Rockol
By Mattia Marzi
The room where it welcomes us, is in a Roman house, its
walls painted with photographs. In one of these, black and white, it looks
beyond the lens of the camera. "It's beautiful, is it not? I've took it at
Abruzzo, I did not even set it up ..." she remembers.
To many people she is known as "the voice of 'Once
Upon a Time in the West". " Which is a bit ridiculous: because
although the collaboration with Master Ennio Morricone and the soundtracks in
general has played an important part of her activity, Mrs. Edda Dell'Orso's
career - the real name Edda Sabatini - has not remained confined to film music.
Born in Genoa in 1935, the singer was able to collaborate
with great masters such as Morricone, Piero Piccioni, Marcello Giombini,
Roberto Pregadio, Bruno Nicolai, Luis Bacalov, Armando Trovajoli and Piero
Umiliani. She was also able to participate in recordings of - among others -
Chico Barque de Hollanda, Claudio Baglioni, Fabrizio De André and Francesco De
Gregori.
Today Mrs. Dell'Orso is 83 years old and continues to
make music. Among the latest projects she has participated in there is also Danger
Mouse and a Daniele Luppi album, featuring collaborations with Jack White and
Norah Jones, and some polytechnic’s albums Alex Puddu.
She agreed to meet us to retrace some of the most
significant milestones in her sixty-year career.
She graduated in
1956 in singing and piano at the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome, and
in 1960 she became a member of the "Cantori Moderni" by Alessandro
Alessandroni: with the choir of Alessandroni she was able to participate in the
recording of many 45’s and LPs of Italian RCA artists. What do you remember
about that time?
There was a musical cooperative to which the masters
addressed when they needed musicians, including choreographers. We were called
by the cooperative and went to the studio to record. The choir was very
demanding: in addition to the films, we participated in the recordings of songs,
for 45’s and LPs. That was how it worked: first they recorded the orchestra,
then the choir, and finally - when it was already - the singer sang. When we
the chorus about our parts, the artists listened to us with the director. We
often went to RCA, for me it was almost a second home: it was a beautiful
atmosphere there, it was the time of songwriters. With the choir I was very
good and Alessandroni was a great master
She later sang on
several albums of "light music": "For a Fist of Samba" by
Chico Buarque de Hollanda, for example, in 1970. The lyrics and music of that
album are by Sergio Bardotti and Chico Buarque, the arrangements by Ennio
Morricone. Remember who was the producer who called you on that occasion?
Morricone himself called me, he wanted my voice. He was
thinking of the orchestra, and the choir.
In the chorus of
that album, in addition to her voice are those of the sisters Mia Martini and
Loredana Berté. You met them?
No, and I will be honest: I know I've sung with Chico
Buarque de Hollanda, but I do not remember this record ...
In the same year she
participated in the recordings of a song by Claudio Baglioni's first eponymous
album, released when the Roman songwriter who was not yet famous. The track is
"The Silence of Love" and the arranger was Ruggero Cini. Do you have
any memory related to that song or that experience?
I do not have any special stories to tell. Let's put it
this way: I loved singing and I was just thinking about music: my goal was to
sing. I went to the studio when they called me, I adjusted to my part, that's
enough. Sometimes I was listening to how the recording was in the director’s
room, often there were the other artists. But what came next did not interest
me: I did not even listen to the disks ....
Always in 1970
Nicola Piovani called her to sing in Fabrizio De André's "No Money, Not
Love or Sky" album, whose producers were Roberto Dané and Sergio Bardotti.
The record ends with her voice singing in "The Player Jones": after
the concluding sentence of De André, "and not a regret", there are
her vocalization ...
They told me about the track with De Gregori ...
"Le strade di
lei", one of the songs contained in the album "Alice Does Not Know":
it was in 1973.
De Gregori was not very famous yet. But even in this case
I have no special memories. I repeat, I went to the studio to record my part
and that was just enough. It has to be said then that in those years I had
worked with several musicians and remembering them all is really impossible.
She sang a song
with words only once: the song was "Liebeslied" for the soundtrack of
Roberto Faenza's "My Dear Glossary" a movie from 1990. The movie was
in costume and Morricone decided to write a musical inspiration to Schubert.
The song she sings, accompanied by piano by Morricone, is written by an
Austrian author and so the words are in German. Do you remember it? How did you
get it with the German language?
I do have good memories of that experience. Singing in
German was not difficult, because as a child, when I was in Venice, my father
took me to classes with an Austrian professor. That project gave me double
satisfaction: it allowed me to sing with words and not with vocals, as I always
did, and sing in German. "Liebeslied" is a song that I really enjoy.
About vocalization:
Some songs you have vocalized and also have versions with sung texts, such as
"Have Dinner Tonight" and "Diabolik". And also a song from
"Once Upon a Time in the West", sung by Céline Dion. What do you
think about those voice interpretations entrusted to other voices?
It's not up to me to judge, but those songs were born to
be played with vocalization ...
In 1974, Mireille
Mathieu recorded Morricone's themes in French with vocalizations (the album was
"Mireille Mathieu Sings Ennio Morricone", published by Polydor). On
that occasion you worked with the French singer, right?
