This was the unexpected highlight of our trip. We came for last night’s concert, but going to the birthplace of Quinto Mancini? WOW!

So according to Wikipedia, Scanno is a town on a lake, southeast of L’Aquila, but with a higher elevation, as a matter of fact it snowed there last night, and not just flurries, it was still on the ground when we got there.

I pictured some low-lying village, a bit industrial, the kind of place where you could earn a living, but thought of a better life in the United States.

That’s not how it was at all.

Now if you’ve ever been to the Alps, you know they’re staggering. The only equivalent I’ve ever come across in the USA is the Tetons, but they’re just a small row of peaks. Although the Alps are lower in altitude than the Rockies, they jut up straight from the landscape, and they’re craggy and rugged and I didn’t expect the Apennines to have the same character, but they do.

So we’re on the freeway, passing villages with castles, and then we get off the highway and…

It reminded me of Vermont, the road to the Middlebury Snow Bowl. Uphill, twisty and turning…on steroids.

I didn’t know we were climbing to an isolated mountain town. On a road that was a death trap. If you’ve ever lived in the hinterlands, you know drunk driving is a feature, not a bug. And young people lose their lives in accidents all the time. At certain points on the road it was one car only. At others they had mirrors on the curves. And no one was going twenty miles per hour, rather closer to fifty. You know the drill, when you surrender your life to the unknown driver, hoping they have experience.

Turns out ours did. He was a policeman, in uniform and everything, from Villalago, a village fifteen minutes from Scanno. We’re driving over these bridges with insane drops. It was truly a stairway to heaven.

And we’re in these deep valleys and up on the peaks are these communities… They look kind of like that house the Branch Dividians lived in, as in they’re all attached, like one big building, and outside the building are cliffs.

So we ultimately get to a mountain lake, you know, the kind whose color is a cross between silver and green, made up of mountain runoff.

Turns out this is the lake, but Scanno is not built around it. A few kilometers on, you come around a corner and right in front of you is a ski area, with a lift as steep as the one in Val d’Isere, the kind you get freaked out about going up.

And it turns out Scanno is another one of those villages where every building is attached.

So first they bring us to the town hall for a meeting with the mayor. Who smiled and spoke, but not in English, Daniela translated. There was all this pomp and circumstance because the three were the kids of Henry Mancini. The guy’s smiling and…I’ve never gotten such an official reception.

And then we get back in the van, drive in a giant circle, get off and we’re at Henry Mancini’s street. He’s the most famous guy with roots in Scanno, check Wikipedia, they only mention Henry and a guy who hid out there during the War and ultimately became president.

That’s another thing about being in Europe, it’s hard not to think about the War. We haven’t had one in the U.S., we think we’re immune. We’re not worried about our neighbors invading, Canada and Mexico are not up to that. But in Europe, all the countries are squeezed together. And it’s not like your town is so far from the action. 9/11 happened in New York, we didn’t feel it quite as deeply in Los Angeles, because it was three thousand miles away. But when some army can invade and come to your burg in a matter of days, you’re going to sleep with one eye open.

And then they took us to Quinto’s house, just a door in the endless building in the center of the village.

Now I can’t go in search of my relatives’ homeland. Because they’re in Ukraine and Russia. My parents once went to visit my mother’s cousins in Russia, but those who didn’t leave for the U.S. went to Israel. Our aunts, our grandfather’s sisters, came over by boat in the early sixties for a few weeks, and we’ve all been over there, but to see exactly where your relative lived back in the day?

And nothing has changed. I grew up in a split level house that was new construction. But where these people live…the buildings are hundreds of years old, you’re reminded every day that you’re just part of a long continuum.

So it turns out there are only 1,800 people in Scanno. And nineteen churches. And with little work, the young people are leaving. But we met this young reporter who moved here during Covid, she wanted to get out of the city. And the town swells in the summer, thousands arrive, to hang out in their second homes, to vacation.

But the rest of the year… Scanno didn’t even have a cinema when Quinto lived there.

So Quinto, so named because he was the fifth child, was born in 1890. And he emigrated to the U.S. when he was in his early twenties. And I’m picturing him there back in Scanno… There was no future, I can see getting out, as it was there were twenty guys who looked like they were out of a black and white film from a hundred years ago waiting for the bar to open just before we left. That’s another thing about the mountains, the hinterlands, alcohol consumption is rampant, there’s little to do and the nights are cold and long and…

Ultimately, after lunch, there was another concert of Mancini music, in a converted church. Unlike in the U.S., the exteriors of many churches are flat and bland…but the interiors are luxurious.

