Groove City & Daria Biancardi: Italy’s got Soul By Edoardo Fassio
If Italy is one of the European countries where soul music has rooted most strongly, it is also thanks to the Porretta Soul Festival. For a third of a century Porretta Terme, a quiet spa town between Bologna and Florence, welcomes the key figures in classic rhythm & blues. The shows, which take place in a natural amphitheater called Rufus Thomas Park, hosted Rufus himself and his daughters Carla and Vaneese Thomas, as well as Irma Thomas (no relations, except in the powerful stylistic vein), Eddie Hinton, Howard Tate, Millie Jackson, Solomon Burke, Wilson Pickett and scores of other legends. Not only a showcase for the prime movers, over the years Porretta has been a training ground for new musicians, including Italian ones. This is where one of the most competent combos of the last generations has emerged: Groove City. Founded in Bologna by organist Fabio Ziveri and saxophonist Andrea Scorzoni, the little big band was destined to the Road to Memphis (a route that provided the title for their first album). Even in an literal sense: its members, inspired by the classic Memphis sound of Stax, Hi and Goldwax records, regularly visit the soul capital of the Mid-South, whenever commitments at home make it possible. Groove City, which has performed and recorded with overseas stars such as Sax Gordon, Toni Green, David Hudson and Wee Willie Walker, found their ideal voice in Daria Biancardi, a singer from Palermo who has black America flowing in her veins. Grown artistically in local gospel and spiritual vocal ensembles, she commands the scene with the warmth, the sense of drama, the joyfulness, the impetus and the spontaneity of the best rhythm & blues divas. Her maturity as a solo artist took a leap forward when, in 2001, at the age of 19, she passed an audition at the famed Apollo Theater in Harlem, NY, the undisputed temple of soul music. A frequent flyer to international arenas and festivals, Daria reached the semifinals of “The Voice of Italy”, where she sang with Ricky Martin and Kylie Minogue. On the strength of Respect, a proud tribute to Aretha Franklin that hit the stages in several European countries, on 12 and 13 November 2021 Biancardi and Groove City will appear at the prestigious Blues Heaven Festival in Frederikshavn, Denmark, sharing a top bill with Bobby Rush, John Primer, Rick Estrin, Gaye Adegbalola and Nora Jean Wallace. Not only an act of “Respect” to the great black music tradition of the twentieth century, but also a strong sign of recovery from the emergency of the pandemic. http://www.groovecity.it 18
Rock and Blues International • November 2021
