Funny thing about the Hog family.
The name is remembered forever in certain corners of the world.
Here now, are a few reminders: (Unedited from Bing translate)
bruno castagna mike porco Il calabrese che fece grande Bob Dylan
The Calabrian that made Bob Dylan
http://www.calabriansmostfamous.com/mike-porco/
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Mango (Cosenza)-who was the Italian "father" of whom Bob Dylan speaks in his autobiography? To unveil one of the lesser known aspects of the biography of the new Nobel Prize for Literature were two journalists Calabrian, Luigi Michele Perri and Bruno Castagna, authors of the book "The Calabrian that made great Bob Dylan", published by Klipper, 2006. The two writers will hold Saturday, October 15 at 5pm, in a local lake floor in the municipality of Mangoe, a conference on the themes proposed by their book. The "Father", whom Bob Dylan esteemed as such, was a Calabrian emigrant, who was Chaney of Tomorrow, who in 1933, when he was eighteen years old, landed at Ellis Island. His name was Mike hog. In the late ' 50, he managed to buy Gerde's, a bar-restaurant located in the middle of Greenwich Village, the bohemian quarter of New York.
The venue soon became a gathering place for nonconformist intellectuals, such as Allen Ginsberg, of avant-garde journalists, such as Robert Shelton, the New York Times ' first music critic, and counter-current musicians such as Cisco Houston, Phil Ochs and Dave Van Ronk. Shelton suggested that Gerde's owner set up a limelight for folksinger newcomers. So Gerde's became Gerde's folk City, which is the exclusive reference point for folk enthusiasts. Walked away from home, Bob came to Gerda's. He asked to perform. Mike granted him some space. The young Folksinger received success. It was the beginning of ' 60. Bob needed the union card to be written. The musicians Union Clerk noticed that the young man was still a minor. He couldn't have released his card without his father's signature. Bob said he had no one in the world. Mike, who had accompanied him, signed as tutor. And he was able to guarantee his first career contract. A subsequent review of Shelton attracted the attention of John Hammond, Columbia's great record producer. Hammond did not let the ingenious folksinger escape. And for Bob Dylan It was the definitive takeoff.
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Quando era ancora un ragazzo di provincia, quasi mezzo secolo fa, e con la chitarra a tracolla entrò nel Greenwich Village di New York, Bob Dylan incontrò un calabrese d'America che l'aiutò a diventare una star della musica mondiale. Quell'uomo era Mike Porco, originario di Carolei, in provincia di Cosenza, titolare del "Gerde's", il locale più importante del Village. La storia di quell'incontro e dello straordinario successo artistico e musicale che ne è seguito, sono raccontati oggi in questo libro.
When he was still a provincial boy, almost half a century ago, and with his shoulder guitar he entered Greenwich Village in New York, Bob Dylan met a Calabrian of America who helped her become a star of world music. The man was Mike hog, originally from Carolei, in the province of Cosenza, owner of the "Gerde's", the most important place in the Village. The story of that encounter and of the extraordinary artistic and musical success that followed, are told Today in this book.
C’è un pezzo d’Italia nella storia del neo Premio Nobel per la Letteratura, Bob Dylan. Questo pezzo d’Italia è la Calabria. Nella sua autobiografia, Chronicles, pubblicata da Feltrinelli nel gennaio del 2005 (traduttore e curatore Alessandro Carrera), Dylan scrive: “Mike was the sicilian father that I never had”. Mike, in realtà, è l’italo-americano Michele Porco (cognome orribile, ma autentico come tanti in Calabria), calabrese di Domanico, paesino delle Serre cosentine, “siciliano” solo per l’immaginario collettivo yankee che sbrigativamente identifica qualsiasi italiano del sud sotto il grande sole della Sicilia.
Premio Nobel a Bob Dylan: il suo mito nato grazie ad un calabrese
L’incontro tra Bob Dylan e Mike Porco è raccontato in un libro, Il calabrese che fece grande Bob Dylan (edizioni Klipper), scritto dai giornalisti Luigi Michele Perri e Bruno Castagna nel 2006.