And that’s where we met…THE RELATIVES!

Yes, the descendants of Quinto’s brothers and sisters, the kids born in the fifties, just like us. It was positively overwhelming, inspiring, yet somewhat strange. It was a complete surprise, we didn’t know they’d be there, no one did. And they’re so excited to meet Felice and Monica, I’ve never experienced anything like it. They shared blood, but no everyday history, not even the same language. How do you catch up after all these years? It was like royalty come to visit, very rare, and they roll out the red carpet and are so thrilled you’re there.

So much of this official stuff is pomp and circumstance with little meaning. But today was all about meaning.

And twenty of us went to lunch, and the breadsticks enclosed in plastic…trumped every breadstick I’ve ever eaten. They were somewhat salty and ribbed and far from dry.

I guess maybe if you too live in the hinterlands, you can understand. If you were born and stayed in the same place, with few people there, off the radar screen. It’s a complete society, but for those of us who live in Los Angeles, you can never forget the starmaking machinery. You bump into household names at the grocery store. You feel a connection to the outside world, it’s palpable. But in Scanno? The roads are treacherous both in and out. It’s perched on the side of a mountain. I can’t figure out why people moved there to begin with.

Normally it’s easy to figure out. There’s a body of water for transportation of goods, or a river to provide energy. But what inspired people to build a community in the middle of nowhere with no obvious economic advantages?

The mayor told me the business was cows and sheep, as in farming. And tourism. And ever since Covid, the area’s been somewhat depressed. The mayor’s the lawyer in town. As for a doctor… THEY DON’T HAVE ONE! They’ve got a helicopter pad just in case, but if you need treatment you’ve got to drive twenty kilometers just to see a medical professional, never mind a specialist. And they’d love to get a doctor there, but most people want to specialize these days, there are fewer general practitioners, and do you really want to move to a small town in the middle of nowhere?

Oh, it’s spectacular. With vertical walls of mountains rising into the stratosphere.

And you could see satellite dishes. So it’s not like you’re completely isolated. But…

What would it be like to grow up there? Over a hundred years ago. When life was not much different than it had been for centuries? I mean normally you think about people immigrating to avoid war, you think about how hard it would be to journey so far and start over where you didn’t speak the language. But I can’t believe it was that hard to convince Quinto to go, I mean what’s your future in Scanno? Then again, what did Quinto think when he got to New York?

He ultimately ended up in the Cleveland area, working in a steel mill. The life of an immigrant is never easy. You start at the bottom, usually with manual labor, and you work hard to provide, to get ahead.

Henry was his only son, only offspring at all. And at a young age, Hank was at the cinema, heard the music and said…I WANT TO DO THAT!

Hank played the flute, like his dad. And he didn’t quite come from the Liverpool docks, but he made it all the way to the Hollywood Bowl.

Sure, there’s luck. But there’s also desire. And also taking advantage of coincidences. After losing his job at Universal, walking away from a building on the lot that now bears his name, Hank ran into Blake Edwards, and there ensued a relationship…

You don’t know what you’re doing when you’re doing it, you’re putting one foot in front of the other, it all makes sense in retrospect.

Quinto did not leave Scanno to have a famous composer son. He just needed a better future. Then again, in today’s world of income inequality, where financial shenanigans are employed to ensure generational wealth, there are tons of rich do-nothings, but it’s always those who come from the bottom, immigrants, who change the world and make a difference.

We all come from somewhere, and today we experienced the roots of Henry Mancini, who is still Scanno’s favorite child, even though he was born in the United States.

But if his father wasn’t from Scanno would Hank have made it, been so successful?

We’ll never know, but that’s the American Dream, to start from nowhere and make it all the way to somewhere. It’s what inspires us, keeps us going.

Perception is they don’t have the American Dream in Europe. You’re born to your station and…

In truth, the American Dream, the ability to rise up on hard work, has diminished in America, your odds of moving up are actually better in Canada and Europe.

It’s the little things that surprise you, where they’ve got systems figured out better than the States. And sure, the States are more efficient, but they’re far from perfect. We could learn from our brethren. Even worse, America has stood for peace, the future, it has been the guiding light, ensuring world order. But now Europe has lost confidence, they don’t look for America to save them. As a matter of fact, the EU is the harbinger of regulation these days. The EU stands up for the public in a way that the American government does not. And when Lina Khan blows the whistle on corporations there’s all this backlash…

It’s different here. And I could live here, but not in Scanno, certainly not in the days before modern transportation and communications.

