Giuseppe Daniele (19 March 1955 – 4 January 2015), known as Pino Daniele, was an Italian singer, songwriter and musician. His influences covered a wide number of genres, including pop, blues, jazz, and Italian and Middle Eastern music.
Biography
Daniele was born to a working-class family in
Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's admini ...
, his father being a harbor worker. A self-taught guitarist, he began his career as a musician playing for other successful singers of the 1970s. His debut in the Italian music world was in 1977 with the album ''Terra mia'',
which proved to be a successful mix of
Neapolitan tradition and Blues sounds. Daniele defined his music with the term "tarumbò", which indicated a mix of
tarantella
() is a group of various southern Italian folk dances originating in the regions of Calabria, Campania and Puglia. It is characterized by a fast upbeat tempo, usually in time (sometimes or ), accompanied by tambourines. It is among the m ...
,
blues and
rumba
The term rumba may refer to a variety of unrelated music styles. Originally, "rumba" was used as a synonym for "party" in northern Cuba, and by the late 19th century it was used to denote the complex of secular music styles known as Cuban rumba ...
. His lyrics also attracted critical praise: written and sung in an intense
Neapolitan, they contained strong and bitter accusations against the social injustices of Naples, as well as Italian society in general, and included melancholic personal themes. Several of the later songs are characterized by a free intermingling of English, Italian and
Neapolitan passages.
Daniele's talent was confirmed on the following album ''Pino Daniele'' (1979). He scored his greatest success in 1980, with ''Nero a metà'' ("Half-Black Skinned"), which was noted by some authorities as the hallmark of the rebirth of
Neapolitan song. In that year Daniele opened the
Bob Marley
Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981; baptised in 1980 as Berhane Selassie) was a Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by fusing elements ...
concert at the
San Siro
Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, commonly known as San Siro, is a football stadium in the San Siro district of Milan, Italy, which is the home of A.C. Milan and Inter Milan. It has a seating capacity of 80,018, making it one of the largest stadiums i ...
stadium in
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city has ...
. In 1981 ''Vai Mo'' was released. The presence of some of the most renowned musicians of the Neapolitan musical milieu, including
James Senese
Gaetano "James" Senese (born 6 January 1945) is an Italian saxophonist, composer, and singer-songwriter.
Life and career
Senese was born in Naples, the son of Anna Senese and James Smith, an American soldier from North Carolina in Italy because ...
,
Enzo Avitabile,
Tullio De Piscopo Tullio De Piscopo (born 24 February 1946 in Naples, Italy) is an Italian drummer, percussionist and singer- songwriter.
De Piscopo was born in Naples. His father was an orchestra percussionist. In 1969 he moved to Turin and two years later he move ...
and
Tony Esposito
Anthony James "Tony O" Esposito (April 23, 1943 – August 10, 2021) was a Canadian-American professional ice hockey goaltender, who played 16 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL), 15 of those for the Chicago Black Hawks. He was one of ...
, as session men on his albums has also been widely praised.
In 1982, Daniele shifted to a personal and early version of
world music: in ''Bella 'mbriana'' musicians such as
Alphonso Johnson
Alphonso Johnson (born February 2, 1951) is an American jazz bassist active since the early 1970s. Johnson was a member of the jazz fusion group Weather Report from 1973 to 1975, and has performed and recorded with numerous high-profile rock and ...
and
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Shorter came to prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he joined Miles Da ...
appeared as guest players. In the following year Daniele held a concert in
Havana
Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. , and later formed a Latin-American band. In 1983 Daniele collaborated with the American singer/guitarist
Richie Havens
Richard Pierce Havens (January 21, 1941 – April 22, 2013) was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His music encompassed elements of folk, soul (both of which he frequently covered), and rhythm and blues. He had a rhythmic guitar styl ...
on ''
Common Ground'', an album written and played together. His interest in
Arabic music
Arabic music or Arab music ( ar, الموسيقى العربية, al-mūsīqā al-ʿArabīyyah) is the music of the Arab world with all its diverse music styles and genres. Arabic countries have many rich and varied styles of music and also man ...
is emphasized on ''Bonne Soirée'' (1987), while the subsequent ''Schizzechea With Love'' (1988) was more Mediterranean-oriented. In the same year he started a collaboration with the Italian actor and director
Massimo Troisi
Massimo Troisi (; 19 February 1953 – 4 June 1994) was an Italian actor, cabaret performer, screenwriter, and film director. He is best known for his works in the films '' I'm Starting from Three'' (1981) and '' Il Postino: The Postman'' (1994) ...
