Twenty years ago Roberto Murolo, one of the most important figures in the history of Neapolitan song, left us. If today there are musical projects in Neapolitan dialect, language perhaps it would be more correct to say, like Nu Genea or Geolier, which are depopulating, each in their own sector, giving new vitality and visibility to Neapolitan music, much is owed to this citizen of via Cimarosa 25, who legend has it often stopped to greet tourists passing by on their way to San Martino from the window but who was unable to give up a post-lunch nap; so much so that when Sophia Loren, already widely recognized as a diva, was in those parts, on the set of “Immacolata e Nunziata” by Lina Wertmuller, and wanted to say hello, he greeted her with a “Hurry up, piccere'”.
Murolo was born in Naples on January 19, 1912, although his birth was registered four days later, on the 23rd, the second to last of the seven children of Lia Cavalli and the poet Ernesto Murolo, who was in turn the illegitimate son of Eduardo Scarpetta and therefore the half-brother of Eduardo, Peppino and Titina De Filippo. From the post-war period to 1960 he was undoubtedly one of the protagonists of the Naples that played together with Sergio Bruni (in a few months the twentieth anniversary of his death) and Renato Carosone, perhaps the most successful and well-known of that group.
But it was Murolo who made it all happen, first of all with the Mida Quartet, a project inspired by the Americans Mills Brothers, with a repertoire of rhythmic songs, between vaudeville and cabaret, which included on stage with him Enzo Diacova and Alberto Arcamone on trumpets and Amilcare Imperatrice on double bass; with them Murolo spent eight years, from 1938 to 1946, making ends meet between theaters and clubs in Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary and Spain, proposing an international repertoire and Italian songs. Upon returning home, we are thus in the post-war period, he began his solo career with enormous success, rewriting many classics of Neapolitan song adapting them to his crooner-like style and also allowing himself some cinematic license.
A resounding success that however risks being shattered on October 26, 1954, when he is arrested in Fermo on charges of corruption of a minor; he will be sentenced in the first instance to 3 years and 8 months of imprisonment but in reality he remains in prison until the appeal trial, held behind closed doors on March 25, 1955, which will reduce his sentence to 11 months with the benefit of probation, determining his immediate release but also a great bitterness that will lead him to reflect on his own career, he who has always declared himself innocent.
But he can't, Murolo in those years awakens a giant asleep by time, by the musical novelties that slowly conquer the boot, the first signs of xenophilia, proposing a perfect reinterpretation of the poetics that has always reverberated through the alleys of his Naples and translated, as few places in the world can boast, into a music that reflects the characteristics of an entire city, its history and the history of those who live there. Murolo records, starting in 1969, four monographic albums entitled "I grandi della canzone napoletana", dedicated to the poets Salvatore Di Giacomo, Ernesto Murolo, Libero Bovio and EA Mario and, in the mid-seventies, interrupts his recording activity, but not his concert activity. In reality, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, “Ottantavoglia di cantare” was released (in 1992), which features the duets “Don Raffae'”, with Fabrizio De Andre', who had performed “La nova gelosia” in his album “Le nuvole” (1990) after having heard Murolo's version; and “Cu' mme”, with Mia Martini on a text by Enzo Gragnaniello, where Murolo's baritone timbre becomes unusually deeper.
In that album he also performed “Cercanno 'nzuonno”, again with Gragnaniello, “Na tazzulella 'e cafe'” with Renzo Arbore and “Basta 'na notte” with Peppino Di Capri. In 1993 the trio Murolo, Martini and Gragnaniello recorded the album “L'italia è bbella”, the title of the song by Carlo Faiello with which Murolo performed that year at the Sanremo Festival; that was also the year of a historic performance at the Concertone del Primo Maggio in Rome, in a duet with Fabrizio De Andre'.
On January 26, 1995, President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro appointed him Grand Officer of the Republic for his artistic merits; to this honor was added, on January 23, 2002, the appointment as Knight of the Grand Cross, conferred by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
But perhaps the most important recognition came in 2002, on the stage of the Ariston Theatre in Sanremo, during the days of the Festival and Pippo Baudo, artistic director and host, decided to pay homage to Murolo with the career award.
Murolo will not receive many recognitions of this kind, coming from his own environment, the musical one, certainly less than an artist who has reawakened the musical soul of his city would have deserved, thus giving it almost a new identity, recognizable and definitive.
Article published on March 13, 2023 - 17pm
