1970s
In 1970 Guccini released his second album, Due anni dopo, recorded in the autumn of 1969. The main themes of the album are the passage of time and the analysis of everyday life in the context of bourgeois hypocrisy, with a noticeable influence from French music and from Leopardi's poetic style. After this album Guccini started his 10 year long collaboration with folksinger Deborah Kooperman, who played fingerstyle guitar on it, a style mostly unknown in Italy at the time. Eleven months after Due anni dopo, the album L'isola non trovata was released. The title was a literary reference to Guido Gozzano, and the song "La collina" contained a reference to J. D. Salinger. Guccini's fame began to spread beyond Bologna, partly thanks to the appearance in the TV show Speciale tre milioni, where he sang some of his songs and befriended Claudio Baglioni. In 1971 he married his long-time girlfriend Roberta Baccilieri, who was pictured on the back cover of his next album.
The turning point in Guccini's career was in 1972 thanks to the album Radici (roots), about the constant research of one's origins.. This was also conveyed by the image on the front cover of the album, portraying Guccini's grandparents and their siblings next to their old mountain home. Radici contains some of his most renowned and popular songs, like "Incontro", "Piccola Città", "Il vecchio e il bambino", "La Canzone della bambina portoghese", "Canzone dei dodici mesi", and "La locomotiva", based on a real event and dealing with themes of equality, social justice and freedom, with a style similar to the anarchic music of the end of the 19th century. In the same year Guccini brought Claudio Lolli, a young singer-songwriter, to his record label, EMI Italiana. He later wrote two songs with him, "Keaton" and "Ballando con una sconosciuta".
In 1973 Guccini released Opera buffa, a light-hearted and playful album, which showed his skills as an ironic, theatrical and cultured cabaret artist. Guccini was perplexed by the release of the disc, especially because of its arrangements and because it was recorded live (with overdubs made in a recording studio). One year later Stanze di vita quotidiana was released, with a mixed reception by fans and critics. It included six long and melancholic songs, a mirror of the crisis Guccini faced, worsened by constant disagreements with his producer Pier Farri. Guccini received harsh criticism, including a slating by the critic Riccardo Bertoncelli, who said the singer songwriter was "a finished artist, who has nothing else to say". Guccini answered with the song "L'avvelenata", a few years later.
Guccini had his first commercial success in 1976, with Via Paolo Fabbri 43, which was the sixth best-selling album of the year. It was named after the address of the house in Bologna where he lived. He sang with a more mature and determined voice, and the musical structure was more complex than in his earlier works. The album contained "L'avvelenata", a bitter and colourful reply to the criticism he received for Stanze di vita quotidiana, which cited one of his critics, Riccardo Bertoncelli. Later Guccini was reluctant in performing the song during concerts, saying it was obsolete.
The title track was an abstract description of Guccini's life in Bologna, which referenced Borges and Barthes; it also mentioned the "three heroins of Italian song", Alice, Marinella and Lilly, three women from songs by Italian singer-songwriters De Gregori, De André and Venditti. Other notable tracks were "Canzone quasi d'Amore", characterised by existential poetry, and "Il pensionato", about an old neighbour of Guccini, focusing on the sad psychological situation of some old people. Guccini's next album, Amerigo was released in 1978. The most popular song was "Eskimo", but Guccini claimed the highest point was the title track, a ballad about an emigrant uncle of his. In 1977 the weekly magazine Grand Hotel featured Guccini on the cover titled "The father every teenager would have liked to have". Guccini did not endorse the article, which was based on an interview he did not know would be published, and commented: "I cannot understand how they chose that title, I write songs for an audience of people in their thirties, I do not see how an audience of sixteen year olds fresh out of school could relate with the things I say". In the same year, Guccini separated from his wife Roberta (the song "Eskimo" is about this event), and started cohabitating with Angela. In 1978 they had a daughter, Teresa, to whom the songs "Culodritto" and "E un giorno..." are dedicated. In 1979 the live album Album concerto, recorded in a concert with Nomadi, was released. It was peculiar because the songs were performed in duet with Augusto Daolio, and because it included previously unreleased songs: "Dio è morto", "Noi", and "Per fare un uomo".
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