Forty years ago “An Italian Saturday” he photographed the moment of transition between youth and adulthood with an indefinable mix of lightness and melancholy, recounting the nights interspersed with beers, friendships, love affairs and cigarettes. Sergio Caputoin that April 1983, he was far from imagining that his first album would become a classic of Italian music, so much so that it now led him to celebrate the anniversary with a tour con big bandin which he will play the whole album plus other hits, which part on April 12 from the Lyric Theater from Milan (date zero the day before in Genoa, then 26 April in Rome and 28 in Naples): «It’s an important event for me. I don’t know if there will be a fiftieth anniversary, I don’t know if I’ll be alive or if I’ll be able to, even if I hope so. This I see as an evolving show that will continue to move forward. It could become a musical or anything else.’
When “An Italian Saturday” was born, he had a completely different job: «I was a promising art director of a big advertising agency, but I had this hobby of music that was taking over – he says -. I led a reckless life, a bit like a vampire. By day I was working on big projects and by night I was wandering around the venues where they played, from jazz to punk, absorbing everything».
Age made it possible not to think about the lost sleep: «I slept from 18.30 to 23, setting my alarm clock. Then with friends we would decide the itinerary for the evening». In those years, “one breathed relief after the conflicts and fears of the 70s”, he recalls: “The result was an album based on elementary emotions, on the impatience to live the future combined with the fear of jumping into the open sea . It is a difficult moment to identify, but common to all, without links to circumstances or time». For this reason, according to Caputo, who is 68 today, the record has never aged: «The only way I know an album from the 80s is still relevant is that it’s about things we can all feel.».
At his concerts, the Roman singer-songwriter and guitarist it now welcomes several generations: «There are teenagers who know all the words by heart and even entire families. I never expected it.’ Caputo didn’t even imagine that he would be a musician all his life, with a solid career in jazz: “I’m shy and shy by nature, but on stage I become a different person: I get that extra edge that I didn’t think I had.” and then when I get off the stage I remember very little of the concerts, as if I had been in another dimension». His nature has led him to live mainly abroad, first in the United States for 12 years, and now in France: ‘I’m happier staying in a place where I’m not identified. Even if a few years ago, with my family, we miraculously escaped a very big attack, I prefer not to say which one».
His nights, compared to the 80s, have become less reckless: “I could no longer lead the life of that period, nor would I. I continue to sing it because it has remained over time, but now after concerts I like to stop in the hotel bar to have a drink and spend a moment with the band and I certainly don’t go clubbing. They, on the other hand, do». Caputo also stays away from today’s music scene: «I don’t know the new artists, living abroad I don’t follow much, but it is there for all to see that there is a lot disposable music – He says -. How do you take seriously songs that have maybe ten authors? I don’t know how many we will remember in 10 years. Here in France, I listen to the radio and hear the real songs, the ones that have passed the public’s maturity test».
This is also why he sold his catalogue, as many big international songwriters have done: «I sold what was my property from 2008 onwards. So the albums will be handled better than I could have done and I’m sure they will outlive me.