NON AL DENARO NON ALL'AMORE NÈ AL CIELO

This folky concept album based on the Spoon River Anthology is, like the source material, essentially a collection of character studies, each song revolving around a character from the Edgar Masters poems. Although the musical backing by Fabrizio De André and Nicola Piovani isn't full-on prog - more of a blend of influences from Italian folk and classical music - but at the same time these are also the sorts of influences the Italian prog bands of the time liked to introduce into their music, so fans of 1970s Italian bands like PFM or Quella Vecchia Locanda could do a lot worse than checking this out to see where Italian contemporary singer- songwriter stuff was at the time. Other listeners will find this a highly competent singer- songwriter release, though you may lose a little if you don't speak Italian and songs with lyrics you don't understand bug you.