Claudio Rocchi - Volo Magico n°1 1971

Claudio Rocchi was born in Milan in 1951. He is another of the artistically fruitful Italian solo artists whose career spanned multiple genres over the decades, making him difficult to categorize like his contemporaries Alan Sorrenti, Lucio Battisti, and Franco Battiato.

Rocchi started as part of the legendary band Stormy Six and participated on their debut before quickly moving to solo work. Early albums embraced folk music but in a unique way, with elements of Eastern influence, psychedelia, and the burgeoning RPI scene around him. He worked with many of the major RPI players of the day including Mauro Pagani, Elio D'Anna (Osanna), Mino Di Martino (Giganti), and Paolo Tofani (Area). After the early experimental-folk period there were albums veering toward Italian pop and also a very interesting period of experimentation in electronic sound. Then in the late 70s came more commercially oriented pop/rock before he retired to spend many years in a Hare Krishna community. Many considered his 1971 album Volo Magico N. 1 to be his strongest with its side-long suite, but he made several good albums including his gentle debut Viaggio, the improvised and meditative Essenza from 1973, the experimental electronic work Suoni di Frontiera from 1975 to name just a few.

He returned to music in the 1990s and in 2007 even directed a film called Pedra Mendalza, recording the soundtrack as well. He is certainly not a typical RPI artist but like many in the genre he was an important part of the 1970s musical movement in Italy, and he contributed some very interesting mélanges of Italian rock, psych-folk-Eastern, pop, and electronic music. The RPI team believes his work would be of great interest to fans of the genre and that the work deserves inclusion, even if does not check all the boxes of the more obvious anchor groups. progarchives.com

Tracklist:
01.Volo Magico N.1 18:31
02.La realta' non esiste 2:33
03.Giusto amore 11:10
04.Tutto quello che ho da dire 4:05

Line-up:
Claudio Rocchi - guitars, vocals, piano
Eugenio Pezza - keyboards, piano, mellotron
Alberto Camerini - guitars
Ricky Belloni - guitars
Eno Bruce - guitars, bass, harmonica
Lorenzo Vassallo - drums
Donatella Badi - vocals
Gigi Belloni - vocals
Michel Kanah - vocals
G. F. Lombardi - vocals