Few have heard of Rosa Balistreri, but she left behind her beautiful music and quite a life story. She led a life full of sorrow and faced poverty and sexism; troubles that fed her folk music. Her songs remind us of the original American blues, or the Greek rebetika, as her music is the music of people who were dealt a raw hand, but faught on, unwilling to give up.
Rosa Balistreri: Early Life
Rosa was born in 1927 in Locata on the southern coast of Sicily, then a seaport, and now largely a vacation destination. While we now think of Sicily as a beautiful place to visit, it has experienced many hardships. Rosa was born during a time of incomprehensible difficulty due to a feudal system that left the residents with little control.
Born as the daughter of an alcoholic carpenter, she received no education and instead worked menial jobs like cleaning fish and working the fields. Her brother was a paraplegic, and her mother and two sisters also required her care. Rosa was illiterate, but soon learned the power of her words.
She faced horrors most of us cannot even imagine before her mid-twenties, she had a violent husband, lost a child, and had to survive her sister’s murder when her father killed himself from the grief. She turned to music to handle the pain and heal.
At 24, in 1951, Rosa fled the misery and squalor of Sicily, still in the throes of upheaval as the new Italian Republic took shape, and so took a train northwards. She found a position for herself as a maid in a household in Florence; being a servant in Tuscany was far better than living in fear and destitution in Sicily.
The Turning Point
At last, Rosa had a life she could call her own. Music, singing and the guitar – these had helped her get through the almost unimaginable hardships of her early life and now began to play a significant part as she began to share her music with the Florentine public. No overnight success for Rosa, but her break did come in 1966 when Dario Fo, an artistic polymath who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1997, chose her to star in one of his shows. She began recording the following year, producing two albums as the material she knew so well was put on vinyl.
These albums and the eight that followed in her lifetime showcased a mixture of folk songs, songs written for her and self-penned numbers. They are not an easy listen, every song is sung with passion and power, and you can feel the pain as she sings of sad love affairs, deprivation and loss.
Although the haunting tunes are so different in musical content, they remind us of the early American blues of Charlie Patton and Son House, songs performed by singers with experiences to match their lyrics. Not every track is sorrowful, but there is an underlying sense of struggle and wretchedness, and if art should depict a truth, then these songs are high art. Incidentally, as she sings in Sicilian, the meaning of the songs is not always clear, but they speak directly to the heart.
Rosa’s Later Years
An artist of some celebrity, she returned to Sicily to live in 1971, a different person from the one who had fled the island 20 years before. She now enjoyed the company of other well-known Sicilians of the political left, such as the poet Ignazio Buttitta, the artist Renato Guttuso and the writer Andrea Camilleri, together with academics and journalists who supported the communist ideology. She certainly regarded herself as an activist as well as a singer.
After going out of print, the digital age means that her recordings are readily available to entertain and inspire another generation of music lovers who like to hear real music played by real musicians. Who knows, given other circumstances, she may have achieved the fame of a Joan Baez. She stepped back from the spotlight towards the end of the 1970s, having achieved a quite phenomenal career from the humblest of beginnings.
She died of a stroke at the sadly young age of 63 in 1990. She left behind a legacy that will continue to inspire musicians and performers for many years to come, not just in Sicily, not just in Italy, but all over the world.
If you’ve only just discovered her, be sure to spend some time with her music.
There are some interesting closing dates on this article however I don’t know if I see all of them middle to heart. There is some validity however I’ll take maintain opinion until I look into it further. Good article , thanks and we wish extra! Added to FeedBurner as nicely
Very clear website , regards for this post.
Buy Most affordable USA Elite Private Proxies – Simply On https://DreamProxies.com – Very best Proxy Price ranges!
After I initially commented I clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and now each time a remark is added I get four emails with the identical comment. Is there any means you can take away me from that service? Thanks!
Via my investigation, shopping for gadgets online may be easily expensive, yet there are some tips that you can use to help you get the best products. There are always ways to locate discount promotions that could make one to hold the best electronics products at the smallest prices. Good blog post.
I have realized that in cameras, specialized receptors help to maintain focus automatically. Those sensors associated with some camcorders change in contrast, while others make use of a beam with infra-red (IR) light, especially in low lighting. Higher specs cameras from time to time use a mix of both methods and likely have Face Priority AF where the video camera can ‘See’ the face and focus only in that. Thank you for sharing your ideas on this blog site.
Keep functioning ,fantastic job!
Good web site! I truly love how it is easy on my eyes and the data are well written. http://www.hairstylesvip.com I am wondering how I could be notified whenever a new post has been made. I’ve subscribed to your RSS which must do the trick! Have a nice day!