Fabrizio Cristiano De André (Italian: [faˈbrittsjo de anˈdre]; 18 February 1940 – 11 January 1999) was an Italian singer-songwriter and the most-prominent cantautore of his time. He is also known as Faber, a nickname given by the friend Paolo Villaggio, as a reference to his liking towards Faber-Castell's pastels and pencils, aside from the assonance with his own name, and also because he was known as il cantautore degli emarginati or il poeta degli sconfitti. His 40-year career reflects his interests in concept albums, literature, poetry, political protest, and French music. He is considered a prominent member of the Genoese School. He sang in both Italian and in other languages such as Genoese. Because of the success of his music in Italy and its impact on the Italian collective memory, many public places such as roads, squares, and schools in Italy are named after De André.
Fabrizio De André was born in Pegli, Genoa, Italy, to an upper-class family. He had a warm, deep voice, and started playing guitar at the age of 14. His father gave him some Georges Brassens records, whose songs influenced the style of his first songs. Brassens also inspired De André to become a libertarian and a pacifist, which was influential in his music and later, more-sophisticated productions.
When he was a student in February 1961, De André debuted, singing two songs in a theater in Genoa. The two songs were later recorded as his first single, "Nuvole Barocche" b/w "E fu la Notte", which was released in 1961 and was an imitation of Domenico Modugno. In his following recordings in the early 1960s, De André found a more personal style, mixing literature with traditional songs (in particular medieval ones), presenting himself as a contemporary troubador and storyteller. His narrative centered on the stories of marginalized people and antiheroes. He later recorded protest songs such as "La Ballata del Miché" ("Mickey's Ballad"), which he co-wrote with his friend Clelia Petracchi and considered his first true song; "La Guerra di Piero" ("Piero's War"), an anti-war song, with music contributed by Vittorio Centenaro, and several other songs. Some of the songs were inspired by his city, Genoa, such as "La Città Vecchia" ("The Old [side of the] City"), which he co-wrote with Elvio Monti; and "Via del Campo", with the music of Enzo Jannacci. He also wrote two songs with his life-long friend Paolo Villaggio, "Il Fannullone" and "Carlo Martello (Ritorna dalla Battaglia di Poitiers)" ("Charles Martel Returns from the Battle of Poitiers"), in 1963.
In 1962, his first son Cristiano De André was born to his first wife Enrica "Puny" Rignon, whom he married in the same year.
His first song to find commercial success was "La canzone di Marinella" ("The Song of Marinella") in 1967, thanks to a television performance by Mina. Following this first success, his first album of new songs was released in 1967 with the title Volume 1. The album opens with "Preghiera in Gennaio" ("Prayer in January"), which is dedicated to De André's friend Luigi Tenco, a singer-songwriter who committed suicide before the album's release during his participation in the Sanremo Festival. Despite the popularity of this festival, De André refused to participate in any song competition by principle, and rarely appeared on television. In 1966, De André's first compilation album Tutto Fabrizio De André was released.
In 1968, De André released Tutti morimmo a stento, a concept album sung in Italian, with orchestral arrangements of Gian Piero Reverberi—a first for De André. The lyrics of the first song "Il Cantico dei Drogati" ("Junkies' Canticle") were co-written with poet Riccardo Mannerini, one of the most significant people in De André's life. De André and Mannerini also co-wrote lyrics for the 1968 album of the band New Trolls, Senza orario Senza bandiera. In 1969, it was released on the album Volume 3; due to their lyrics, some of its songs were censored by the national Italian television channel but were broadcast by Vatican Radio.
