Over the past decade, the biggest night in Italian bluegrass is the annual party thrown by Red Wine, billed simply as the Red Wine Bluegrass Party. It’s a concert put on by the band in Genoa, with different special guests each year. We are thankful for mandolinist Martino Coppo, who provided this report on the 2018 event, held November 25.
Red Wine Bluegrass Party # 9 has been another big hit, with a sold out theater and an enthusiastic audience!
Special guests for this year were two of the most representative ‘bluegrass ladies’ in the business, both from California: singer songwriter Kathy Kallick (lead vocal, guitar), founding member of the legendary San Francisco Bay area band The Good Ol’ Persons, and now leader of The Kathy Kallick Band, and Annie Staninec (fiddle player, vocal) also from The Kathy Kallick Band, considered a virtuoso of her instrument who boasts many prestigious collaborations in various musical genres: bluegrass, old time music, gypsy jazz, country music, cajun and zydeco, and more recently the rock of Rod Stewart, in whose band he played in 2016.
The show has been a balanced mixed of Kallick’s original songs (Foxhounds, I’m not your Honey Baby Now), traditional numbers (Blue & Lonesome, Rocky Road Blues, Shakin’ Down the Acorns, Hello Stranger), original songs from other female artists (Bottomlands by Wil Maring, Across The Great Divide by Kate Wolf), few Red Wine standards (Fiddle & Bow by Nial Toner, Tangled Roots by Ben Winship), plus a tribute to the late Tom Petty (American Girl, Southern Accent/Free Fallin’) and to one of the most popular Italian songwriters from Genoa, Fabrizio De Andrè: Kathy mesmerized the audience with a soulful and beautiful rendition of Canzone dell’Amore Perduto (Song of the Lost Love) in perfect Italian!
Additional guests were Red Wine 5th honorary member Davide ‘Zazza’ Zalaffi on drums, good friend and guitar wiz Paolo Bonfanti on electric guitar and, on the encore, Fabio Consani on harp.
As always a special thank also to our photographer, scenographer and co-producer Stefano Goldberg, our general manager, light assistant and co-producer Ester Baessato, and to our additional photographer Giovanna Cavallo.
We’ve already started to work on next year edition, since 2018 will mark 40th years of Red Wine in bluegrass, and 10 years of the Bluegrass Party!
