Performance · Other credits

Riccardo Cordiferro

real name Alessandro Sisca

Riccardo Cordiferro is credited on 692 releases across 176 albums tracked on Gatefold, active 1951–2022 — the collector-built map of who actually made the music.

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692

Credits

176

Albums

Decades active

In collections

Biography

Pseudonym of Alessandro Sisca, an Italian-born American journalist, playwright, poet, lyricist, and socialist activist (born at San Pietro in Guarano, Cosenza, Italy on October 27, 1875 - died on August 24, 1940 in New York, NY, USA).
After a brief stint in a Franciscan seminary, Sisca decided against the monastic life. He adopted the pen name Riccardo Cordiferro ("Heart of Iron") and published an early book of poetry in Naples. In 1892, he emigrated to the United States, living first with an uncle in Pittsburgh, then settling in New York City. There, he, his father, and his brother, Marziale, founded a literary weekly, "La Follia" ("Folly") in 1893. He also wrote and staged a number of popular plays dealing with the Italian immigrant experience, including "L'Onore Perduto" ("Lost Honor," 1901).
Nowadays, Cordiferro is most famous as the author of the verses of "Core 'Ngrato" ("Ungrateful Heart," 1911), one of the cornerstones of Neapolitan song.

Bio from Discogs