Brought tears to Felice’s eyes. It was overwhelming. After all these years to encounter your roots?

I hope you have the same experience.

You don’t do it through publicity, you do it through the work.

In the old days, print publicity was the introduction, now there’s so much in the pipeline that even if it’s seen, it’s not acted upon, and that is the ultimate goal, consumption of the music, that’s where a career begins.

You’re best getting publicity after you get traction. Then you have a story to tell. 

I know this sounds counterintuitive to many, who will ask how you get started, but it’s literally just like building a fire, you start with kindling, and then you blow on said kindling to make it white hot and do your best to ignite larger and larger wood. And the hardest part is getting the fire started. Once you’ve got it started, maintaining it is a different issue. If you get big enough, it’s impossible to blow the fire out all at once. We no longer live in the days of Billy Squier and MTV, nothing you do can destroy your career overnight, people are still listening to R. Kelly tunes. Collective consciousness is passé.

But getting started…

People think it’s with social media. But unless social media posts include the music, it’s nearly worthless. Once you’ve gained the aforementioned traction you employ social media to keep your career aflame, but when it comes to starting, it all comes down to the music.

And the best way to start is by doing it completely different from everybody else. If you’re just following in the footsteps of hitmakers, chances are the flame won’t ignite. Your music has to be different, innovative. One of the best ways to make it is with innovative lyrics. Hell, isn’t that why Noah Kahan blew up, with lyrics about his emotions, his inner life in a world where everybody is playing to the last row?

And think about your audience. Your audience is not everybody, no one’s is. Who is prone to listening to your music. Go where they are.

And don’t dun people into submission. If you keep e-mailing them, hounding them to listen, they’re not only not going to listen, they’re going to talk sh*t about you.

Although you need no CV, music is one of the hardest verticals to have success in. Just because you can play and sing and your parents and friends like you…that’s meaningless, unless they start spreading the word because they truly believe in the music.

How do you get people talking about you?

You wander in the wilderness. Which is anathema to today’s young players who want instant success. Sure, you may have the tools of promotion at your fingertips, but so does everybody else.

Quick, did you listen to the new Taylor Swift album yet?

Either you did or you didn’t, you’re either a fan or you’re not, and chances are if you’re not a fan you’re never going to check it out, and she’s the biggest act in the world! We no longer live in the days of controlled radio and MTV, in a monoculture, you’re appealing to a very small cadre of people, who hopefully will spread the word.

And when your Spotify numbers are anemic… Well, at least somebody is listening. Don’t think about getting paid, but the ability to make that direct connection with listeners without a heavy lift. In the old days radio had to play your record or people had to buy it to hear it, it’s much easier today, it’s just that you’re competing with everybody else.

I know this all sounds incredibly negative, like I’m raining on your parade, but everybody else is taking your money and giving you false hope. Now, more than ever in the past two decades, it comes down to the music. You start your career with the music. Which means if you’ve got a mediocre voice, you’d better be the best lyricist. You have to excel. And your music must contain something that hooks people and makes them want to hear it again. What is special about your track? An incredible chorus, guitar lick, vocal machinations? You’ve got to deliver a ten on at least one criterion or you’re dead in the water.

This is no different from the old days. Don’t forget, the Beatles woodshedded for years before they got a recording contract, never mind broke through.

And garage bands in the sixties and seventies… You put them together via the best elements. You found the best singer and the best guitar player, and if someone wasn’t good enough, didn’t excel, you looked for a replacement. Rush didn’t really succeed until it got rid of the old drummer and replaced him with Neil Peart, who wrote lyrics to boot.

It’s about fundamentals. Believe me, if you continue to do it you’ll be stunned at how bad your early work is. Better to focus on lessons than promotion. Life is long. Just because you can put it up on YouTube doesn’t mean anyone is going to watch it, never mind talk about it.

We don’t need everybody, we just need a few good men and women. The public is hungry for music, but it doesn’t need your music. And you must be dedicated and NEED IT! If you don’t need success, if it’s not the most important thing in the world, if you’re not willing to sacrifice everything to get it, you’re never going to make it.

As for the vaunted record deal… Even the major labels can’t break new artists. Then again, they’re repeating the formula. Innovation always comes from independents, outside.

