{"id":2321195,"date":"2026-03-10T10:50:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T10:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2321195"},"modified":"2026-03-10T10:50:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T10:50:01","slug":"singing-the-news-the-story-of-italys-last-cantastorie-still-performing-in-his-90s-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/singing-the-news-the-story-of-italys-last-cantastorie-still-performing-in-his-90s-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Singing the news: the story of Italy\u2019s last \u2018cantastorie\u2019 \u2013 still performing in his 90s | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When Franco Trincale was a barber boy, he used to sing Sicilian songs in breaks between customers, his boss strumming the guitar.<\/p>\n

Back then, he could never have imagined that he would grow up to become Italy\u2019s last great cantastorie<\/em>, a now dying tradition of wandering musicians who entertain audiences by recounting the news in song-form. And he could not have predicted he would still be performing at 90 \u2013 in a nursing home.<\/p>\n

For six decades, Trincale walked the streets of Milan<\/a> singing about key moments in history, from 1970s terrorism to Berlusconi\u2019s election<\/a> and the Iraq war. He has released more than 30 albums<\/a>, and performed everywhere from the USSR to the US. He also played a key role in Italy\u2019s labour rights movement, providing a soundtrack to workers\u2019 protests.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Keeping tradition alive \u2026 Trincale sings a ballad recounting the story of his marriage.<\/span> Photograph: Agnese Morganti\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Born in 1939 in Militello in Val di Catania, a small town in Sicily, he has been living in Milan for the past 70 years. We meet at the Il Parco delle Cave, an assisted living facility in a nondescript redbrick building, which has been his home for the past two years. Trincale has organised a concert for Valentine\u2019s Day, and the main hall is packed with 150 people \u2013 elderly residents and their relatives. He entertains them with a recently composed song, Long Live Love. Trincale\u2019s voice is struggling with the high notes, but the audience helps him out. After taking a moment to memorise the chorus, they sing and clap to the beat. Trincale\u2019s wife Lina, who has Alzheimer\u2019s and can only communicate with her eyes, is seated in the front row.<\/p>\n

Decades ago, when many Italians were illiterate, the arrival of a cantastorie<\/em> in a town was a big event. With the rise of TV, their role evolved into wandering musicians who entertained audiences recounting news in a dramatic or ironic manner, accompanied by a guitar or accordion and large illustrated posters. Like other travelling musicians across Europe, the cantastorie<\/em> descend from medieval \u201ctroubadours\u201d, but what sets them apart is that they only sing about real-life stories.<\/p>\n

Traditionally, cantastorie<\/em> supported themselves through donations from the public and by selling flyers with the lyrics of their cantate<\/em> (or tales) and, later, records. Between the 1920s and 1970s, famous cantastorie<\/em> such as Ciccio Busacca<\/a>, Otello Profazio<\/a>, Rosa Balistreri <\/a>and Marino Piazza<\/a> sang blood-soaked cantate<\/em> about a young woman killing her rapist in revenge<\/a> or women murdered<\/a> by their husbands<\/a>. Other common themes were migration<\/a>, mafia<\/a> and, occasionally, international news: \u201cNixon and Mao to all wars say <\/a>ciao<\/a><\/em>\u201d, sang Marino Piazza about the two leaders\u2019 meeting in 1972.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Social commentary \u2026 Trincale performs for students at Milan\u2019s Catholic University in 1968.<\/span> Photograph: Independent Photo Agency Srl\/Alamy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cCantastorie<\/em> followed current events,\u201d says Mauro Geraci, an anthropologist at the University of Messina. It\u2019s no coincidence, he says, that \u201cthey emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, when public opinion was forming\u201d. It was social commentary: \u201cSalvatore Di Stefano, a Sicilian cantastorie<\/em>, used to say that when he saw something wrong, it was the time to write a song.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trincale become a cantastorie<\/em> out of necessity: \u201cI had just married Lina and left the navy after serving for three years. I tried selling vegetables, it wasn\u2019t working, so I said to myself, \u2018I\u2019ll be a cantastorie<\/em>.\u2019\u201d In 1959, he moved to Milan. He started out performing traditional Neapolitan songs in the city\u2019s main streets, before playing outside factories that were absorbing thousands of migrants from the south at the time. It was there that he developed his signature style of \u201cjournalism in songs\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Universal love \u2026 a DIY jumper with a photo of Trincale and his wife, Lina.<\/span> Photograph: Agnese Morganti\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Traditional cantate <\/em>are hours-long, but workers outside the factories only had short breaks, so Trincale developed cantate <\/em>that lasted just a few minutes. Labour conditions became a theme: \u201cThe workers asked me why I didn\u2019t write about their problems, like the renewal of contracts<\/a>. They gave me some suggestions and I put them in the song.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTrincale\u2019s ballads can capture and denounce a problem in a few minutes,\u201d says Geraci. Workers and immigrants saw him as their voice<\/a>, and wrote him letters about their hardships.<\/p>\n

Trincale also took an interest in true crime. One of his most famous works<\/a> is about the 1969 kidnapping and murder of a 12-year-old boy<\/a>, Ermanno Lavorini. It anticipated true crime podcasts: six separate recordings<\/a> followed reports of the investigation in real time, as Trincale sang about the frantic search for the child and the clues and urged the kidnappers to come forward. He even did original reporting: \u201cWhen Trincale sang<\/a> about a seven-month-old baby killed by police teargas during the eviction of a occupied house<\/a>, he spoke to the mother. How is that different from journalism?\u201d asks Geraci.<\/p>\n

Later, Trincale began performing regularly in a corner of Piazza Duomo<\/a>, where he sung about Tangentopoli<\/a> \u2013 the early 90s corruption scandal that swept away Italy\u2019s political class \u2013 as well as Diego Maradona, the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa and the advent of mobile phones. In 2002, Silvio Berlusconi, the late prime minister, asked to move a corruption trial away from Milan, arguing that Trincale\u2019s performances mocking him were creating a biased environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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