I listened to his album somewhat distractedly that summer, really enjoying his voice, but then Live Aid burst onto the scene and distracted me from my James Taylor studies. I fed on that two-day mega rock concert and came away from it completely stunned. It was a dream to see so many legends on one stage: from Queen to Crosby, Stills & Nash, from U2 to Phil Collins, Madonna, Neil Young, Sting, and Paul McCartney. They gave unforgettable, over-the-top, truly spectacular performances. I was swept up in that wave for the rest of the summer until school began in September, when I was supposed to be seeing James Taylor, whom I had almost forgotten about.
As the night of the show drew closer, I felt a stirring sense of excitement. This was my first real concert. An hour before it started, I was already standing, three rows from the front, with both my uncles, looking up at the Palaeur stage. Luckily I was already almost six feet tall—I’d be able to see everything without being shoved or blocked. I spent the hour before the concert looking around the Palaeur, one of the long-standing premiere concert auditoriums in Rome. It was slowly filling up, and the magnificent stage was full of instruments waiting to be picked up and played by the members of the James Taylor band.
And when the lights went out, I was ready for the fireworks, drumrolls, and artificial fog that would surely accompany the entrance onstage of none other than James Taylor, world-famous rock star. But he walked onstage alone, to thunderous applause and lit by a single dim spotlight, a smiling gentleman with a receding hairline, wearing a pair of jeans and an ordinary shirt and carrying his guitar. The applause stopped only when his long, slender fingers began sliding up and down the neck of his guitar, and a sound that had never been heard before filled the Palaeur as a completely silent audience listened raptly. It was “You Can Close Your Eyes,” and when James Taylor began singing the words to that song, I felt as if I’d been hit in the face by a solid right uppercut. I was paralyzed. He had an incredibly magnetic presence, verging on the hypnotic. He was alone on the stage with his guitar, but it sounded like three guitarists playing at once. As he sang, he smiled at the audience and even looked individuals right in the eye. I’m pretty sure a couple of times he even looked me in the eye, probably wondering what a fifteen-year-old was doing sitting bug-eyed in the middle of an army of somewhat nostalgic forty-year-olds. He would finish one song, to the very restrained enthusiasm of his audience, and then he’d begin another that always seemed to be the concluding crescendo, even though we were still just at the beginning: “Wandering,” “Carolina in My Mind,” “Sweet Baby James.” He seemed like a guy who was just playing the guitar for a group of friends, baring his soul. Even to a young Italian boy who didn’t understand the words, the genuineness of his feeling was clear. He didn’t need walls of fire or balls of flame; he didn’t need to cut bats’ throats onstage to catch anyone’s attention. All he needed was his voice, his guitar, and the immense talent he infused into both, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. His band made its entrance onstage and the concert continued, with such masterpieces wafting out over the audience as “Your Smiling Face,” “Steamroller,” “You’ve Got a Friend,” “Up on the Roof,” plus a number of songs from his new album, That’s Why I’m Here, before the show concluded with “That Lonesome Road,” a solo vocal interpretation that just knocked me out.
I was stunned, and when I returned home that evening, I was annoyed, even a little angry, with my two uncles. How could they have failed to inform me earlier that besides John, Paul, George, and Ringo, I had one more older uncle, the best one of all: James?
Actually, it was just the beginning of a long love story. I’ve since had the privilege of meeting my favorite singer-songwriter repeatedly, and I can now claim without fear of contradiction that I am the official welcoming ambassador to James Taylor in Rome. The first time I met him was in May 1992. At the end of a James Taylor concert, I successfully persuaded a security guard to let me go in and say hello to him when he was done talking to the press. I just wanted to ask for an autograph, I told the guard. In reality, I had written and memorized a speech that was basically an adoring love letter. I pestered this security guard so relentlessly that, in the end, he gave in and ushered me into his august presence. I held my girlfriend Giuliana’s hand, and when I saw James Taylor standing at the far end of the room, talking to a couple of reporters—like Moses on the shore of the Red Sea—my heart leaped into my mouth. I walked up to ask him for an autograph. At that crucial instant, I forgot the speech I had written and rewritten for years. My mouth flew open and out came a single idiotic word: “Congratulations!” I turned to slink off, but after taking two steps, I spun on my heel, threw my arms around his neck, kissed him on the cheek, and burst into tears like a three-year-old. He probably hadn’t expected all that from a six-foot-tall twenty-year-old Roman, but I like to think he kind of dug it. When I hugged him, he hugged me back with the smile of an affectionate uncle, and he even patted me on the back a couple of times while the reporters all laughed and Giuliana rubbed her eyes in disbelief.
