village’, attached to the Guíxols Arena, a restaurant-oriented space that, with the new restrictions, will not be able to remain open beyond 00:30. According to the organization, Porta Ferrada has so far sold more than 30,000 tickets.