In 1970 the song "Il pescatore" ("The Fisherman") was released. The same year, he released La buona novella (The Good News), another concept album that was inspired by the life of Jesus Christ as reported mainly by the Apocryphal gospels. The album was followed in 1971 by Non al denaro non all'amore né al cielo which was inspired by the Spoon River Anthology, a collection of short poems from Edgar Lee Masters, with the collaboration of Nicola Piovani for the music and Giuseppe Bentivoglio for the lyrics. The album's booklet contains an interview from Fernanda Pivano, the Italian translator of Masters' works. In 1973, De André wrote the concept album Storia di un impiegato, which is about the protests of those years, also involving Piovani and Bentivoglio. In 1974, he released the album Canzoni, which includes re-recordings of many old songs and new translations of songs of Brassens, Leonard Cohen ("Suzanne" and "Joan of Arc"), and Bob Dylan ("Desolation Row"), thanks to the collaboration of Francesco De Gregori. In 1975, the experimental (both musically and linguistically) album Volume/8 was a collaboration with the songwriter Francesco De Gregori, and includes a translation of a song by Leonard Cohen ("Seems so long ago, Nancy").
In 1975, De André made his concert debut at La Bussola in Viareggio. Before that event, De André refused to perform live concerts because he considered himself more a songwriter than a performer. In the same period, he moved from Genoa to Sardinia. In 1978, his new concept album Rimini, which he co-wrote with singer-songwriter Massimo Bubola was released; it includes a translation of Bob Dylan's "Romance in Durango" ("Avventura a Durango"). For the first time, he wrote a song in Gallurese, a local language related to Corsican, "Zirichiltaggia" ("Lizard Den"), inspired by the Ballu tundu, beginning to show his passion for minority languages and music traditions.
In 1977, his daughter Ludovica Vittoria (nicknamed simply Luvi) was born to his partner Dori Ghezzi. Between December 1978 and January 1979, De André toured with the Italian progressive rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM), from which two live albums (In Concerto - Arrangiamenti PFM, vol. 1 and 2) were released. Many years later, in 2020, a video taken from that tour was discovered and published as a DVD with the title "Fabrizio De André e PFM - Il concerto ritrovato".
On 27 August 1979, De André and Dori Ghezzi were kidnapped in Sardinia. They were not released until December.
Together with Sergio Bardotti De André translated the song "Famous Blue Raincoat" with the title "La Famosa Volpe Azzurra", which was performed by Ornella Vanoni on her album Ricetta di donna (1980).
In 1981, De André and Massimo Bubola released the single "Una storia sbagliata", which was dedicated to Pier Paolo Pasolini and appeared as an opening theme to an Italian television program. Later in 1981, in July, De André released an album without a title, also known as L'Indiano (The Indian) due to the cover reproducing the painting The Outlier by Frederic Remington. The album is more inspired by rock music than De André's earlier ones, partly because of the collaboration in songwriting with Bubola. The arrangements were done by the American-born musician Mark Harris, who also sings "Ave Maria" in Sardinian. The track "Hotel Supramonte" was inspired by the De André's kidnapping experience. In September, De André and Ghezzi produced the next Bubola's album, Tre Rose (Three Roses), where they are also credited in the chorus.
In 1982, De André, who disliked traveling, went on his first and only European tour of Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. In 1982 De André made one of his very rare TV presences, singing live the songs Fiume Sand Creek (Sand Creek River) and Andrea on the Italian television program Sotto le stelle. In 1984, Joan Baez sang "Marinella" during an Italian public television program (Blitz, conducted by Gianni Minà).
In 1984 the album Crêuza de mä was released, a collaboration with the multi-instrumentalist Mauro Pagani, a former member of PFM. This album is very unusual: its music was inspired by the Mediterranean music played with instruments from many local traditions, resulting in a special kind of world music and entirely sung in Genoese. David Byrne, later talking to Rolling Stone, named the album as one of the most-important releases of the decade. In 1985, De André co-wrote the song "Faccia di Cane", however unofficially, which was performed by the New Trolls at the Sanremo Music Festival 1985, where it placed third and won the Prize of the Critic. In 1987, De André and Pagani wrote the score of the film Topo Galileo. In 1988 De André sung in the song "Questi posti davanti al mare" together with Francesco De Gregori and Ivano Fossati, who also wrote the song, included in Fossati's 1988 album La pianta del tè. The song won the Targa Tenco in the Best Song category.