Italian rock singer, songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist, whose albums from the 1970s are considered classics of Italian Rock, and who remains one of Italy's most successful and influential Rock singers and musicians.
Finardi became part of a thriving music scene in Milan in the late 1960s. Rooted in the blues, classic rock and roll and the hippy counter-culture, he was active in the left-wing youth movement of those years. In 1969 he formed his first rock band The Tiger. Soon he started playing with Alberto Camerini, a singer and guitarist born in Brazil. Finardi made a living by day teaching English, in which he was fluent because of his American mother, and as a musician by night, as singer, guitarist and piano-player. After forming the band Il Pacco with Camerini, Finardi recorded a single in English in 1973, "Spacey Stacey/Hard Rock Honey" for Numero Uno, the first Italian independent record label. Finardi's single went largely unnoticed.
In 1975, he released his first album "Non Gettate Alcun Oggetto Dal Finestrino," a mixture of the style of Italian singer-songwriters and Rock'n'Roll, with Camerini on guitar, Lucio Fabbri on violin, and Walter Calloni on drums. Finardi played at Milan's alternative Festival in Parco Lambro in 1976. Finardi looked to the electric and up-tempo sound of Rock&Roll and The Rolling Stones, and his sound was also often influenced by Jazz Rock fusion.
Finardi's sound and style became a success in 1976, with his second album "Sugo," and his third "Diesel" (1977). The first included the counter-cultural youth anthem "Musica Ribelle," and the hymn to pirate radio-stations "La Radio;" the second the love ballad "Non e' Nel Cuore," which were all released as singles. Finardi, who had started performing live often on his own with an acoustic guitar and sitting down, was now touring with a four or five-piece Rock band. His introduction of Rock'n'Roll in the genre of socially and politically aware Italian singer-songwriters was what made Finardi stand out and endeared him to the counter-cultural youth of late 1970s Italy, which in 1976-78 was in the midst of political upheaval and almost civil war.
Finardi started to make his transition from this turbulent period of Italian history and its cultural landscape with the album "Blitz" and single "Extraterrestre" (1978), and "Roccando Rollando" (Rocking and Rolling) in 1979, which contained "Legalizzatela," his song-manifesto for the legalization of cannabis. Other significant hits were "Patrizia," and the bitter-sweet ballad "Le Ragazze Di Osaka" (1981).
Since then Finardi has lived periodically abroad, in London, UK, and in the United States. Through many different collaborations, he has released regular albums: among them one made entirely of songs with English lyrics, "Secret Streets" (1982); the live album "Strade" (1984), "Dolce Italia" (1987), the entirely acoustic "Acustica" (1993), his exploration of spirituality "Il Silenzio e Lo Spirito" (2003), "Anima Blues" (2005), and "Un Uomo" (2007), a compilation of his 30-year-long career. His latest work "Il Cantante Al Microfono" saw him accompanied by a classical music sextet.
Link to Wikipedia biography
