Artist

E.A.POE

Giorgio Foti (keyboards, vocals)
Beppe Ronco (guitar, mandolin)
Lello Foti (drums)
Marco Maggi (bass)

A band from Ornago, near Milan, whose identity has been surrounded by mystery until recently, they released a beautiful album in 1975 on the Kansas label. 
The group had been formed around 1967 as Angelo e gli Spacemen, with the leader Angelo being much older than the others, all 11-12 years old kids! When Angelo left the group in 1969, the others kept playing, adopting the name E.A.Poe in 1970.
The band initially had a repertoire of covers, by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk Railroad, Deep Purple, then began composing original material, having a good live activity in their area.

The album Generazioni (Storia di sempre), recorded in just three days in September 1974, is a true rarity and contains the best distinctive elements of the Italian prog: classical inspired keyboards, good guitar work, powerful rhythm section. As in many other minor productions the voice is the weakest point, but the vocal parts are short. The album includes seven tracks, not particularly long, and the best cuts are the opening Prologo, the delicate Ad un vecchio with a fluid piano introduction and Generazioni.

The group kept playing until the end of 1976, recording two singles for the Shark label, one under their full name Edgar Allan Poe, that includes a rendition of the Jaws film theme, the second as backing group for the singer Luca Simonelli in his Portami tante rose/È felicità single.
Guitarist Roberto Bertazzi replaced Ronco, that had to do its military service, in the first of these two singles, where the mandolin, distinctive element in the music of E.A.Poe was played by Lello Foti.

A monster rarity, apparently only around 500 copies were issued of the original album. The label carries the year 1974, but the matrix is dated 15/1/1975. As many albums from that era, it was also issued on cassette (Kansas 5600 703), and this is correctly dated 1975 on the cover.
The album finally had a vinyl reissue in 2004 by BTF, with an orange label slightly darker than the original and with the new catalogue number VM 027. Later, around 2013, a new vinyl reissue appeared with bright orange label but with no catalogue number on it. Since 2017 new reissues appeared with the vinyl in various colours.

No foreign vinyl reissues exist. Also a CD Japanese reissue exists by Edison. 

Both the singles recorded by E.A.Poe and issued by the Shark label are rare, the first one was released under the new full name Edgar Allan Poe, while the second is credited to the singer Luca Simonelli, coupling Portami tante rose with È felicità and had the catalogue number SHN 6503. The Jaws single has an odd matrix date inscribed on the vinyl, one side has the date 9/1/75, the other 9/1/76. Knowing that the Jaws movie arrived in the Italian cinemas in December 1975, it's clear that the record was released in 1976.
Both tracks from the Jaws motion picture were included in 2008 in the bonus CD sold with the ItalianProg book, published by AMS/BTF, along with another unreleased track.

A site dedicated to E.A.Poe is at www.eapoeband.it/

Many thanks to Massimo Santoni, without whose help the story of E.A.Poe would have remained a mystery!