Fred Buscaglione

Fred Buscaglione (23 November 1921 - 3 February 1960) was an Italian singer and actor, popular in the late 50s who cultivated a public image in both his films and songs of a slick (if comical), ruthless gangster whose only weaknesses were whiskey and women. Taking inspiration from hardboiled detective stories and the gangster of New York and Chicago, his racy songs of gangsters and their molls caught the Italian public’s attention and by the late 50s Buscaglione was a national superstar, appearing in television, film, and advertising.

Il Favoloso is essentially a Best Of collection, putting together twenty of his hits from his 1955 debut single Che Bambola (What A Babe!) which sold over a million copies with almost no promotion and catapulted him to fame, to, well, I can’t say “his later recordings”, as he only recorded up to 1959. At the age of 39, in February of 1960, Buscaglione was killed in a car accident when his pink Ford Thunderbird collided with a truck in the early hours of the morning, in front the US Embassy in Rome. This compilation features all his hits, including Teresa non sparare (Theresa, Don't Shoot!), Eri piccola così (You Were This, This Little), Guarda che luna (Look, What A Moon),Love in Portofino, Porfirio Villarosa, Whisky facile (Easy Whiskey) and Che Notte (What A Night!).

The songs are great. This isn’t an album of an actor singing (which is usually a terrible, terrible sign), rather it is an album of a singer who also acted. Buscaglione attended the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Turin as a child, and as a teen he performed in night clubs, singing jazz, and was proficient in both the double bass and violin. During World War II he was incarcerated in an American internment camp, but soon found work in an allied radio station’s orchestra. It was perhaps this experience that allowed Buscaglione to experiment with American musical styles in a country that had banned most foreign music.

The American influence in his work is incredibly apparent in the tracks on this compilation. Buscaglione’s whole style was modelled on Chicago and New York gangsters, albeit with a comical touch, so the songs are replete with the hallmarks of American jazz and swing. Brushed snare, trumpets and sax all feature heavily, complimenting Buscaglione’s singing, which ranges from gravely spoken work (“Ciao Joe”, “Che Notte”) to songs where he actually displays a pleasing light-baritone (“Guarda Che Luna”). The songs are playful, brilliantly arranged songs about fights, whiskey and dames performed with aplomb by one of Italy’s most popular entertainers of the 1950s

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