The second time was in 1997. James came to Rome to do publicity for his new record, Hourglass. He wouldn’t be doing any concerts, but he would be interviewed on a radio program, and of course I immediately found out which one. My brother and I jumped on my scooter and, armed with cameras, we zipped over to the radio station. And there was my idol, smiling serenely, walking out the front door of the broadcasting center. We got a few pictures of ourselves with him, and in place of my moronic “Congratulations!” of a few years earlier, I actually managed to stammer out something that—I hope—made sense.
The next time was 1999, and after that, 2002. That year James Taylor played in a very special place in Rome. He held a free concert in Piazza del Popolo. That was the one time I was unable to see him in person, because of the huge crowd and the unique location of the event. There was no place to stake out the entrance, no way of sneaking up on the performer.
I made up for that two years later, when James came back to Rome in May 2004 for a concert at the Cavea, the open-air arena of the Auditorium Parco della Musica. During the day, the Cavea is a public facility, where people are free to stroll and enjoy drinks or eat ice cream. It’s only during the soundcheck before a concert that the Cavea is closed to the general public—that is, the general public outside the Cavea at the time of the soundcheck. Not Luca Spaghetti, who’s already been inside for a good hour. The soundcheck is probably the best time to try to have a brief conversation with a performer without bothering him or her too much. There’s never a crowd, and the performer isn’t full of pre- or post-show adrenalin. And so, that afternoon I got the best photograph ever taken of Luca Spaghetti and James Taylor, sitting side by side and smiling in the arena.
I even left Italy to follow my idol, from Frankfurt to Brussels, but I would have gone to the ends of the earth to see him play. In 2008 I waited to see him in front of the Gran Teatro of Rome, standing in a biblical deluge for hours. He arrived in a small tour bus with his staff, and when I saw him I asked him if I could come in to have my picture taken with him. With his customary courtesy he agreed, and he even took my picture with his cell phone as I was running toward him, dripping wet from the rain, to tell him thanks one last time.
Another thing I’ve always admired about James is the sweetness and serenity with which, every time he sings a masterpiece written by others—say, “You’ve Got a Friend” or “Up on the Roof” or “How Sweet It Is”—he never fails to thank and pay tribute to the composers and lyricists. He’s always done it, at every concert of his that I’ve attended. He could easily say nothing at all, but instead, with the magnanimity of the truly great musician, he always mentions the names of those to whom he is indebted.
So let me finish by saying that before James Taylor decides to report me to the police as a stalker, it’s really just that I adore him. And that, if I wait devotedly for his return and do everything I can to see him every time he comes to my city, it’s only because I want to express to him
the warmest greetings and collective hug of welcome that Rome can extend to a particularly rewarding guest. The part that makes me happiest in all this is that I have succeeded in communicating this passion to all my friends, near and far. On the other hand, seeing how I’ve tortured them over the years with my fervent love for James Taylor, it’s understandable that every time they hear his voice or someone mentions his name, they have no choice but to think of me . . .
7
There We Are
To summarize, until I was around twenty, my life was made up of just two magical components: soccer and music. Admittedly, I thought about girls a lot, but when I was with my friends and I saw a soccer ball rolling across a field, there wasn’t a supermodel alive who could distract me from the enchantment of that leather sphere.
