Artist

OSANNA

Lino Vairetti (vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards)
Elio D'Anna (flute, sax)
Danilo Rustici (guitar, organ, vocals)
Lello Brandi (bass)
Massimo Guarino (drums, percussion)

One of the greatest bands in the Italian prog field, Osanna came from Naples, formed in 1971 by the members of I Volti di Pietra and Città Frontale (another band with the same name came from Osanna's ashes and recorded El Tor) whose keyboard player Gianni Leone went to Balletto di Bronzo. Reeds player Elio D'Anna came from Showmen, the others didn't have significant experiences. During their career Osanna produced four excellent LP's, among which Palepoli deserves a particular mention.

L'uomo, their first album, released in a memorable triple gatefold cover, already contains their distinctive elements, the nice voice of Lino Vairetti (with interesting lyrics indeed), the aggressive flute of Elio D'Anna, fluid guitar playing by Danilo Rustici and the solid rhythm section of Lello Brandi and Massimo Guarino. Taken from this album the tracks L'uomo and In un vecchio cieco were also released as a single, both starting with an acoustic guitar introduction followed by guitar and flute riffs. 

The band also had an intense live activity, with band members all dressed in long vests and with their faces painted.  The collaboration with theatrical groups produced interesting shows, unique for the Italian audience of the time. They also played with Genesis in their early Italian tour, and who knows if the Osanna stage show has somehow inspired Peter Gabriel...
In June 1971 the band won the first prize at "Festival d’Avanguardia e Nuove Tendenze" in Viareggio, along with Premiata Forneria Marconi and Mia Martini.

Second album, Preludio, tema, variazioni, canzona, also known as Milano calibro 9 from the name of the film for which it was chosen as soundtrack, is a step backward, with few band compositions mixed with composer Bacalov's orchestral themes. Some of the Osanna tracks are beautiful, though, like the first three Variazione.

Third album, and their best one, Palepoli, from 1973 sees the band at their peak. The album only contains three long tracks and is housed in a nice gatefold whose inner picture is based on the band live stage background. The starting track, Oro caldo, mixes the band typical style with folk chants from their native city Naples. while Stanza città and the side long Animale senza respiro all give space to the good playing of the band members. In many writers' reviews one of the best Italian prog albums.

Unfortunately things didn't go well between the group's members and the band came to a split during the Landscape of Life recording sessions, producing a patchy album. Housed in a great cover designed by drummer Massimo Guarino, with an inner gatefold painting by singer Lino Vairetti (some of the band members came from the Naples Academy of Arts and also had an artistic career), the album contains some nice tracks, but probably suffers from the tension in the band. The band was trying to play abroad and the album was also intended for the foreign markets, so five of the seven tracks are in English, but due to the split it had to be finished with the help of Corrado Rustici (Danilo's younger brother from Cervello) and drummer Enzo Vallicelli (then wbut probably suffers from the tension in the bandith Uno).

Danilo Rustici and Elio D'Anna, with drummer Enzo Vallicelli, went to England to form Uno, while remaining members Lino Vairetti and Massimo Guarino gave a new life to their old band Città Frontale, this time with new musicians and recorded an album in 1975 called El Tor. 

Things were not so good for both the newly formed bands and Osanna reunited in 1977 with new members Enzo Petrone (that had played with Lino Vairetti in I Volti di Pietra and later with Moby Dick) and Fabrizio D'Angelo, but their album Suddance is far from their best days, despite some good tracks. After the last split Danilo Rustici formed Luna.

A further reunion of the bands with some of the original members brought to some concerts in the 90's, and a new CD has been made in 2002 containing old tracks in a re-recorded form.
The last release is an interesting CD+DVD set distributed by BTF taken from the December 2001 reunion concert (not 2003 as stated on the cover), and also including four new studio recordings. The latest Osanna incarnation includes original members guitarist Danilo Rustici and singer Lino Vairetti along with bass player Enzo Petrone from the 1977 line-up and newcomers Gennaro Barba (drums), Gigi Borgogno (guitar), Luca Urciuolo (keyboards) and Vito Ranucci (sax).
The revived Osanna sound is much funkier than ever before, and even the old songs suffer from the new arrangements, though sometime the energy of the old band emerges again. 

In 2008 the group has released a CD single featuring two old tracks rearranged with a new sound, L'uomo and 'A zingara. For some concerts they were helped by the Van Der Graaf Generator saxophonist, David Jackson. With this line-up, after many concerts, the new album Prog family was released in early 2009, containing reworkings of old Osanna tracks, along with their version of Van Der Graaf Generator's Theme one.

The latest Osanna line-up features, along with Lino Vairetti and drummer Gennaro Barba, Irvin Vairetti (keyboards and vocals), Sasà Priore (keyboards), Pasquale Capobianco (guitar), Nello D'Anna (bass).This line-up also played in Japan and from one of these concerts the 2012 album Rossorock was taken, which includes an orchestral arrangement of the whole Milano calibro 9 album.
At the end of 2013 the Afrakà label, in collaboration with Black Widow, released a double DVD to celebrate the group's career. Entitled Tempo, it includes a 2012 concert held in Naples with a second disc featuring TV and private video recordings from 1971 to 2009.
The double 2015 set, Palepolitana, contains unreleased tracks and a remake of the classic 1973 Palepoli played by the current line-up, while Pape Satan Aleppe, issued at the end of 2016, is a live album with guest appearances by Jenny Sorrenti and Donella Del Monaco that also contains a new studio track.

