A vivid memory of those years is kept by Piero Midili, a friend and musician with whom Raul worked for almost a lifetime.
I met Raul in 1967. He lived in via Gasparotto (near the central railway station) with his mother, his two brothers and a poodle named Tobia. At the time he studied foreign languages in a private school (I think he was trying to make up for a couple of years of high school he had attended with scarce enthusiasm, probably also due to the recent death of his father).
We met thanks to a common friend, Valentino, a drummer. It was bacause of our great interest in music that we went on hanging out together, both determined to play in a band.
After a short time we met a singer, Jerry, who joined the group, soon followed by Roger, an English guitar player. After practising a lot in many basements in Milan, we eventually got acquainted with some pub owners, and we began playing live in the city and its surroundings, finally earning some money. Our band was called LE SENZAZIONI (IMPRESSIONS).
Meeting Roger was very important for Raul and me, because he encouraged both of us to write songs on our own.
Some of the pieces composed during that period were afterwards used in the album we recorded in Greece with Tony Pinelli, a singer well-known in Athens and all over the country.
From 1967 to the first ‘70s, Raul occasionally played with other groups, among which "I messaggeri" (“The Messengers”), featuring the singer Franco Mompellio and his brother Alberto Mompellio, which joined the band for a short period of time.
Franco Mompelio
Meanwhile attended high school studying foreign languages, but still with scarce passion, Raul because just like me he was looking for something that could change his life completely.
It happened at the beginning of the ‘70s, when Raul met Paul Jeffrey, one of the many good-looking British guitarists arrived in Italy in seek of fortune.
Paul knew Tony Pinelli, who needed a band for a tour of at least one year in Greece.
I still remember how in the afternoon I used to go listening to the rehearsal in a club in Piazzale Corvetto. I wasn’t yet part of the band, because Paul already knew a keyboard player (actually much better than me); during that period, I also met a drummer named Dave, a talented English musician who some years later joined the "Fabio Treves Blues Band”.
In that period Raul was really thrilled: things were finally starting to go in the right direction. Soon before leaving for Greece, the band’s keyboard player (Gilberto) disappeared. So Raul spoke with Tony, proposing to take me to Greece, and he accepted.
Raul e Piero
For six months we lived in a hotel near the Acropolis, the legendary Hotel Philippos. Obviously, I was Rau’s roommate. We used to play all the evenings until 5 AM. We were often invited to TV shows, and sometimes we played at parties thrown by Greek ship owners. That was it. We also recorded a long playing with many songs composed by Raul, Roger, me and Paul. In the summer we moved in a flat in front of the sea (near the club were we played). We did well. In our free time we read a lot or went to the beach. We met a lot of people from everywhere. We should have been happy, but at times we were not, as both of us felt somehow sad and unsatisfied.
At the end of 1972, I had to come back to Milan (for the military service), while Raul stayed in Greece with Paul and Jimmy (a Greek drummer). They wanted to form a new group and play their own songs. But in the end also Raul had to come back.
An influential person during our stay in Greece was Evgomon Dialetis. We met him when recording our LP, around March of 1972. He was a very gifted drummer and he kept playing with us until the end of the summer. He was also a professional painter. He had attended the Academy of Arts and painted on a commission, making copies of famous paintings and portraits; some of his works are on display in many ateliers and exhibition centres in Athens. I think he gave precious suggestions on the use of colours to Raul, providing him with easels and canvases. On an old, great wooden board dividing the stage in the hall from a foyer where we left our instruments, Raul painted his first work exhibited in public, “the wounded dolphin”. Once completed, we took a picture of it.
Raul with his first painting