But you must be unique and special. People need to see or hear you once and not be able to stop talking about you. If you have to convince someone you’re great, you’re not. Your greatness should emanate from you and your music.

Don’t listen to the scuttlebutt, mainly it’s wankers angry they’re not successful who don’t deserve to be successful.

You’ve got to be special. One listen, one look special.

That’s what sells you today, no amount of publicity can compensate for substandard work, for average work, for great work. Look at it this way, the majors get tons of publicity for their acts and still most of them don’t make it.

You’ve got the tools at your fingertips. But what you put through the pipeline is the most important thing.

Loverboy lead guitarist, key songwriter and co-producer.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/paul-dean/id1316200737?i=1000652847981

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/ca144f9f-a062-4469-8dcb-5d456940dfc7/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-paul-dean

Yes, quite the contrast to Coachella, then again back in the day the audience was not the show. Did you hear they referred to the desert confab as the “Influencer Olympics”? That’s how much the game has changed. The acts are secondary to the experience. The penumbra trumps the music…i.e. the food and lifestyle events off the concert grounds. But back in the day…

Peter Frampton was just another struggling artist trying to make it until he surprisingly blew up with “Frampton Comes Alive” and then destroyed his career with “I’m In You” and the “Sgt. Pepper” movie and has been slowly clawing his way back to credibility ever since. The screen showed footage of Frampton walking with his school chum Bowie while he and his son belted out “Rebel Rebel” and not only did the song sound better decades removed, Bowie oozed a charisma we rarely see in our artists today. Bowie was the whole package: music, image and myth. Furthermore, Bowie kept on growing while so many of his contemporaries became calcified. But that was back before not only politics became tribal, but music too. I LISTEN TO MY FAVORITE AND YOU SUCK BECAUSE YOU DO NOT SUPPORT THEM! David Bowie would have laughed at blind belief. Then again, the intellectual component of music has left the building, while those outside the building keep complaining about their streaming royalties, or to be explicit, their lack thereof.

So it was raining. Before the show the sound system played Albert Hammond’s classic hit, and the audience sang along, “It never rains in Southern California”…

Now it used to be summer venues were just that, they started around Memorial Day and faded out not long after Labor Day. But money abhors a vacuum, and now in SoCal these open air venues…go from March to November. Meaning…the weather might just be bad.

To tell you the truth, I wasn’t going to go. But Rena convinced me the show would play and it wouldn’t be so bad. So I drove over.

And was stunned how many other people made it. Really, in a city where people stay off the roads when it rains, I figured they’d swallow the ticket price. But no, it seemed like most of the people who bought tickets showed up. And let’s be clear, this was not the young ‘uns, these were people who might get pneumonia and die, but they suited up and went to the gig, the way they have for decades. That’s how much the music means to them.

And sure, “Baby, I Love Your Way” and “Show Me the Way” got big ovations, but they were not the only ones. The standing O for the extended “(I’ll Give You) Money” was the longest.

Now this is the “Never Ever Say Never Tour.” As in Frampton played his final shows, yet here he is again.

But not like his classic rock contemporaries… My favorite is the legendary act that was on its final tour with a new album only a few months away. Needless to say, they’re still on the road, and that was a decade ago!

But if you want to see Peter Frampton, go now, because it won’t be long before you won’t be able to.

At the end of the show Peter spoke to the audience. Saying to be kind, you never know what is going on in people’s lives, but also that he was going to fight his disease. As someone with a disease… Your body doesn’t know you’re fighting it, it’s been proven attitude is an almost irrelevant factor. The story with these serious health problems is you surrender. And you make peace with it. It’s those that surround you that can’t get over it.

So, Peter is helped on to the stage, using a cane to boot. You get it right from the very start, Frampton is not lying, he’s hurting. Well, physically, but not in attitude. One of the great things about a Frampton show is his sense of humor, evidenced throughout the gig. There’s a casualness that was the antithesis of rock shows back in the seventies, then again, many of those acts haven’t survived, or can’t go on the road because no one wants to see them.

So, Frampton sits. As does his entire band. Which shifts the experience. Normally, an act performs. Jumps around the stage, tries to get you in the mood to feel the music and have a good time. There was none of this Saturday night. It was just the music, and that added gravitas.

