TRULLETTO RECORDS Music Has Found A Home In The Tradition by Edoardo Fassio In July 2019, the Italian distributor of Monopoly launched a special version of the most famous board game in the world, specifically dedicated to the Apulian town of (almost) the same name; it is “Monopoli’s Monopoly edition”, a collector’s item celebrating the coastal town that lies 45 kilometers south-east of Bari, right where Italy’s heel starts. This was not the only event of note, last year, to testify to the liveliness of the local scene when it comes to popular culture. In September, in the rural area between Monopoli and Castellana Grotte, homeboy guitarist and producer Sebastiano Lillo founded Trulletto Records, an ambitious record label. The name pays homage to the trulli, the ancient domed dry-stone buildings typical to the area, one of which, appropriately renovated, houses the company’s offices and a recording studio. “We started producing roots and blues music, concentrating on basic, no-frills stuff”, says Lillo, not new to achieving success starting from scratch. He was the musical partner of the raw soul singer Angela Esmeralda, with whom he released two acclaimed CDs that blended deep blues and Apulian vernacular, and participated in 2015 to the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. He was also part of The Drive, the quartet that represented Italy at the 2019 European Blues Challenge, held at Ponta Delgada, in the Azores Islands. “In an artistic landscape that is increasingly dominated by electronics”, Lillo insists, “our goal is to reassess the importance of the electro-acoustic sound, and pay respect to the musicians’ ideas, with no tricks at all”. The first release for Trulletto is “Sitting Singin’ Old Songs” by Stefano Barigazzi, a twenty-four-year-old singer and guitarist from Reggio Emilia. Throughout the album, recorded at home during the lockdown, he accompanies himself with a vintage guitar purchased in New Orleans, and revisits old (and also very old) songs, from Bukka White to Harry Belafonte to Bob Dylan. It was followed by “Songs From The Garret”, the solo debut of HaT in the Garret, aka Giuseppe “JimiRay” Piazzolla, and the works of young personalities such as Cedro (Pierpaolo Mingolla), a singer-songwriter and accordionist, or the impressive fingerstyle guitarist Palma Cosa . As of November 2020, the latest baby of the label that lives in the trullo is “Cianfrusaglie” (Junk), by a duo that directly involves Sebastiano Lillo, along with double bass ace Carletto Petrosillo. https://trullettorecords.bandcamp.com/ https://www.trullettorecords.com/
November 2020 • Rock and Blues International
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