Attraction, Bologna
The story of Lucio Dalla is entwined in the history of Bologna. The famous song-writer was born in Bologna on March the 4th, 1943. When he was very young, after the death of his father, he moved with his mother to Treviso, where he went to school before coming back to Bologna already a teenager.
His mother, Jole Melotti, was one of his bigger fans and she never hindered his wish to pursuit a career in the show business. Dalla fondly and ironically remembers a childhood episode, when his mother had him take an aptitude test which would help him discover his future natural inclinations: “I was 10 years old when my mom, a peculiar woman, a stylist who didn’t know how to sew a button, took me to an Institute in Bologna for an aptitude test. The results claimed I was feeble-minded”.
Quickly leaving behind his school studies he dedicated himself to music. He soon became, at a very young age, a master of the accordion, but the turning point for him came when he was given a clarinet as a gift. He learned how to play it on his own, proving to be extremely talented, gifted to the point of playing and improvising with the great American jazz player Chet Baker who then lived in Bologna. Dalla was then barely over 16 years old.
From then on, Lucio will play with many local groups in different events until being noticed by Gino Paoli, who sees in him and his particular way of singing and composing the birth of the first Italian soul musician.
His solo career starts in 1964, and just a few years later he ends up in the Festival di Sanremo. There, he meets up again with musicians he’d played with in his earlier years, among which Luigi Tenco, who will commit suicide during the festival in 1967, in a room near Lucio’s.
From that Festival, his whole career will be a sequence of successes and great collaborations. Some of his songs, like “4 marzo 1943”, are even translated in other languages and sang by artists like Dalida. At the end of the 70s he will work with Francesco De Gregori, in a tour which will remain in history under the name of “Banana Republic”, the same name of its album. Their friendship will last until Lucio’s death.
In 1981 the musicians who usually accompanied him decide to start a solo career, setting forth the birth of the “Stadio”, a group that is still active nowadays.
Dalla dies unexpectedly on 1st March 2012 in Switzerland by a heart attack after one of his concerts. His companion immediately calls the emergency services but nothing can be done. Bologna and the Isles of Tremiti, where Dalla lived, mourned his death.
Lucio Dalla rests inside the Monumental Cemetery of La Certosa, in Bologna, next to other great poets and artists. Following his death, a foundation born to promote his artistic heritage was created. Dalla’s house is in front of the small alley which connects strada D’Azeglio with Corte dei Galluzzi and can be visited on certain dates thanks to the CNA of Bologna.
