Riccardo is an Italian singer-songwriter who moved to London 2 years ago with a dream of becoming a professional musician/songwriter. I met him through Orrin who set up our first meeting, and immediately got to know him by asking lots of questions so that I could write him a biography. Which I have done, and will include in this post. Orrin set us up in hopes that we'd help teach each other things and that I would help with promotion and also with songwriting by critiquing songs and helping to develop his music as well. The biggest challenge for Riccardo is to write music in English, which is his second language. He speaks it well but as I talked about with him early on, it is much harder to translate poetry or to write poetry in another language because it uses metaphor and there are different ways of expressing ideas in different languages.
So I worked with him on finding ways to express things in English that he wrote in Italian. I also helped work on some lyrics that he had written in the past to say which phrases were not as strong. It is difficult to do this because in helping I do not want to misrepresent the ideas of the song. It ended up being a lot easier to start fresh, and within 2 weeks of meeting with Riccardo we wrote our first song together called 'Let it Out' which can be heard on Riccardo's myspace page: myspace.com/riccardolopez. I also offered helped with his vocals by teaching a few simple vocal exercises and explaining the different registers of the voice and how it can be difficult to switch from chest voice to head voice for example. This was fun because we got to see how high Riccardo could sing when he did scales and kept going up. Since then he's worked on singing in different registers, Orrin has requested he sing in the lower register of his voice and he's been working on that lately. Its good practice to see where vocal strengths are.
In addition to working with Riccardo I found a few open mics, hoping we could perform at one together but due to the LC schedule of constantly going to amazing concerts almost every night of the week, we had to go to open mics at separate times. I have performed at:
The Riverside - Tower Bridge January 23, 2008
The Sun - Clapham Common February 11, 2008
The Star - Tuffnell Park March 3, 2008
Riccardo has also been playing monthly at the SoBar on Fulham Broadway, here is a photo of him playing there:
Right not Riccardo is recording with a producer in London and continuing to perform at the SoBar.
Here is the bio I wrote in January:
Italian singer-songwriter Riccardo Lopez, born and raised in the beautifully rich artistic city of Rome has come to London’s open-minded international community to pursue his passion for songwriting and performing music.
When asked what Riccardo wants to accomplish in the coming years of his life, he says “I want to live thanks to my music. That’s everyone’s dream, to live thanks to what you love.” He is currently working with one of the most important composers in Italy, Louis Siciliano. He and Maurizio Clamente wrote a beautiful song for an Italian movie that will be released next spring called “Aria!” directed by Giorgio Arcelli. Caterina Sangineto will sing the Celtic version of the song, and a rock version of the song will also be released in the film and sung by Riccardo himself!
His contribution to current film scores is no coincidence. Riccardo’s songs are like scenes from a movie captured in musical form. He takes a place and moment in time and expresses love, encouragement, and sadness. Like the great songwriters that Riccardo has been inspired by: James Taylor, Neil Young, and Paul Simon—he tells a story with his music and brings certain emotions to life in a way that captures an audience and makes them feel what he’s feeling too. His music carries the romantic melancholic air of the classic British poets he reads Coleridge, Keats, Blake, while staying refreshingly grounded in rock and roll influences ranging anywhere from sounds of The Beatles and The Who to Oasis, Coldplay and the Foo Fighters.
His music brings together a diversity of sound, mixing a genuine folk feel with the gripping intensity of rock music. For the next couple of months you can catch him performing with American singer-songwriter Jodi McLaren. The duet is producing straightforward powerful lyrics with rich harmonies and layered guitar parts that are reminiscent of Guster for their catchy creativity and Damien Rice for his sweet male-female vocal mix. Visit www.myspace.com/riccardolopez for information on upcoming shows, releases, and recordings!
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