Mike e Bob si conobbero nel 1960, quando il calabro-cosentino era emigrato negli Usa già da oltre un ventennio. Due ben diversi sradicamenti. Due migrazioni accomunate, però, dalla confluenza di altrettanti obiettivi di riscatto personale e sociale: la prima, rappresentata dalla vicenda di Porco, partito negli anni trenta dalla Calabria per andare a lavorare Oltreoceano e mantenere la propria famiglia.; la seconda, agli inizi del sessanta, incentrata sulla vita on the road” di Bob Dylan, in giro per le strade d’America, alla ricerca della meta dell’autonomia individuale e del successo artistico.
Un sodalizio artistico indimenticabile
I due intrecciarono i loro destini nel posto più congeniale alle loro aspirazioni, in quel Greenwich Village di New York, dove giungevano gli emigrati italiani ed europei in ascesa ma anche intellettuali quali Jack Kerouac e Allen Ginsberg e gli artisti, come appunto Bob Dylan, decisi a vivere la vita controcorrente nel più irregolare quartiere della 'Grande Mela'.
Mike gestiva il Gerde’s Folk City. Bob, che non sapeva come sbarcare il lunario se non con la sua chitarra e le sue composizioni, chiese di esibirsi. Mike lo accolse nel suo locale. Lo fece con qualche scetticismo: non gli piaceva la voce gracchiante di quel mingherlino. Il Gerde’s era frequentato dal primo critico musicale del New York Times, Robert Shelton.
Per poter lavorare quello strano folksinger spiantato aveva bisogno della tessera sindacale. Ma era minorenne, non avrebbe potuto averla senza l’autorizzazione paterna. All’impiegato della Musicians Union disse d’essere orfano dei genitori e di non avere nessuno al mondo. Mike, in uno slancio di calabra generosità, firmò come tutore. E, così, poté porlo nelle condizioni di avere il primo contratto della sua carriera: novanta dollari a settimana, pranzo, cena e consumazioni gratis. Mike e Bob strinsero il loro rapporto, l’uno divenne amico dell’altro.
Il primo, addirittura, con un ruolo praticamente paterno, almeno sino a quando l’artista non spiccò definitivamente il volo.
Come? Robert Shelton era diventato puntuale spettatore delle sue esibizioni. Ogni volta, un’emozione, come successivamente ammise. Gli dedicò una recensione. E fu così che John Hammond, il guru della discografia americana, riuscì ad accaparrarselo per la Columbia Records. Fu il battesimo dell’artista.
Il nome di Bob Dylan, da quel momento in poi, campeggerà su tutti i giornali americani e su quelli di tutto il pianeta sino alle prime pagine di oggi, per il Premio Nobel. Neanche Mike lo avrebbe potuto immaginare.
There is a piece of Italy in the history of the new Nobel Prize for Literature, Bob Dylan. This piece of Italy is Calabria. In his autobiography, Chronicles, published by Feltrinelli in January 2005 (translator and curator Alessandro Carrera), Dylan writes: "Mike was the Sicilian father that I never had". Mike, in fact, is the Italian-American Michele Hog (surname horrible, but as authentic as many in Calabria), Calabrian of tomorrow, village of the Serre Consente, "Sicilian" only for the collective imagery Yankee that summarily identifies any Southern Italian under the great sun of Sicily.
Nobel Prize for Bob Dylan: His myth born thanks to a Calabrian
The meeting between Bob Dylan and Mike Hog is narrated in a book, the Calabrian that made great Bob Dylan (Edizioni Klipper), written by the journalists Luigi Michele Perri and Bruno Castagna in 2006.
Mike and Bob met in 1960, when the Calabro-Chaney had emigrated to the USA for over two decades. Two very different uprooting. Two common migrations, however, from the confluence of as many goals of personal and social redemption: the first, represented by the swine affair, started in the Thirties by the Calabria to go to work overseas and to keep their family.; The second, in the early sixties, focused on the life on the road by Bob Dylan, around the streets of America, in search of the goal of individual autonomy and artistic success.
An unforgettable artistic partnership
The two interwoven their destinies in the most congenial place to their aspirations, in that Greenwich Village of New York, where the Italian and European emigrants arrived on the rise but also intellectuals such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and the artists, as precisely Bob Dylan, I decided to live the upstream life in the most erratic neighborhood of the ' Big Apple '.
Mike ran Gerde's Folk City. Bob, who did not know how to make ends meet if not with his guitar and his compositions, asked to perform. Mike welcomed him to his place. He did it with some skepticism: he did not like the croaking voice of that tiny. Gerda's was frequented by the first music critic of the New York Times, Robert Shelton.
