Rock progressivo italiano. La storia, i concerti, i protagonisti is Francesco Mirenzi's account of the Italian progressive-rock scene of the 1970s, told through the voices of the musicians who made it. Rather than a history narrated from the outside, it is a montage of interviews and first-hand testimony: Premiata Forneria Marconi, Le Orme, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Osanna, Area, Formula 3, Perigeo, Balletto di Bronzo, Luis Bacalov, Alan Sorrenti and others. Some chapters are edited by Guido Bellachioma. It was published by DeriveApprodi in the "I giradischi" series (2018), 466 pages. The book is in Italian.
For collectors — and it is worth saying plainly — the value here is not the historical reconstruction, useful as it is, but two other things. The first is the musicians' direct testimony, which supplies first-hand dates, detail and backstory. The second, and more important, is the reference apparatus: the book closes with discographies and "rarografie" (rarity guides) aimed explicitly at collectors and demanding specialists. This is where it becomes a working tool, the kind of reference you consult with a record in your hand.
One limitation should be flagged at once, because any reader will notice it: the book has no photographic section. For a genre partly defined by its sleeves — the gatefolds, the opening covers, the artwork of those years is part of the object itself — the absence of images is felt. Anyone hoping to leaf through it for cover art will come away empty-handed; anyone using it for the information and the voices will not.
A practical note, to avoid buying the wrong book: this is the 2018 DeriveApprodi volume, not to be confused with the two-volume work Mirenzi published for Castelvecchi in 1997, which is still around. They are different books.
We flag it because it is one of the few titles that gathers the direct testimony of the Italian prog protagonists, and because its apparatus speaks the language of collectors. It is available in Italian only.