Of course, there was school and studying, but luckily for me, a few hours of hard work seemed sufficient to bring home consistently high marks. So once I got my homework out of the way, duty made way for enjoyment. During Italian high school—liceo—I actually managed to wrestle my parents into signing a “contract.” For every good mark I brought home, they’d pay a certain amount of money. There was a price list: in Italy, grades range from a low of 1 to a high mark of 10. If I got a 6, no money changed hands, because that meant merely passing. For a 5, I was still in the clear because, while not much of a grade, it was acceptable, and just missing the passing mark could happen to anyone. If the grades were in the range from 1 to 4, it was a disaster. I didn’t have to pay a penalty, but a tongue-lashing awaited me when I got home. And from 7 to 10, the grade range that I longed for and dreamed of, I was actually paid the cash bonuses we’d agreed upon. It was a wonderful little mechanism, and I took full advantage of it. I diligently prepared for my various oral examinations, “volunteering” to be tested once I was well versed on a given topic. Accordingly, my personal LP fund for Saturday afternoons was brimming over with cash during my high school years.
Music—listening and playing—and soccer—watching and playing: that’s how my days flew by.
Since I’ve always been a pretty generous kind of guy, I enjoyed sharing the joy that I got from music with others. I was a fanatic about making compilations—I thought a compilation was a much more personal gift that just an impersonal album, purchased ready-made. In those days, before MP3s, iPods, the Internet, and all that, getting hold of the songs was a challenge. Creating a compilation tape was a long and elaborate process. I gave them as gifts to friends, relatives, and—yes—girls. I hoped that certain romantic songs would help me to win some girl’s heart. After all, I reasoned, when a girl was listening to “You Can Close Your Eyes,” even if she didn’t understand the words, she’d have a much easier time forgetting that the boy courting her was named Spaghetti!
But the greatest satisfactions in that period came from my guitar. Studying James Taylor’s songs was an excellent way of learning to play (and to learn English). The first time you hear them, many of his songs may seem very simple, because of his melodic style and the sweetness of his voice. Actually, though, they’re really complex—at least they were for a self-taught guitarist like me. But after I learned to play a substantial number of his songs in a reasonably competent manner, I noticed with great pleasure that I had no difficulty playing 80 percent of the songs by my other favorite recording artists. And so, on summer evenings, on the beaches of Anzio, just outside of Rome, where, like many Romans, my family vacationed every year, we would often organize evening sing-alongs around a bonfire. I remember a nice big gathering of guys and girls, bronzed and dusted with sand and salt from a long day of sea and sunshine. Often grown-ups joined in as well from the balconies and patios of the surrounding houses, enjoying the cool on-shore breeze after dinner. In those long-ago summers, it was almost a daily appointment: night after night we got together on the beach and sang together, with cold beers and passionate summer love affairs that lasted a few days at the most. It was a simple but intense way of having fun, and it brought people together and created friendships.
I didn’t always play my favorite pieces, but hearing my friends all singing to music I played was a deeply moving experience. There was nothing that compared to the feeling I got when someone would ask me to play a song by the Beatles or James Taylor, or when I sang one spontaneously, only to find that someone else in the group knew it too and was happy to sing along with me.
Like everyone else I knew, I was waiting for my true love to come along, and in my heart of hearts I hoped that the charm of my guitar stylings would simply make the girl who was destined to be mine fall into my arms. Unfortunately, everyone kept asking me to play the guitar, and so evening after evening I played and played, and meanwhile everyone else was breaking off into couples and moving down the beach. Where I come from we describe that kind of situation with the pithy and eloquent expression reggere il moccolo—literally, “holding a candle.” But not the way it’s meant in English—rather, it means just standing there holding a candle so others can do whatever it is they’re doing. At least holding that candle did nothing to keep me from playing my guitar, from which I was then truly inseparable.
