Giorgio Gaberscik, alias Gaber. The Milan-born singer, class of 1939, made his debut appearance in the city's Santa Tecla club, performing alongside Celentano, the Rocky Mountains and Enzo Jannacci. Initially, his repertoire consisted of delicate, well-mannered songs ("Non arrossire", the most famous song of the period); however, little by little, his interests shifted towards different topics and themes.
As early as '69, with "Suona chitarra", he tried to make his audience understand that music cannot be merely a means of escape; the following year, he developed this theme with "Il signor G", which marked both his debut appearance at the Piccolo Teatro in Milan and the beginning of a successful artistic partnership with Sandro Luporini, the painter from Viareggio with whom he was to work for all his later performances. Inventor of the song-theatre format, a bold mixture of songs both sung and acted by an individual standing alone in the centre of the stage, Gaber was to gradually perfect this formula through remarkable works such as "Dialogo tra un impegnato e un non so" (1972), "Far finta di essere sani" (1973), "Libertà obbligatoria" (1976), "Polli d'allevamento" (1978), and even "Un'idiozia conquistata a fatica" (1997), and his recent return to the record-format of "La mia generazione ha perso" (2001).
Giorgio Gaber died Jan. 1, 2003 at age 63 after a lengthy illness.