: Daniele completed the soundtracks for Troisi's films ''
Le vie del Signore sono finite
'' The ways of the Lord are over'' (''Le vie del Signore sono finite'') is a 1987 Italian comedy-drama film written and directed by Massimo Troisi. The film won the Nastro d'Argento for best screenplay.
For his performance Marco Messeri won the ...
'' and ''
Pensavo fosse amore invece era un calesse''.
''Non calpestare i fiori nel deserto'', released in Spring 1995, is an attempt to revive inspiration through African and Ethnic influences, and sold more than 800,000 copies. The subsequent tour ended with a double date with Jazz guitarist
Pat Metheny
Patrick Bruce Metheny ( ; born August 12, 1954) is an American jazz guitarist and composer.
He is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works, and other side projects. His style incorporates elements of progre ...
.
In 2010, Daniele played at
Crossroads Guitar Festival
The Crossroads Guitar Festival is a series of music festivals and benefit concerts founded by Eric Clapton. The festivals benefit the Crossroads Centre founded by Eric Clapton, a drug treatment center in Antigua. The concerts showcase a variet ...
, called by his friend
Eric Clapton at ''Toyota Park'' in Chicago, playing with
Joe Bonamassa
Joseph Leonard Bonamassa ( ; born May 8, 1977) is an American blues rock guitarist, singer and songwriter. He started his career at age twelve, when he opened for B.B. King. Since 2000, Bonamassa has released fifteen solo albums through his inde ...
and
Robert Randolph. In 2011, he performed in concert with Clapton at
Cava de' Tirreni
Cava de' Tirreni (; Cilentan: ''A Càva'') is a city and ''comune'' in the region of Campania, Italy, in the province of Salerno, northwest of the town of Salerno. It lies in a richly cultivated valley surrounded by wooded hills, and is a popu ...
stadium.
Daniele died of a heart attack on 4 January 2015, at
Sant'Eugenio Hospital in Rome.
Covers
Many artists recorded cover versions of Pino Daniele's songs: among others,
Sarah Jane Morris (''Alleria'' on album
Cello Song),
Randy Crawford
Veronica "Randy" Crawford (born February 18, 1952) is an American jazz and R&B singer. She has been more successful in Europe than in the United States, where she has not entered the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 as a solo artist. However, she has ap ...
(, in English ''It's Raining'', on album
Through the Eyes of Love
"Through the Eyes of Love (Theme from ''Ice Castles'')" (sometimes incorrectly referred to as "Looking Through the Eyes of Love"), is an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award-nominated ballad performed by American singer Melissa Manchester, from ...
),
Patricia Marx (, in Portuguese , on album Charme do mundo),
Marisa Monte
Marisa de Azevedo Monte (Brazilian Portuguese: /maˈɾizɐ dʒi azeˈvedu ˈmõtʃi/) (born 1 July 1967) is a Brazilian singer, composer, instrumentalist, and producer of Brazilian popular music and samba. As of 2011, she had sold 10 million ...
(''E po' che fa'', in Portuguese ''Bem que se quis'', on album
MM), and
Issac Delgado
Issac Delgado (born Isaac Felipe Delgado-Ramirez on April 11, 1962 in Marianao, Habana, Cuba) is one of the founders of the band NG La Banda and is a popular salsa and timba performer.
Early life and family
His father, Luis Delgado, was a ...
(Quando, on album Malecon
).
Discography
Studio albums
Compilation albums
Live Albums
Soundtracks
* 1988 – ''Le vie del Signore sono finite (album), Le vie del Signore sono finite'' (EMI Italiana, 50 7900981)
Singles
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Daniele, Pino
1955 births
2015 deaths
20th-century Italian guitarists
20th-century Italian composers
20th-century Italian singers
21st-century Italian guitarists
21st-century Italian composers
21st-century Italian singers
EMI Records artists
Italian male guitarists
Italian male singers
Italian male singer-songwriters
Italian multi-instrumentalists
Italian jazz guitarists
Italian jazz singers
Italian pop guitarists
Italian pop rock singers
Italian pop singers
Italian rock guitarists
Italian rock singers
Nastro d'Argento winners
Musicians from Naples
Polydor Records artists
Singers from Naples
Ciak d'oro winners