A trait emerges overwhelmingly in Lino Vairetti, former leader of Osanna, a progressive group of the 70s: his belonging to Naples, a fundamental metropolis for Italian music, amidst folk legacies, blues residues and rock’n’roll of the American occupation and melodic tradition of absolute international level. Growing up in the midst of this sound goodness, in the slightly crazy atmosphere of the beat and the youth revolution, nourished the creative vein of Vairetti and his Osanna in that melting pot of tendencies and ancestry that was Naples at the time: ” As a child I lived in a very popular area of the city, “Giùnapoli”, and I spent most of my life at Vomero, living the Piedigrotta festivals with all the historical singers of Naples ».
The artist’s life would begin a few years later thanks also to an encounter like the one that happened to the future leader of the Osanna: «In the 60s, l’Equipe 84 came to the Naples Festival and sang Notte senza fine in Neapolitan. Listening to them, I thought these beat bands thrilled me. Carosone and Peppino di Capri had started the change, then we overturned the music scene, and in the mid-70s, Pino Daniele also arrived. We young revolutionaries have abandoned the models of the fathers and then recovered the traditions, which gave identity to the rock-prog we were making ». The musician follows his path with consistency: his Osanna, in the current lineup since 2008, remain faithful to the god of progressive and reproduce their music by collaborating with other protagonists of the Italian scene of the time.
From a slightly more personal point of view, Vairetti’s passions, wanting to ignore music, are of uncertain definition, since the person concerned professes himself an “artist at 360 degrees” and delights in graphics, photos, texts and sculpture. A Napoli fan, and God forbid, in a city like this and with its roots here, Vairetti confesses almost justifying himself that he was “a Juve fan as a child, because I loved Omar Sivori”. I had the Juve number 10 shirt, like him. Then he came to Napoli and this is my faith ». He also played football as a right-back: “I liked Facchetti and Cabrini, the kind of full-back who sprinted on the wing and then crossed into the box.”
On another side Vairetti reveals a very practical attitude that does not surprise too much in a musician accustomed, like those who do his job, to dealing with extremely concrete technical quarrels, when going on tour and all the protagonists, especially at the beginning of their career, they are artists and technicians at the same time: «I do DIY, I build the furniture myself. Once I had a large workshop where I designed and created ».
As an artist who, speaking of doing, has made himself in the field as he used to do in the past, when he began to play in the cellars and not directly in the TV showcases of talent, of a character like Achille Lauro, to whom we should say “hats off because he is a performer “, at the same time, however, observes Vairetti,” his management takes him both to Sanremo and to the Tenco Prize, where he cripples the songs, and this leaves me perplexed “. About the fortunes of the Maneskin, true creatures of talent, he says he is happy: “They are gritty and full of joy, but the success is disproportionate to how they are imposing them, because they do not have those qualities.” And so, by dint of communication and marketing, they come to be presented as an international group to be placed side by side with the Rolling Stones, while “true talents are neglected. It also happens in food, with products in such a way that they are imposed on the market ». Criticism of the method but not on the merits because, on the other hand, compared to a phenomenon very far from its kind such as trap, Vairetti is much better disposed: “I’m not sure of those who say” that sucks trap “, it’s a new thing, a expression of the times we are living “.