Cesare Cremonini: A Journey from Vespa Rides to International Stardom

The Vespa Special has come a long way, giving you wings under your feet: Cesare Cremonini turns 44 today, that is 25 years after the success of the album...Squerez? with the hit 50 Special that marked the take-off of Lunapop, then continued from 2002 to the stars as a solo artist by the Bolognese frontman. From a nineteen-year-old in love with pop music to a chart-topping and box-office smashing tour champion always 'sold out'. Here is Bologna, the essential Bologna and its historic center that has only two ancient 'skyscrapers' compared to the multitude in New York where Cremonini filled Times Square with a flash mob to sing La stella di Broadway: something that brings back to the triumph in New York of Domenico Modugno with 'Nel blu dipinto di blu' over sixty years ago. The Two Towers of Bologna always remain just a backdrop to the life and career of Cremonini who, together with his friend Gianni Morandi, close by in the stands to cheer for Bologna that again (a bit) makes the world tremble, promotes a fundraising to save the dilapidated Garisenda. Now for him from the Bolognese hills, the step is short to reach the whole world: these days he is in London at Mark Knopfler's British Grove Studios, where stars like the Rolling Stones and Who have recorded. The Bolognese singer-songwriter is working on a new album with the help of Mike Garson, an internationally renowned pianist already alongside David Bowie. Alongside him also the producer Nick Patrick who has produced albums with Aretha Franklin, Beach Boys, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley. In short, a change of scenery compared to the beginnings that Cremonini himself remembered with a post on social media in 2017. Today, 18 years ago, 50Special came out. I wrote it because my mom, exasperated by my constant thinking about songs (two months before the final exams..), broke the guitar on my back. So I went to the piano and it came out of my fingers. I immediately let Erica, my high school muse, hear it the next day at school, with the Walkman and headphones. She told me without expressing any emotion: 'beautiful'. Then she went away. The day it came out I took my Vespa and went looking for the single in a record store in the center village, outside Bologna. I remember that trip as one of the strongest experiences of my life. I was going slowly to enjoy the emotion, and I laughed, laughed, laughed like I was crazy. For me, it was already fine that way, but then 50 Special reached the top of the charts, in September, after a long and very fun summer on the rise. From there on, everything changed, I don't remember much about what my life was like before that 3.30 song changed it. However, like today, just driving around the hills on a serene day, and in an instant, I'm still 18 years old laughing as I run towards my dreams. Happy birthday 50Special. To celebrate March 27 and the 44 years of the singer-songwriter also the girlfriend Giorgia Cardinaletti, journalist of Tg1, with an 'Instagram story'