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Describe the atmosphere and live music at a local pub, restaurant, festival, church or temple, club night.... inspire other people to check it out!
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Musician: Philip Contini
Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
Instruments: Voice, guitar
Music: Italian/ Neopolitan
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HOW I CAME TO THIS MUSICÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýWHERE I PLAYÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýA FAVOURITE SONG |
  
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 ÌýÌýListen to 'Tu Vuo' Fa L'Americano', sung by Philip Contini, from the album, Philip Contini sings Santa Lucia Luntana (Elm Row Productions, 2001)
ÌýÌýListen (2'42) to Philip Contini talk about his music
Where I Play:
In 1992 our family business was increasing the floor space where we'd created a room in our premises which we call our 'tasting room'. We were building this at the time of the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe. A fellow 'Scotto-Italian' or Italian-Scot called Mike Maran, who had been involved in the folk scene, would come into the shop once a year in August, and I just had this idea - why not make the shop also a venue, or a space to hang picture, or to play some music - do something!
At the time Mike was starting to think about his Italian roots in Edinburgh so he said to me, 'I'd like to write a show about the Italians who came to Scotland. Maybe find out why they came here, about their stories and what this immigration was all about… You could do some of the singing'. He called the show 'Italia n Caledonia'. It was the story of our grandparents who were shepherds and had fruit trees on the mountainside. They walked all the way from Italy to Scotland to set up shop here.
Mike wrote some of the songs and I used one or two Neapolitan songs. Then we repeated the show the next year, and every year it got a little bit better. In 1997 someone suggested that I do my own Neapolitan singing show, which I do annually. It's now in its fifth year. I sing and tell stories and crack Neapolitan jokes, and hopefully make 70 people happy for an hour and 10 minutes!
If we've got friends to dinner, or we're going out socialising, then it's, 'Come on Philip! Give us a song!' and I just do it. You know how people are terribly shy at doing their party-piece - well, so am I. Now I can stand on a stage and do it. Yet to do it in front of friends is still more difficult. But they use me as an ice-breaker - not because of my size but because I can start singing and that'll maybe prompt someone else to sing. So I usually start the thing off, and then after lots of singing, they'll call on me again, 'Come on, Philip, let's round the thing off with something'. Yes, it's very much in the family and among friends.
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