Francesco Renna was born in Avellino, a small town near Naples in the South of Italy, on January 5, 1987, and began playing guitar and harmonica at age 14, when he fell in love with his uncle’s Edoardo Bennato records. He started forming rock blues bands in high school, playing the repertoire of Eric Clapton and his own compositions.
In 2005 he moved to Bologna to attend Communication Studies at University. During his time there, Renna got totally involved with Acoustic Blues music, which was a significant change for his musical style. He picked up the fingerstyle technique from Bob Dylan and Piedmont guitarists like John Jackson. During his spare time, he played the clubs and street corners of Campania and Emilia Romagna.
After a short period in Perugia in 2010, Renna came back to his hometown, where he started a good live activity and produced his first solo album Appunti dal blu. The CD came out in September 2011, getting a good response from Italian and international radio stations and some local media attention.
The deluxe version of Appunti dal blu contains 11 tracks plus 3 bonus live recorded tracks with the band Nuits d’Octobre.
Renna followed it up with Guidami Eshu – Live at Sound Design in July 2013, a record that began to focus his style towards songwriting. The album was broadcasted in some radio stations of Italy, America and Australia.
In late 2013 Renna moved to Australia for one year, where he started playing a few shows in some clubs and street corners of Perth and Fremantle. There he duet with Mike de Velta, a fabulous Australian songwriter, and recorded some guitar tracks for Alfredo Malabello’s album Reflections.
New Renna’s single, a rearrangement of the previous album’s title track Guidami Eshu, was released January 2016, three years after his last publication. The artistic production of the song was entrusted to Luigi Nobile of Monochrome Records. This song was chosen by the need to create a music video with an intense and meaningful story, intended to represent Renna’s musical journey.
The digital release includes three tracks, one of which is an improvisation on piano played by Luis Di Gennaro.
Renna’s latest work is titled Stories, a collection of his best songs, published by TRB Rec on February 2017.
On Dicembre 19th 2018 his song Le 5 e 37 is the contest winner Fai volare la tua musica (Let your music fly) launched by SIAE, Alitalia and Rockol, featured by Armando Rizzo on accordion. The track will be played on all national and international Alitalia‘s flights from February to April 2019.
Francesco Renna | Blog 