Bella Ragazza: Original Recordings 1934-1949

Original 1934-1949 Recordings

A stalwart of pioneering Italian radio and a master of microphone technique, between the World Wars Carlo Buti became a virtual synonym for the canzone di genere leggero. All the latest love-songs, however clichéd, were 'Buti-fied' and within the confines of a highly individual if rather limited voice this stylist who won the admiration of Beniamino Gigli, Galliano Masini and Tito Schipa became a role-model to a younger generation headed by Luciano Virgili and Claudio Villa. His phonically ingratiating half-tones made Buti a gift to the popular record industry of which, by 1935, he was a leading light. Prolific, he turned down little or nothing that was offered him, however trite, and in him tenor and crooner commingled as, via the air-waves and scores of internationally distributed recordings, he made the new Italian brand of cabaret initiated by Meme Bianchi, Daniele Serra, Gennaro Pasquariello and others accessible to a wider audience. Polished and distinctive, in his sphere Buti had few peers (the Sicilian Luciano Tajoli among the few, and a later arrival) and in his own way he was unique, the sort of artistic phenomenon which could only have come to light in the early days of radio and commercial recording and, with the artistic climate of the Fascist ventennio in mind, perhaps nowhere else but in Italy.