Cristiano De André

Cristiano De André was born in Genova on 29 December 1962 and grew up in a lively cultural environment where theater and music were daily components. At 11 he successfully approached the guitar, at 17 the violin, which he studied for five years at the Paganini Conservatory in Genoa. He composed the first music for some fun shows on stage at the Teatro Popolare in Genoa and then founded the band Tempi Duri, together with Carlo Facchini, Marco Bisotto and Carlo Pimazzoni with whom he published, in 1982, the first single Tempi Duri and the year after the debut album Chiamali Tempi Duri from which a tour was also born. With the group Cristiano accompanies his father Fabrizio on some of his tours: as in 1981 or 1984 in the Creuza de ma tour.

In 1985 Cristiano De André embarked on a career as a solo singer and participated in the Sanremo Festival among the new proposals with the song Bella più di me, gaining public acclaim and arriving in fourth place, winning the Critics' Award.

After some singles, the Cristiano De André album was released in 1987, including the delicate Briciola di pane dedicated to his newly born daughter Fabrizia, with the collaboration of Fio Zanotti and Massimo Bubola. Three years later, in 1990, L'albero della Cuccagna was released, an inspired and content-rich album with the extraordinary participation of artists of the caliber of Mauro Pagani, Vince Tempera, Ellade Bandini, Fabrizio Consoli, Ares Tavolazzi and Massimo Bubola.

The album Canzoni con il nose lungo (1992), a mature, immediate and full of energy album, fits into the genre of songwriting and with an ironic personal tone. With the extraordinary participation of Eugenio Finardi, Mark Harris, Massimo Luca, Vittorio Cosma, Alfredo Golino, Lucio Fabbri, Demo Morselli and Massimo Bubola in the role of artistic producer.

In 1993 Cristiano De André returned to the Sanremo Festival after eight years, this time in the Champions category. He presents Dietro la porta, a piece of notable lyrical intensity composed with Daniele Fossati. It is a huge success: second place overall, the Critics' Award, the Volare Award; the general appreciation of the public and all the media for the song and the interpretation allow Dietro la porta to be awarded the title of moral winning song of that year's edition. It is an immense satisfaction for Cristiano who sees the previous album republished with the inclusion of the Sanremo song.

In April 1995 Sul confine was released, in which Cristiano De André was accompanied by Carlo Facchini, Eugenio Finardi, Phil Palmer, Stefano Melone, Massimo Bubola, Oliviero Malaspina, Daniele Fossati, Manuela Gubinelli and his father Fabrizio in the song Cose che dimentico.

In 1997 he replaced Mauro Pagani as "front row" arranger and multi-instrumentalist on the stage of Fabrizio De André's Anime salve tour. Role reconfirmed in the following winter tour Mi innamoravo di tutto and in the summer tour of 1998.

In November 2001 Scaramante intense album was released, featuring Mauro Pagani, of which Cristiano himself says: "it's a therapeutic album with which I took the pain away. It's an album that marks the crossroads of my life" . With Scaramante, in 2002, he won the Lunezia Award for best album.

He returned to the Sanremo Festival in 2003 with the song Un giorno nuova based on the concept of "understanding" and full of ethnic echoes. This is followed by the collection Un giorno nuovo – live in the studio, songs from his artistic past rearranged and proposed in a live version.

In 2009 the time came for Cristiano to realize the project of undertaking a long tour in which to reread Faber's repertoire with the eyes of a son and an artist. De André sings De André is a great success and collects numerous sold outs. The album De André canta De André was born, published in 2009 and in 2010 De André canta De André – Vol. 2, a new collection of songs by the great Fabrizio.

In 2013 he published the album of unreleased songs Come in Cielo cosi in Guerra created with the collaboration of Corrado Rustici and distributed by Universal Music on the Nuvole label, founded by his father Fabrizio.

In 2014 he participated in the 64th Sanremo Festival where he won, with the song Invisibili, the Mia Martini Critics' Award and the Sergio Bardotti Award for the best text. For the occasion, Come in Cielo cose in Guerra (special edition) was published, also containing Invisibili and Il cielo è vuoto, another song presented at the Festival.

On 29 April 2016, La versione di C was released by Mondadori, an intense autobiography in which Cristiano De André retraces his past in an intimate and disenchanted way through painful and tender memories at the same time. The sea, Genoa and Gallura, the relationship with his father Fabrizio and mother Enrica, the very strong bond with music, the birth of his children. Writing as a weapon to discover yourself and look at yourself first as a son and then as a father in search of precise answers to forgive and to forgive yourself, to be able to understand who you really are.

On May 13th Canzone per l'estate (Universal Music) will be released on all radio stations, the new single by Cristiano De André, a reinterpretation of the historic song that Faber wrote together with Francesco De Gregori and which he included in the 1975 album Volume 8.

“When my father and Francesco De Gregori, in 1974, wrote this song, they openly contested an overly conventional way of life, tending towards the homologation of minds – says Cristiano De André – At the same time they showed an attraction for anarchy understood above all as a category of the spirit. In this passage I see my father's discomfort, for several years on the border of the two conditions. It didn't last long, fortunately, his libertarian identity won over everything and guided him to the end. What drives me to propose this song again is not only the desire to extend its teachings to future generations, but also the belief that some social paradoxes have not changed and that it is therefore worth continuing to fight."

On 24 June of the same year, the new chapter of Cristiano De André's tour starts from the Cavea of the Auditorium in Rome. De André sings De André, with which the singer-songwriter pays homage to his father on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the release of his first album Tutto Fabrizio De André, an album that already contained the timeless songs La Guerra di Piero, Via del Campo and Amore che vieni, amore che vai.

In 2018 Cristiano brings his new Tour Storia di un Impiegato live. The artist ardently wanted to stage this work on the 50th anniversary of '68, a record that questions the foundations on which power is based. Arranging the story of an employee meant for Cristiano De André bringing back into vogue the children of the pacifist revolution: utopia, anarchy, the dream, on the one hand, power, fear, the sinking of individual qualities to the detriment of global needs, on the other. As the lyrics of "In my hour of freedom" say: Of course you have to make a long way / from a gymnastics of obedience / to a much more human gesture / that gives you a sense of violence / but you have to go the same way / to become like this idiots/that I can no longer understand/that there are no good powers.

The tour dedicated to Storia di un Impiegato will be at the center of the docu-film De André#De André – Storia di un Impiegato produced by Intersuoni, Nuvole Production and Nexo Digital, released in theaters in October 2021.

In December 2023, the live album DEANDRÉ#DEANDRÉ Storia di un impiegato (produced by Cristiano De André, Intersuoni and Nexo Digital, Warner Music Italy distribution) was released on CD and digitally.