BUON VECCHIO CHARLIE

The RPI genre is littered with bands who only made one album and then disappeared. Buon Vecchio Charlie, like a number of other bands, Officina Meccanica immediately springs to mind, didn't even manage that despite recording this album in the early golden days of seventies Italian prog when Italian record companies would I imagine have been snapping up bands like this. It would be almost twenty years before it would get an official release for the first time.

Like many Italian prog bands they draw on classical music for inspiration, indeed the first track, Venite Giù Al Fiumetakes, takes excerpts from Grieg's Hall Of The Mountain King in this lively largely instrumental piece. The band also takes blues and jazz influences over this sadly short album consisting of only three tracks lasting little more than thirty minutes. The shorter and mellower Evviva La Contea Di Lane is bookended by the two longer pieces where the band demonstrates excellent musicianship on the instrumental workouts. Vocalist Richard Benson has a decent voice, generally in the mellower spectrum which is used sparingly. Luckily for him he doubles up on guitar otherwise he'd have very little to do overall. Sax and flute add colour to the more traditional instrumentation of keyboards, drums etc.

This one and only release from the band is certainly not an essential album in the Italian prog genre but is nevertheless an enjoyable way to spend thirty minutes or so. Worth checking out then for those who are already familiar with the premier league of RPI and looking to dig a bit deeper.