Musician Spotlight: Renato Carosone

An Italian Master Who Knew When to Quit

As everyone knows, we are Pirates.* As such, we used to do crazy wild pirate shit like search Napster and Limewire for the word “polka” and download everything that came up.

The success rate was, well—I believe the technical word for it is “low”. But all the misses were worth it, because one time some mp3 called “Italian Polka” came up, and before we knew it we were listening to this guy, who is not even remotely a polka artist but who kicked serious ass. Being invited into the world of Renato Carosone (1920-2001) is a profound gift, and we want to share it with you now.

This guy was a genius, innovative well beyond his years, using bizarre vocal effects and playing instruments in weird ways decades before the likes of Zappa, Beefheart or Tom Waits would give it a go.

Carosone was super punk rock, for several reasons. As you’ll hear in the next song, he did that “chipmunk” vocal effect back in 1956, a completely weird decision for that time and very challenging given the tech they had to work with. And perhaps my favorite thing about him is that at the beginning of around half of his songs, he shouts: “CANTA NAPOLI” (Napoli Sings!/Song of Napoli!) just so everyone knows, again, that he is from Naples and singing in that style. He did it live, too. If you think about it, this is the equivalent to the Ramones’ famous “1 2 3 4!”" shouted at the start of every live song. Or the way them hip hop fellas will sometimes immediately tell you where they’re from at the start of a track. I love it.

Carosone was kind of a big deal in Italy and even toured the USA extensively, one of the only singers to ever do so while singing exclusively in Italian. He composed a slew of songs, among the best of which were O Saraccino and “Il Piccolo montanaro”:

Note the chipmunks at the end. Unreal. I have hosted many parties where this guy’s music has immediately livened things up; people perk up, start grooving a little and ask: “what’s this?” And now you, too, gentle readers, can be the unbearably pretentious person who says “this unknown Italian film composer from the 1950s…. you wouldn’t have heard of him.”

Carosone released a few albums, and then quit in 1960 because Rock n’ Roll had arrived, and, in his own words:

"I'd rather retire now on the crest of the wave, than being tormented later by the idea of rock and roll wiping away all that I have achieved in so many years of hard work."

He was thus able to see what was coming: the slow demolition of ethnic folk styles in popular music. Rather than hang on past his due date, he exited gracefully. Something to which we can all aspire!

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* in actual fact, real pirates live in places like Somalia. For some reason, bored middle class people don't go around dressing up as them.