Performers

He has always been an extraordinary guitarist, since he was very young, since he toured Europe with great Blues artists such as Rosa King, Buddy Miles and Billy Preston. Now, at 46, he serenely tells of those difficult beginnings, when he played as a musician also to make ends meet, because he could not be heard as a songwriter.

But stubborn as he is, Alex never gave up and in 1997 came the contract with Universal Music and the release of two singles – Quello che voglio and Solo una volta (o tutta la vita) – and the first album, It.pop. The result was popular success combined with the first critical awards: It.pop is triple platinum, while “Music and Records” is the best debut record of the year. In the playlist of the album, two songs characterize the stylistic signature of the Roman singer-songwriter: Gelido, a bluesy ballad, with unaltered rhythm, repetitive and sensual, that rests on a broken text, composed of short sentences, a song that escapes the labels, “a speech difficult to guide”, which almost contrasts with Solo una volta (o tutta la vita): a sunny, funny, lightful piece.

The following year the PIM (Italian Music Award) proclaims him “best new artist” and in 1999 his Oggi sono io wins among the New Proposals of the Sanremo Festival: most introspective side prevails, as his artistic soul, with a song that, two years later, will be reinterpreted by a sacred monster of Italian music: Mina (“I’m still not used to hearing it sang from her, still takes a hit every time!” tells coy and sincere).

A rapid succession of events and successes: the Pavarotti & Friends (where he also plays as guitarist of Joe Cocker and Pavarotti), the tour “Sulla spiaggia” with Corrado Guzzanti, the release of the album La vasca (2000 Universal Music), thanks to which, for the first time in Italy, an artist bares himself at the summit of the radio air play: the first single excerpt – Una su 1.000.000 – yields, in fact, the first position in the standings to the title-track La vasca. And again a new Sanremo Festival with Sono contento, the Palavasca and triple platinum for his second album.

Among many successes, one more intimate, less cheeky than the others but that perhaps left a deeper mark: when he could listen to the piano and the voice of Ray Charles come out of his monitor – right from his, that of Alex! – who played a solo for The Genius on the Ariston stage in Sanremo, where Charles was a guest and played an English version of Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu.
Mina, Anna Mazzini at the registry office, decides to record her version of “Oggi Sono Io’’. The lombard artist, struck by the beauty of this song and the depth of the text, asks the Roman singer-songwriter permission to make a version of it. Britti, of course, accepts it, honored, and Mina recorded the song at the first and only rehearsal.

The song was proposed for the first time to the public on March 31 during the 62-minute document (Mina in studio) transmitted by the portal www.inwind.it. It is the first mass event for the public of the Internet in Italy: over 15 million requests for access to web servers in the time frame of the event; over 2 million requests of access to the page of the event to chat, download images and send messages to the forum dedicated to Mina, until late at night; over 250,000 computers were connected – many of which were not alone in front of the screen of their personal computer for an event like this – and have seen in full and for over an hour the music movie of Mina establishing an absolute record in Italy; the first big multicast event in Italy.

The feedback from the audience is not disappointing and the song released at first as a single and then included in the best of “Platinum Collection 2” of 2006 gets a success in line with the first performance of Britti.

Alex is always and above all a guitarist, a musician who has to test himself and discover new things about himself and his trusty Martina (one of his first guitars, a Martin, in fact) every time he gets on stage. It is not surprising then that to promote 3 (2003 Universal Music), the third studio album (preceded by the third festival participation with the song 7000 coffee) chose the long tour “Kitarra, voce e piede“ in which – only on stage – reinvents, colors up, distorts its repertoire with the help of microphones and samplers.

The release of Festa (2005 Universal Music), however, surprised many; an album much more acoustic and authorial than the previous ones, in which you can breathe more the blues and jazz matrix of the musical formation of Alex, recomposed, covered, with the craftsmanship of a tailor. Festa is also the record in which to tell in a heartfelt and direct manner our daily life made of “lives uphill” and shattered dreams.

There are still more excellent collaborations: from the one with Geoff Westley, an internationally renowned producer, with whom he arranges “Solo con te”, a song with which he competes at the Sanremo Festival 2006, to the one with a personal childhood hero, Edoardo Bennato, with whom he wrote and played Notte d’estate and with whom he toured in 2007.

After the release of Mtv Unplugged (2008 Universal Music), a completely acoustic reinterpretation of its repertoire, fun, exciting, electrifying is the recording of “.23” (2009 Universal Music).