When it came to girls, I have to say that soccer wasn’t proving to be very helpful. I was playing at a more serious level in that period, competing in official and amateur regional tournaments. I fervently hoped this would impress the girls, but I was brought face-to-face with a great and profound truth: women and soccer don’t mix! Quite the contrary. I should have figured it out from the pop song that used to play constantly when I was a kid. “Oh why, oh why do you always leave me alone on Sunday, to go watch the soccer game at the stadium?” wailed the despondent, and slightly angry, Italian pop star Rita Pavone. Her cry came from the heart, and it perfectly summarized the protests of millions of neglected Italian women who spent their Sundays alone because their men were focused on watching twenty-two overgrown boys in shorts and jerseys chasing a ball across a field. But Italian men must have other aces up their sleeves, because once Sunday soccer was over, peace was restored. And no one’s ever heard of a marriage that ended just because of one Sunday soccer match too many.
As for me, I discovered to my own chagrin that girls were really, truly, deeply indifferent to my noticeable improvements at dribbling, kicking, or defense. They seemed equally impervious to the fascinating details of what formation S.S. Lazio was likely to field that Sunday. So I can assure you that the girls weren’t exactly dropping at my feet . . .
During my first years at the university, I finally managed to coax my father back to the Stadio Olimpico. A sizable group of fans and friends had grown up by now, and we always assembled on Sundays in the same location—on seats that were finally numbered. No more leaving early for the stadium, packing picnic lunches. Now we enjoyed a leisurely Sunday lunch, followed by a bracing espresso, and then we’d hop on the scooter and zoom off to root for Lazio all together.
I usually spent Saturday evenings at the beach in Anzio, even during the winter, with a group of friends, a group that had survived the end of summer. It was on one of those occasions that I met Giuliana. She was a beautiful girl, with light brown hair, green eyes, and a droll, gamine personality. What struck me in particular the first time I met her, though, was how unaffected she was, with just a hint of shyness. It was months before we actually managed to speak. She lived in Anzio and—miracle of miracles—my last name didn’t seem to worry her a bit. As we got to know each other better, we grew even more fond of each other. One year after the evening we first met, we officially became a couple. I would tell my friends that the first time I’d laid eyes on her was as she was emerging from the waves, tan and golden and sinuous like Ursula Andress in the presence of a surprised and slightly stunned Luca “James Bond” Spaghetti, or I’d say I saw her running light-footed down the beach, like Bo Derek in 10. What I never told my friends was that, in reality, of course, we had first met at dinner, over a steaming plate of pasta. Or, most important of all, that I had fallen head over heels
in love with her.
Part Two
A ROMAN IN THE STATES
8
Up on the Roof
Among my many boyhood dreams the absolute top ambition was . . . to go to America. I had always yearned to go to the States, starting when I learned my first songs in English. Though I was completely in love with my city, the most beautiful city in the world, deep down that American music stirred in me a kind of longing for all these places and landscapes I had never seen. I would tell Giuliana how much I would have loved to drive from Stockbridge to Boston, like in “Sweet Baby James,” or from New York to the Golden Gate, like in “Wandering.” And finally, my dream was about to come true.
It was July 29, 1995. I had just gotten my university degree and I was ready to travel. My parents had given me a wonderful gift: the trip to America I’d always dreamed of, a coast-to-coast journey from New York to California and back. My friend Alessandro would come with me, and I was finally going to see with my own eyes all those places that American music and movies had made me fall in love with. I couldn’t believe it: I was going to drive on the same roads as on Starsky & Hutch and CHiPS, and maybe I could borrow Magnum P.I.’s car for the time I was there, or else rent an economy model of Kitt from Knight Rider (known to us in Italy as Supercar). And on my car radio, I’d be able to listen to all American music all the time, and I would go sailing at high speed down the highway through the Arizona desert, singing “Take It to the Limit,” my favorite Eagles song, at the top of my lungs. I’d be eating hamburgers and French fries, beer and Coca-Cola, and pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast. Most of all, best of all, I’d have a chance to meet James Taylor. That’s right, because I had read somewhere that he lived in Manhattan, and I felt sure that once I was there, one way or another, I’d be able to track him down.
Un Amico Italiano Page 6