Luigi Tenco is doubtless one of the most tragic and misunderstood figures in the history of Italian pop music. Largely ignored -- when not openly criticized -- during his life, after his suicide he became the object of a posthumous cult that transformed him into an icon of despair and angst. He became a symbol of love and desperation deeply rooted in his own time but also universal, despite the fact that his desperate love ballads and Sartre-tinged ennui were only two facets of his complex artistic personality, which at times was ironic and socially aware as well.
Born in th...