Yes, just the music. No ringers off stage, no backing tracks, it was the same as it ever was, and that was refreshing. Peter and a band. Another guitarist, a bass player, a keyboard player and a drummer. I’d say it wasn’t that far removed from the garage, but in truth garage bands are never as tight.

So Frampton played a bunch of numbers in rapid succession right off the bat without speaking to the audience, which made you feel like he still had it. It wasn’t an assault, and it wasn’t exactly a freight train, it was just a band firing on all cylinders, not needing acknowledgement to do so.

Now when Peter played “Shine On”…

It’s on the live album, but this was closer to the original Humble Pie version, with the explosive guitar, with a strut underneath. This wasn’t light, but it was catchy, and I guess that’s Frampton’s secret sauce. There are a ton of hot guitar players out there, but very few can write, and that’s what Frampton can do, write songs. Will his compositions be remembered a century from now? Probably not. Then again, other than the Beatles I don’t think anything will be popular by then. This was our music, for our time, and it turns out it was only for us. Then again, that was enough.

But that is what Frampton is selling, his guitar prowess. It’s actually pretty amazing. Since he’s sitting down, that’s what you focus on. And he can nail all that picking from the records. And he can eke out notes and tones… That’s what you’re thinking sitting there, that this is one hot guitarist, who has his own unique style, who might have been sold as a pretty boy but nothing could be further from the truth. Watching Frampton play you could see why he made it, he’s just that good. Better than most people think. Which is why George Harrison used him, which is why his fellow musicians respect him.

Now in truth it was a great night because Peter played my two favorite songs, “All I Wanna Be (is by your side)” and “I Wanna Go to the Sun.”

Now “All I Wanna Be” is on the live album, but in a truncated, acoustic version. But on Saturday night, this was the album track, from the very first album, “Wind of Change,” and it was astounding, because Peter can make all those sounds, he remembers these songs!

As for “I Wanna Go to the Sun”… The way it starts out quiet and slow and builds… Dynamics, those are the mark of talent. Frampton doesn’t need to blast you into submission. It’s a concert, you’re listening.

But the encores…

Well, it was funny, because Peter didn’t leave the stage, it was too much effort, he joked about it, and then played the concluding numbers after a short break.

“Four Day Creep”? Man, when Frampton played that lick it was hard to keep your body from moving. There’s a boogie, hard rock element which has evaporated from today’s scene, but it was so satisfying back then, direct to your body and heart.

And, of course, “I Don’t Need No Doctor.”

The finale was “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” at this point a Frampton standard, like “Black Hole Sun,” which of course he played too.

No Frampton show is complete without “Do You Feel Like We Do,” that was the number before the encore, and no matter how many times I’ve heard it, both on record and live, after the long journey, when Peter and the band kick it full force once again, it’s still so SATISFYING!

So if you didn’t go…

Well, I was surprised that these were Frampton fans, they clapped for the album tracks, they weren’t just there for the hits.

This was not a picnic, a summer trifle, this was about music. From back when music was everything. Frampton and we in the audience were on the same page, we remembered. And like I said, Frampton can still hit all the notes, but this was a live show of yore, where the music itself had so much energy, referenced the recording yet added more, that we were transported in our own capsule into the stratosphere. Nobody else mattered, there was a direct connection between what was on stage and us, and we were liberated, we cast off our troubles and transcended this world which just seems to bring us down.

That’s the power of music.

But not everybody can do it.

This was not a party. This was not a video. It’s kind of like Max Yasgur said, we all got together for the fun and the music and it was nothing but the fun and the music and that was enough.

Now I advise you to go to these rainy shows with a plastic garbage bag. I dried my seat with some paper towels I got from the bathroom, but I realized if I had a giant garbage bag, I could have cut holes for my arms and been good. Or just laid the thing on the seat.

Now it stopped raining after about fifteen minutes of the show. But it was cold, in the forties.

I was actually prepared for the temperature, I even had gloves with me, but I was not prepared for the elation of the experience, especially after the downer of the rain.

I’d tell you to go to the show, but that’s the thing about us baby boomers, we still do! We may look worse for wear, but we still go, we need to connect with the sound, to who we once were, and there’s a direct thread from back then to now, and these musicians provide it.

Frampton connected on Saturday night. I think he’s finally getting the respect he deserves as a guitar player. But even if you were a casual fan, or were burned out on hearing the hits over and over, I guarantee you if you were there you would have been drawn in.

That’s the power of music, when done right.

And Peter Frampton did it right Saturday night.