Tazio Nuvolari Music Videos!

Here's some fun stuff for today. What you find here are two music videos by contemporary Italian musicians Lucio Dalla and Sergio Bassi. Lucio is more up tempo and Sergio offers a folk ballad. You don't have to speak Italian to feel the sincerity.

I came across Dalla's video over a year ago and keep coming back to it. My wife thinks I'm unstable, but not only do I love the priceless images of Tazio Nuvolari but the tune is kind of catchy. I think it's marvelous that both Dalla and Bassi respect this great driver so much that they have applied their considerable talents to helping the world remember him.

I happen to know that there is a fantastic feature article (ok, I wrote it) in this year's Indianapolis Motor Speedway MotoGP program about Tazio's career. Why a bio on a race car driver in a motorcycle race program? Well, mostly because Tazio doubled as a champion motorcycle rider throughout the 1920's. This was a man who not only had massive talent, but was determined to squeeze every bit of it he could out of his body. He raced - and won - into his 50's, dying at age 61, largely due to lung damage (he accidentally inhaled high octane fuel late in his career). His story is beyond compelling, a determined champion, not always with the best equipment, Nuvolari fought through personal adversity (both his sons died of immune disorders as teens) and still attained tremendous accomplishment. Sing along.