Vinicio Capossela

Born in Germany, Capossela moved to Italy shortly afterwards, where he grew up and was exposed to music influences alien to the usual background of a singer-songwriter. Even in his early pieces, Capossela’s world revolved around the American underground culture and the road myth (namely Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and Tom Waits) as well as the Italian exoticism embodied by the legendary Luis Prima in the US or Renato Carosone in Italy. Capossela’s early works displayed a real passion for “Italo-Americanness”, for the kind of entertainment portrayed in Martin Scorsese’s films or in masterpieces like Big Night and Broadway Denny Rose, as well as an affectionate reference to the “exportable Italianness” that made Adriano Celentano and Adamo so famous with Italian communities abroad. Capossela’s magic lies in his ability to break the boundaries of a song and to evoke, through the use of images, entire worlds in which to live through the song. They are worlds infested by demons, grace, shadows, lost souls and losers, and they are built on language, an element Capossela is constantly working on.