By Federica Lemme
Dead Or Alive is the column of Seeyousound’s monthly newsletter that pays tribute to some of the musical events that have marked the current month: births, deaths, indelible traces in the history of music. Here are the anniversaries of the month of settembre.
“In che mese siamo?” chiede Bowie
“In September,” replies his assistant
“In che giorno?”
“The 25th”
“25 September, an auspicious date for ideas”…
Cameron Crowe begins his account of the Station to Station recording sessions in this way, in the introduction to the deluxe edition of the album released in 2010.
After August had buried in a single blow Charlie Watts, mitologico batterista dei Rolling Stone e Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, the legendary icon of dub, September begins with the memory of Lucio Battisti, who died on the morning of the 9th in the summer of 1998. His death is still an unsolved mystery today, surrounded by rumours and unclear circumstances. Over the years a few theories have been put forward, but that great genius of a friend of mine, hands covered in oil, would understand it much better. So it is better to wrap it up with a cue from Ashes to Ashes. Come canta David Bowie in Ashes to Ashes. The song appears on the celebrated Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) released on 20 September 1980. It is the first work by Duca Bianco after the so-called Berlin trilogy, and it marks the return of his collaboration with Roy Bittan (who had played on Station to Station in 1976), pianist of the E Street Band of Bruce Springsteen. The Boss festeggia celebrates his birthday on the 23rd of the month, somewhere along the road that leads to paradise. That Eden whose door, according to a remark by Bowie, was opened by that folletto of Marc Bolan. Born and died in September (30/09/1947 – 16/09/1977), the ragazzo giocattolo of the twentieth century is considered the founder of glam, a rock made of feathers and sequins that swept the United Kingdom in the Seventies and which, alongside his T. Rex, also included Roxy Music. Bryan Ferry, born on 26 September 1945, with his London band he wrote the official anthem of the teenage rebel with glitter-covered eyes and painted nails: Virginia Plan. Kids a world away from the choice made by a famous man in black : , who explained that he dressed in black in solidarity with the poor and the downtrodden in the city’s most desperate neighbourhoods, and with the prisoner who has long since paid for his crime yet remains a victim of his times. He died in Nashville on 12 September 2003 and his name is Johnny Cash , the man who sang of killing a stranger in Reno for no reason at all. In the same month of 2019, on the 10th, a heart attack also took the greatest outsider of the last school of American singer-songwriters, Daniel Johnston.
The end of summer is drawing near but, as Liam Gallagher born on the 21st of the month in 1972, would say, don’t look back in anger: we will keep entrusting our lives to a rock’n’roll band ready to squander them anyway. And if you feel like commemorating the death of Jimi Hendrix (18 settembre 1970) smettetela di leggere e ascoltate Are You Experienced a volume massimo.
