Blues Rock: Zucchero's Zucchero & Co.

He’s Italian; it must be opera. He’s got Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli singing with him; it must be operatic, classical stuff. Yet, Zucchero’s country of origin and gracious guest artists do not yield any opera on the new album. Rather, he has taken the best of classical, jazz, pop, blues, and soul to emerge as a pop singer with soul, a bluesman not shrouded in smoke, a full-voiced singer who still can sing for a small group in a living room.

Said to be “the only Italian international star,” one look at the guests on Zucchero & Co. leaves you with no doubt that he has the world’s attention. Sting, Eric Clapton, Miles Davis, B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, and more lend every strain of emotion and creative energy to their collaborations. Recorded over the course of 15 years, many were reedited, remastered, and portions rerecorded for this album. The result is that the diverse guest contributions from the 1980’s, 1990’s, and 2000’s end up sounding as surely a part of one album as if it had been recorded in one month by a tightly-knit band.

Chills accompany the listening experience of “Dune Mosse,” featuring the trumpet of the late Miles Davis. The voice of the one who has gone before us appears on “I Lay Down,” John Lee Hooker’s last recording before his death. Hooker’s voice is as deeply soak in genuine blues as anything of his career.

The blues guitar on the Bono co-penned tune, “Blue,” dips into Zucchero’s love for the music of the American South, especially New Orleans. (His studio in Lunigiana, Italy, is named Lunisiana Soul). The song puts Sheryl Crow in more of a pop diva sound without losing that blues edge through use of dobro, harmonica, and fuzz synth.

“Muoio Per Te” is an Italian reworking of Sting’s “Mad About You.” Sting duets with Zucchero, while Luciano Luisi and Zucchero arrange the song to blues up the groove. On “Like the Sun – From Out of Nowhere,” Macy Gray’s voice makes you want to cuddle with the love in your life, swaying to the beat, waiting for Jeff Beck to send up those electric guitar fireworks.

What’s great about this album of collaborations is that it doesn’t sound like everyone said, “Yeah, I’ll sing a duet with you. What standard hit song should we pick?” Instead, for the most part, this is about singing Zucchero’s songs, unleashed in these collaborations. Just listen to B.B. King crying out, “I miss you,” on “Hey Man,” and you know he’s not just reading off the sheet music. He’s doing as much as possible to reach the passion which is a Zucchero song.

Thank you to Thanks to Zucchero, Hear Music, and Concord Records for the review CD.