Italy, Rosa Balistreri

condition (record/cover): EX / VG+ (ring wear of front)

With original innersleeve.

Rosa Balistreri came out of Licata, in the poorest Sicily, illiterate until adulthood, and became the island's voice: a contralto like a wound, singing the songs of the sulphur mines, the prisons, the emigrant boats, accompanied by her own guitar. Dario Fo put her in Ci ragiono e canto in the late sixties, RCA signed her, and La cantatrice del Sud is her major-label statement, produced with a restraint that leaves the voice alone with the material.

She belongs with Amália Rodrigues and with Violeta Parra with the singers who made grief a Mediterranean art form, and this album is the place to start. Italian RCA pressing, KIT series, original sleeve.