Andrea Mingardi, the soul man who speaks Bolognese

Andrea Mingardi was born in Bologna on 1 August 1940. As a boy he was torn between football, cinema, billiards and music – and music won.

From rock’n’roll to soul

By the end of 1959 he was already leading the Golden Rock Boys, one of Italy’s very first rock bands. In the 1960s he sang with the Rheno Jazz Gang and cut his teeth in provincial dance halls, the real training ground for Bologna’s musicians of that generation. His gravelly voice, somewhere between blues and soul, became his trademark.

Dialect set to music

From the mid-1970s Mingardi began writing songs in Bolognese dialect, witty and rhythmic, with funk and blues running through them. They made him hugely popular in the city, and proved that dialect sits perfectly well on an American groove.

Songwriter and author

In 2006 he wrote several songs for an album by Mina, the great Italian singer, duetting with her on “Mogol/Battisti”. He has also written books, including some about the dialect, and an autobiography. And he has never stopped singing about his city: in 2024 he celebrated Bologna FC’s Champions League campaign with a dedicated song.