Italian songwriter, composer, guitarist, writer and activist

Born: February 18, 1940 in Genova Pegli
Died: January 11, 1999 in Milan

He started writing songs in 1960 (La Ballata di Michè composed with Clelia Petracchi is his first song), heavily influenced by French songwriters, like Georges Brassens.
In 1962 he married Enrica “Puny” Rignon and his son Cristiano De André was born.
Encouraged by friends, including Gino Paoli, he begins to perform in public in Genova
and, between 1963 and 1966, the label [l43240] release some singles
which will then be collected in [m286895] in 1966.
However, success does not come and De Andrè seriously thought about leaving his musical career to work in his father’s law firm (at the time and still today, the law firm De André is one of the most important in the field of business legal representation in Italy) until 1968,
when Mina recorded his La canzone di Marinella, which becomes a great success.
From that moment on, his career will no longer hold back and will become one of the most appreciated Italian songwriters.
In 1974 he met Dori Ghezzi, with whom he will have a daughter (Luisa Vittoria, 1977)
and fund the label [l116194] (1980).
Since the 80’s, De Andrè is one of the artists that have most enhanced Genova’s dialect, but he also dealt with other idiomas, as dialect of Gallura (northern Sardinia) and the Neapolitan.
Fabrizio De Andrè died in 1999 in Milan from lung cancer, diagnosed the year before.