In order to work that strange folksinger penniless needed the union card. But she was a minor, she couldn't have her without her paternal authorization. The musicians Union employee said that he was an orphan of his parents and that he had no one in the world. Mike, in a moment of Calabrian generosity, signed as tutor. And so he could put him in the position of having the first contract of his career: ninety dollars a week, lunch, dinner and free drinks. Mike and Bob shook their relationship, one became friends with the other.
The first, even, with a practically paternal role, at least until the artist definitely spiccò the flight.
What? Robert Shelton had become a punctual spectator of his performances. Each time, an emotion, as he later admitted. He dedicated a review. And so it was that John Hammond, the guru of the American discography, managed to monopolise for Columbia Records. It was the artist's baptism.
The name of Bob Dylan, from then on, Campeggerà on all the American newspapers and on those of the whole planet until the first pages of today, for the Nobel Prize. Mike couldn't have imagined it either.
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When he was still a provincial boy, almost half a century ago, and with his shoulder guitar he entered Greenwich Village in New York, Bob Dylan met a Calabrian of America who helped her become a star of world music. The man was Mike hog, originally from Carolei, in the province of Cosenza, owner of the "Gerde's", the most important place in the Village. The story of that encounter and of the extraordinary artistic and musical success that followed, are told Today in this book.
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"The Calabrian that made great Bob Dylan" was called Mike Hog. He was an Italian emigrant in 1933 to reach New York and, there, the father who had already abandoned his homeland for years to seek fortune.
Its history is narrated today in a book by Luigi Michele Perri and Bruno Castagna, who retrace it när to the three moments that characterized it: respectively, the Emigrant, the Tramp, the Sicilian father of Bobby.
In the first part you live with passion the trip of the young Mike from Carolei, a small village of the Chang, who in search of luck goes to the distant America. In this section the style is perhaps too loaded, emphatic, choked in short phrases, so as to make the reading a little ' cumbersome. An example for everyone: "The wagon was full of travelers. and crammed with baggage. He was with his nose on the window. He looked, intrigued. Outside on the sidewalk, there were people waving and crying. Knotty hands were clasping. Olive faces were staring. The people of the fields were suffering the drama of his detachments. "
The second part, conversely, gains a more smooth pace, flanking the first years of Dylan's career in the entrepreneurial ascent of Swine. The remarkable talents demonstrated by the latter, stubbornness and ability in the management of the business, will lead him, in 1957, to manage the mythical Gerde's Folk City (name that he conceived), where the patrons could drink and listen to new proposals and characters of the world of music, first jazz then folk.
Finally, the apex of the volume: the encounter between Dylan and Swine, more due to the case and the business genius of the second than to a real musical passion. We find, here, unique testimonies of a moment little narrated, an aspect of the life and career of the great singer-songwriter really little known and that this book manages to reveal.
"The Calabrian that made great Bob Dylan", written, as anticipated, by the journalists Luigi Michele Perri and Bruno Castagna and published by the Calabrian Klipper, in fact proposes to fill "a gap in the rich biography of the Great American Minstrel": A Promise, however, that it is not maintained.
Or rather, not quite: analyzing the cold numbers, if the book is composed in everything from 118 pages, the meeting between the two protagonists arrives on page 91. Whereas in the final the words and pages are rightly wasted to celebrate the death and memory of Mike hog, there is little room left to tell this important moment.
If that Calabrian "made great Bob Dylan", one could expect that their meeting and the development of their collaboration should be dealt with more in depth, but I would not say too much or make believe that the text does not deserve.
The figure of Michael the pig said Mike is certainly well delineated, his "italianity" – Better to Say "calabrianity"? – Emerges from every page. A unique figure, in a certain sense, but also a figure like so many Italians who left their country to seek a better life beyond the ocean, and that thanks to their desire to make it, the ability to arrange themselves typically Mediterranean and their nose (and Even at a bit of luck) they made it.
Mike Pork has carved out a space in the history of music. And all without ever playing or singing anything. Because if it is true that the strength of his verses would probably lead Dylan to become "someone" even without the showcase of Gerda's, it is undoubted by the reading of this small but precious book as the ex-boy of Carolers helped him.
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