Artist

FILI D'ERBA

Frank Del Giudice (vocals, bass)
Paolo Moderato (vocals, keyboards)
Luigi Liguori (guitar)
Jean Pierre Olivas (drums, percussion)

A four-piece band formed in Milan around 1971 that only released an album in 1972 on the Italdisc label. The group had much in common with others such as I Romans or Flashmen, offering a mixture of typical italian pop and some prog passages. Like in Ping Pong case, the 11-tracks album includes some songs in english, five in this case, and the rest in italian, among which a translation of Rod Stewart's Jo's lament with italian lyrics by Roberto Vecchioni and Renato Pareti.

The music is mostly based on the organ, but there is some honky-tonk piano here and there, with little space left to instrumental parts. Among the best and most progressive-inclined moments of the album, the opening V.I.P., that's also the longest track at 3:59, and Confusion (an italian-sung track despite the title).

The group's leader, italo-canadian Frank Del Giudice has long collaborated with Franco Califano, a popular italian singer, and still is in the music business as A&R producer in an independent record company.

Not particularly rare, the Fili d'Erba album came in a gatefold laminated cover. The unattractive design is balanced by a good band picture in the inner gatefold, that also contains the lyrics.

The album has been reissued on CD in 2005, in a remastered issue and with similar design as the original but with a red background instead of green.

A new website dedicated to Fili d'Erba has been published at www.filiderba.info