Stereotypes

And how do you respond in situations like these?

I have nothing to say when you talk about Italian music and think of these great artists, but the problem for me is that I have always played with a small group, in my country we used to go to patronal feasts, I always sang, I always played even in Florence I did some evenings in clubs doing some covers, I didn’t speak English at the time when I was in Florence so I always sang in Italian.

When I got here, I started singing in Italian and from the very first time I got good feedback So maybe I can keep doing this. At the beginning I didn’t have a band but there were parties, you know the Italian party that is held in all American states and every time I went to one of these parties and for a couple of years, I felt the same things, I heard bands who came from elsewhere and sang like: “or surdatu in love etc” and I thought but possible? Americans who have never come to Italy if they go now will be truly unhappy because they will find a world they will not recognize.

On a musical level, when I started, I had already started playing there and they had called me alone at the party asking me if I could make traditional songs. I replied: if you want me, I’ll make my own pieces. And from there I started but it was really a crusade, I thought that my music, who knows if they like it?

Instead people like it a lot here, we have a lot of Americans who come to concerts though, it was just a crusade, because of this myth that so many Americans have, that Italian music is that, when instead we have a lot of many things musically beautiful but, we always talk about food.