Fresquito

Born on November 6, 1956, in Lagonegro, Potenza, Pino Mango grew into an Italian innovator of rock fusion. Local groups received his first vocal contributions at age seven, and by his early teens he had taken on demanding material from Aretha Franklin, Peter Gabriel, and Deep Purple. Alongside those pursuits he completed formal studies in sociology at the University of Salerno, sharpening his compositional craft during those same years by writing and performing original songs. His debut album appeared on RCA in 1976 and featured the single “Si Questa Terra Solo Mia.” Steady, commercially successful releases marked the late seventies and the eighties, along with three Sanremo Festival appearances in 1985, 1986, and 1987; several of those projects, among them Inseguendo l’Aquila and Ferro e Fuoco, later received Spanish translations and releases. The nineties proved equally active: after moving to EMI for the 1994 self-titled Mango he issued seven original albums across the decade, drawing personnel from the circles of Peter Gabriel and Simple Minds while continuing to foreground Mediterranean musical themes. A wider stylistic range defined his work after 2000, illustrated by a six-voice arrangement of the Beatles’ “Michelle” and by the 2004 double-platinum album Ti Porto in Africa. That same year he also published a collection of his poetry. In 2005 he joined BMG, which issued Ti Amo Così and, two years later, L’Albero delle Fate.