Marquetery - Béatrice de France (photo by Marco Ortolani Kuemmel) 

I enjoy so much the Screaming Trees, band with whom Mark Lanegan began to sing, due to somehow by chance as it often happens. Lanegan, giant through the giants brothers, he used to act as buffer between them, bassist and guitarist of the band. He managed to survive though the hospital has sent him back at home, by doctors that were resigned to not save him from heroin damages. He was a great friend of Kurt Cobain which whom he registered some tracks, from which the beautiful song “Where did you sleep last night”.

His light and dark personality is outstanding, deep and tormented. He has been able to express his own vicissitudes and contradictions throw his music steeped in blues. It is featured by his profound voice, warm and hypnotic.

(photo by Marco Ortolani Kuemmel)

I am addicted to his music, for instance the tracks “Ugly Sunday”, “Wedding Dress”, the album Whiskey for the Holy Ghost, I’ll take care of you, Bubblegum, Field Songs, Straight Songs of Sorrow.
He left us in 2022 and I am very sad for this. A simple man, humble, with a personal and musical story intensely lived.
I have seen him in concert Viper theatre in Florence for Ballad Of The Broken Seas album tour with Isobel Campbell. I don’t know wether it was due to the club darkness or to the fact that public was isolated from the stage, the fact is I haven’t been so much satisfied of this concert. Mark was as usual fixed in front of the microphone, not even moving a centimeter from it. He explained that he hanged on his mic, and that, on his behalf, no-one would have smiled with the mouth he’s got.