[Hello, Alessandro, Gary and Vanni!]
Roberto was a highly charismatic man, whose influence went far beyond his home turf. It is no exaggeration to say that he was renowned and loved worldwide for his luthier and electronic skills. I remember leaving my son James at Roberto's place over the summer of 2004, where he learned valve electronics and circuitry at the feet of the master.
I knew that Roberto was ill, with the same long-term disease that had carried off his father Nando, but he was always on top of the situation, attending hospital in Florence for blood transfusions and other treatments. It was impossible to think of him as a victim in any way. We were last together in France during the spring of 2006, at Rambouillet and Paris, the first of those places hosting a "conference" of Shadows fans and players intent on learning how "That Sound" had been produced. I spoke to Roberto several times by phone over the next few weeks and things did not sound good. He had been in hospital but was allowed home (where he took my last call).
On the morning of the 25th, mutual friend Vanni Lisanti rang me to break the news that Roberto, after having been re-admitted to the Santa Chiara hospital in Pisa, had left us the during the early hours. I was shocked because Roberto had been so uncomplaining, so positive, about his illness. The news was devastating, for so many people, not just for us. I drove down to Italy overnight in order to be there for the funeral a day or so later, giving such condolences as I could to Signora Pistolesi (Roberto's mother) and Matilde, his daughter. It was a harrowing day, made bearable only by being amongst friends.
A year or two earlier, keyboardist Cliff Hall and his wife had accompanied me on a visit to Roberto's workshop and home. Roberto's face was a picture, as were Cliff and Jo's faces when faced with spaghetti ragu at Enrico's trattoria nearby. As far as I understand it, the workshop is still in use for electronic repairs by Roberto's former colleagues. It looks as it did during Roberto's lifetime.
Roberto Pistolesi, RIP.
.....
Let me finish by adding a translation into English of part of an article at accordo.it from 2017. It conveys some of the esteem in which my friend was held.
"On May 24, 11 years ago Roberto Pistolesi died, he would have turned 60 after a few months. [Roberto was 58 when he died – JN.] Tuscan DOC, he was a friend of many of us of the older generation of ACCORDO, of which he was the technical soul right from the first issues of Nashville, to which he contributed with passion and perseverance and from which he received a lot in terms of visibility and prestige.
"Roberto was a person different from all the others. No one has ever managed - either before or after him - to show such a complex and complete approach to the musical instrument. Scientific like Leo Fender, pragmatic like Paul Reed Smith, passionate like Lloyd Loar, Roberto was a genius, capable of improving what everyone thought was more than perfect. A Stradivarius or an Ignacio Fleta of the electric guitar, which he explored and laid bare in the most intimate secrets."
I couldn’t have put that any better.
- Cliff and Roberto, the Nivram Room, 1992.
- The workshop... no longer the same without the maestro...
