Stefano's introductory note for the Compingo site

I met Mark Harris in early '79 in Milan, my home town; at the time he was living in Rome but happened to be in Milan for a concert with Tony Esposito, with whom he played keyboards. I was deeply impressed by his musicianship, to the point that, after the concert, I went onstage to meet him and found before me one of the most likeable persons I've ever known. I invited him around to my house for a jam and to listen to records and we thus discovered that our tastes were very similar, from the Beatles to Hancock, Miles to Stevie Wonder, West Side Story to Stravinsky; I remember one time we both broke down in tears listening to Stevie's track "The secret life of plants". Back then I was playing with Crisalide - Eugenio Finardi's back-up band - and, just when I met Mark, the group's keyboard player - Ernesto Vitolo - was about to leave the band to go back to his beloved and sorely missed Naples, so I grabbed the opportunity to ask Mark to join us and he accepted. That year we did about 100 gigs up and down Italy, and had the time of our life; with Mark and me were Mauro Spina, Maurizio Preti and Luciano Ninzatti. We bought a big second-hand Citröen DS19 we christened "Joni" (Mitchell) from which we "shouted names"; this recreative activity consisted in shouting at passers-by from the car the first word to come to mind - anything excluding offenses - and the game really took off because after a while every musician on tour in Italy was doing it! I had direct confirmation of the success of this pastime years later, when, during the '97 rehearsals for Fabrizio De André's final theatrical tour, I first met Neapolitan percussionist Rosario Jermano who, upon seeing me, shouted "LANSQUENET!" - and we'd never even met before - and he assured me that in Naples everyone was shouting whatever. At the end of '79 I left Italy and moved to England where I lived for two years, playing with lots of people, including Jon Anderson of "Yes"; Mark and I never lost sight of each other, though we wouldn't play together again for 18 years. He called me for the De André tour and once, during a sound-check, I played one of the four Beatle tunes that, over the years, I had had fun arranging for solo bass; Mark went crazy and asked me to put together a CD. At first I was perplexed, but he insisted so strongly that he finally convinced me. Tour over, I shut myself up at home and prepared 18 more pieces and thus, thanks to Mark and his partner Carlo Focarelli, here you have "Fab Four-String".


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