With Alex in the studio there are, in fact, extraordinary musicians such as Darryl Jones, bassist of Miles Davis, Eric Clapton and the Stones, Davide Rossi, violinist and arranger of Brian Eno, Robert Fripp and Coldplay, Paco Sery, drummer of Joe Zawinul, and also Bob Franceschini, saxophonist, among others, by Mike Stern, and Cecilia Chailly, harpist by De André and Mina. “.23” is a record in which the landscapes are protagonists, from those familiar and noisy of his dear Rome, to those dreamed of of a starry Bethlehem or of a bombed Berlin, from the rainy ones of an autumn difficult to live to those overcrowded in the “day that tastes good” like in “a night that tastes like mint”.
In 2011 he released Immaturi, soundtrack of the film of the same name by Paolo Genovese. The song is included in the Best-of released the same year by Universal Music, followed by the Best of Video Collection.

In 2011, Rizzoli published Nelle mie corde, a book/dvd in which Alex recounts his musical passions and reveals some guitar tricks (“some”, he emphasizes himself with a sly smile).

In 2012 an old friendship – artistic and private – finally became a tour: it’s “Mo better blues”, an instrumental project that sees him as a musician together with the great saxophone player Stefano Di Battista.

It is in the studio that the idea of the “Jimi Hendrix Experience” is born, a tribute to a music legend, played in trio with Mel Gaynor and Ged Grimes, drummer and bassist of Simple Minds. And it is also with Mel that Alex recorded Bene così (2013 It.pop, distrib. Artist First), the new album of unreleased pieces and released in June 2013, anticipated on the radio by the single Baciami (portami a ballare). The private affections, the “banal concreteness hung on a thread of melancholy” and the desire to go on in “this world of madmen”, the need to always find a new impetus, a new dream that pushes us beyond: Bene così is a record much more immediate than the previous ones. Observations, thoughts, moods, told in a simple and direct way, played with the usual grit.

The three singles – in addition to Baciami and the title track, Senza chiedere di più, written together with his friend Federico Zampaglione – were on the top chart of the major radio networks for months. In October he held his first solo concert in London, a sold out. On the occasion of the participation in the “Christmas Concert 2013” – aired on December 24 on RAI 2 -, Britti meets and duets with Patti Smith, a rock legend.

His guitar continues to fascinate and make proselytes, continues to reveal new sounds and emotions; so the next tour is “Chitarra Voce e Piedi”: still sold out concerts for a show that sees Alex alone again on stage; the following summer he surprises instead with a very rock, electric and powerful tour.
In December 2014 Alex Britti was selected at “Sanremo 2015 – 65 Festival della Canzone Italiana” with the song Un attimo importante.

In October 2015 he participated in the “Toquinho & Friends” where the two artists give to the public, exchanging in perfect balance, rhythmic parts and solos, in pieces of both Brazilian and Italian musical culture.

Alex Britti’s album “IN NOME DELL’AMORE” – VOLUME 1 – on It.Pop, anticipated by the single “Perché”, a song in which Alex Britti asks why many women do not denounce the violence suffered. “Perché” was also born to give concrete help to women victims of violence in order to raise awareness of the complaint. All the rights of Alex Britti and It.Pop of the single are, in fact, destined to Weworld, a world NGO that has been working for over 15 years in defending the rights of women and children in Italy and in the world.

After a triumphant winter tour that saw him protagonist in the main Italian theaters, punctually sold out, Alex Britti repeated with the success of In nome dell’amore tour also in summer.

On March 24, 2017, ”Speciale” was released, the first single by Alex Britti that anticipated the release of the new album “In Nome dell’Amore – Vol. 2” released on May 5, 2017. The second excerpt was “stringimi forte amore” released in June 2017, followed by the summer tour.

In the career of the artist a lot of importance is on the live activity, which is why he spends most of his career on tour in Italy and Europe. In his concerts, which punctually have large audiences, he always experiments with new sounds, blending his pop style with blues and jazz sounds.
Let us remember, in summer 2017, the pilot project called “In missione per conto di Dio”, where together with Max Gazzè he is the protagonist of a concert in which they reinterpret the respective successes. The project is presented at the Auditorium Parco della musica in two memorable evenings, both sold out.

In 2018 Alex decides to face a new experience accepting the offer to make himself available for the talent show “Amici’’ as a professor.
The year 2019 is mainly dedicated to live activities that include a long tour starting on the 1st of May and that will last until the end of October. The tour will be open to the public. On July 12, 2019 he will restart simultaneously with the project “In missione per conto di Dio”, which he will debut in Perugia as the inaugural concert of the famous and prestigious “Umbria Jazz Festival”. Besides Alex and Max, the great world-famous drummer Manu Katché will join as a special guest. The same concert will be performed during the summer in two other Italian cities and then debuted in autumn in some European capitals.
On January 24, 2020, the single Brittish, produced by Salmo, was released on the It.Pop label and distributed by Artist First.
On April 24, 2020, It.Pop released the single “Una parola differente“, distributed by Artist First.
From 18 July 2020 to 5 September there was the Summer Tour 2020.