Yes: I remember Morricone sending Mireille to me to teach
her to sing the pieces, the melody.
In that time she
worked in the theater and sang songs by Edith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich. How do
you remember that period?
It was a very nice time. I worked theater with Salvatore
Martino. He called me to sing at some shows he had reduced to two characters,
one played by him and the other by me. I had never played before, if they were
not considered small. And thanks to that show I could sing beautiful songs: not
only Edith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich, but also Theodōrakīs. There was the piano
on the stage: arrangements were made by my husband Giacomo.
What can you tell us
about the album "Edda's Classical Machine: In Homage to Ennio
Morricone", released in 1983 and made with Fabio Marchei?
That disk was requested from Germany. The arrangements
are of my husband, kind of disco music. And that Fabio Marchei is
"fake" ...
Fake? Yet his name
appears in the credits of the album, and there is also the cover on it ...
The story: those in the record company said that to sell
the record, since I was not very young, it wanted a counterpart. They chose him
because he was beautiful. But Fabio Marchei did not participate in any of the
album recordings. He did come when they called me to attend the broadcast of
Raffaella Carrà, "Pronto Raffaella", with guest Ennio Morricone. I
would have to sing a song of that record, in the play: Marchei pretended to
play. He had been specifically called for the image ...
In 2011 she
collaborated with the "Rome" project of the producers Danger Mouse
and Daniele Luppi, who recorded an album inspired by the world of the Spaghetti
western and master Ennio Morricone. Do you own that disc?
No, I have nothing to do with the exception of
"Edda's Classical Machine: an Homage to Ennio Morricone," because I
sing all over the disk, the artist is me. In the other cases, if there was
anything I liked doing, I'd make recordings, to listen to them at home.
However, about the project with Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi: they called
Alessandro Alessandroni with his choir, the "old" Cantors, gathered
for this occasion.
And how did you
find you old colleagues?
We had never lost sight of each other, even though we had
not sung together: it was great to go back to work in the studio. After the
choir's work, then, Master Luppi asked me to record parts as a soloist.
In 2014 she
recorded 14 tracks for the album "Recordings in the Dark" by the
musician Alex Puddu, a Roman musician with a past as a DJ, specializing in
dance-funk and "salsoul" and sincere passionate about all the soundtracks
of Italian cinema of the ‘70s. And again, in 2016, she sang three songs in
Puddu's album "The Eye of the Cat": the three songs sung by her are
orchestrated by her husband Giacomo Dell'Orso. What do you remember about this
experience?
Puddu lives in Copenhagen: I met him in 2014 in Milan.
His record company managed to get in touch with my husband's brother, Gianni,
who has a publishing company, and through him they came to me. He called me to
ask me to record a disc, he liked my voice. Then the collaboration came about:
by the end of the year we will record another record.
Mrs. Dell'Orso, offered
her voice to the scores of the greatest Italian composers of soundtracks:
Armando Trovajoli, Piero Piccioni, Stelvio Cipriani, Bruno Nicolai, Ennio
Morricone, Piero Umiliani, Marcello Giombini, Roberto Pregadio and Stefano
Torossi. Apart from Nino Rota (who did not use solo voices) and Riz Ortolani
(who used his wife Katina Ranieri), is there someone she would like to have
worked with but did not happen to her?
I've worked with everyone and I'm very happy with this.
What to ask for better? I did not have a great career in mind: I just wanted to
sing.
In an interview,
she said, "It also happened that Morricone wanted me to sing a song
instead of the usual vocals, and I loved singing songs, especially the American
standards!" Morricone replied in this way: "Madam, if you sing the
songs you become one of many, so remain the only one!" Do you think
Morricone was right?
Probably yes. And I will always be grateful to Morricone,
I owe everything to him: he had the intuition to use my voice as a tool. But the
story is a thing: many years ago, when Joan Baez came out, I remember that RCA
made me sing, without telling me anything, some of her songs. If I remember,
they were bad Italian translations of her songs. In the studio there was also
Ennio Morricone. In my opinion, RCA had a blueprint for a solo singer-it was a
way to understand if my voice was working with the singing. But then nothing
was done any more: they obviously realized that my peculiarity was vocalization.
Is there some
Italian song you would like to sing? Can you think of some titles?
I think of American standards. I would have liked to sing
those songs and once I did. In the late 1980s I was able to organize a small
concert in the theater of a Roman music school I taught, where I sang American
standards: it gave me a lot of satisfaction, it was a challenge I wanted to get
away with.
Which Italian
singers of the 60's and 70's did you like?
Mina. Mina was the best. She had a personality that the
others did not have and a crazy voice. I do not even know if she studied: they
say no ...
And what do you
study is important?
It depends on what you have to do. To sing songs maybe
not, but if one wants to write lyrics you have to study, there is much to do. I
only studied a lyrical song for a year: my teacher did not set my voice lyrically;
I cannot say I'm a soprano, but he taught me breathing technique, the basics. I
think my voice is quite natural, not lyrical.
And do you know
some Italian singers today?
I do not really follow contemporary music. But I think
Giorgia is a good singer, just like Pausini. What I miss, however, are the
songs. Beautiful songs and beautiful melodies ...
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