Lino Vairetti, leader of the new incarnation of Osanna in the 2000's, was also an appreciated painter. Among others, he designed the marvellous cover for the Tempo di Percussione 1975 album.
Elio D'Anna had an intense musical career, switching then to the production role for many well-known artists. After leaving the musical scene, he still has an education-related business.
The original bass player Lello Brandi released a solo album, Osanna blues, in 2009 (Afrakà CDEL 2016), but despite its title the style is very far from the classic sound of his group.
Guitarist Danilo Rustici, who left the professional music in the early 80's, died in February 2021. In the same month, a documentary on the band, called Osannaples by Deborah Farina, was presented.
A DVD with the film Osannaples is included in the CD version of the album Il diedro del Mediterraneo, issued at the end of 2021.

Osanna albums are rather common in Italy due to the large number of copies pressed. 
First album L'uomo was originally released in a triple gatefold cover, with the outer pictures composed in a big exclamation mark, that could be hung on the wall with a small hook (some copies had a plastic hook, others came with a metal one, glued to one of the cover sides). The 1991 reissue on Fonit, in collaboration with the Vinyl Magic shop and label, had a simpler gatefold cover.
The single taken from the album, L'uomo, should have been released in 1971 as the LP, but the vinyl on side B carries a June 1972 date.

Both Preludio, tema, variazioni, canzona (now with the new title of Milano calibro 9) and Palepoli were reissued in Fonit's Pellicano low price series, both with a single cover. In Milano calibro 9 case this was very different from the original sporting the band members' pictures that were on Landscape of life's cover.

Original issue of Palepoli came in a thick laminated gatefold cover that was soon after replaced by a thinner non-laminated one, both completed by a yellow coloured lyric inner sleeve. The LP has on the vinyl the date 21-11-72 but was actually released in January 1973.
All the albums on Fonit were originally released with black/silver labels.

The 2009 reissue of Landscape of life on BTF had, along with the standard black vinyl version, a limited pressing of 24 numbered copies on gold/black splattered vinyl.

Some tracks from the early production of Delirium and Osanna were used in instrumental form in the soundtrack of the 1972 western film Scansati...a Trinità arriva Eldorado directed by Dick Spitfire (Aristide Massaccesi, a.k.a. Joe D'Amato). This soundtrack never appeared on record.

Milano calibro 9 has been reissued in 2004 by VM2000/Vinyl Magic in their deluxe "Italian Progressive Rock" series with a gatefold mini-LP replica cover with an illustrated information booklet.

Many CD reissues of Palepoli contain, probably due to a mastering error, an 18:31 opening track with the first two album songs (Oro caldo and Stanza città), a short 1:45 track 2 that's not on the original LP, containing the instrumental album intro overdubbed with some excerpts from Preludio, tema, variazione, canzona played backwards, and the regular track 3, Animale senza respiro.

First four albums have been issued in Japan by Seven Seas/King label, L'uomo with single cover (K22P154), Milano calibro 9 (GXF2042), Palepoli (GXF2051) and Landscape of life (GXH2016), all with gatefold covers (Palepoli was later reissued with single cover). This issue of Palepoli has a slightly different mixing from the Italian original, with side A being longer.
Milano calibro 9 was also issued in Korea on Seven Seas with cat.no.140 and single cover with grey coloured back.
Milano calibro 9 and Landscape of life (the latter with different track order and the track Fiume renamed River) also had a single sleeve issue in USA (Peters International PILPS 9001 and 9007), the first of the two also being released in Venezuela. 
A single containing two extracts from the second album was issued in France on the Pierre Cardin label (SG 395 - year 1972), the tracks are There will be time and one of the orchestral themes, renamed Milan calibre 9.

Suddance was also released by CBS in other European countries, among which Spain.

Nexus/King issued in Japan in 2017 the 3 CD set Live in Japan (KICP 1871) with the recording of a 2015 concert at the Club Città in Kawasaki.

L'uomo - LP
L'uomo - triple gatefold cover
Band picture from L'uomo cover	L'uomo - 1976 reissue
Preludio tema variazioni canzona - LP	Preludio tema variazioni canzona - reissue
Palepoli - LP
Palepoli - inner gatefold
Landscape of life - LP
Landscape of life - inner gatefold
Palepolitana - LP
L'uomo - 7" single
L'uomo - promo 7" single	Canzona - promo 7" single
L'uomo - 7" single and CD single (2008)
Taka Boom - CD	Live - Uomini e miti - CD + DVD set
Rossorock - CD	Pape Satan Aleppe - CD
Il diedro del Mediterraneo - CD+DVD
Tempo - DVD

Click on pictures to enlarge

Osanna & David Jackson - Live in Rome, Stazione Birra - 26-jan-2009

Osanna & David Jackson with Gianni Leone- Live in Rome, Stazione Birra - 26-jan-2009

Osanna & David Jackson with Gianni Leone and Sophya Baccini - Live in Rome, Stazione Birra - 26-jan-2009

Osanna with Gianni Leone and David Jackson at ProgExhibition 2010 Teatro Tendastrisce, Roma, 6-nov-2010

Osanna with Gianni Leone Le Radici del Rock - Viterbo 21-Jul-2012

The official site of the group is www.osanna.it
A nice book called Osanna-Naples in the world has been written on them by Carmine Aymone (Afrakà 2001 - Italian-only).
The Facebook page of Lino Vairetti is www.facebook.com/linovairettiosanna
Lello Brandi's own site is www.lellobrandi.com
The site of Elio D'Anna, now an experienced manager, is www.elio-danna.com

Thanks to Giuliano Medei, Peppe Carrese, John Elvis Gualtieri, Federico Bordo and Mirko Ferrarini for information