"It Gives Me Physical Satisfaction To Play Funk Riffs!" - Into the groove with Giacomo Turra, the Italian guitarist who made his name covering classics by Stevie Wonder, Bruno Mars and more...

Into the groove with Giacomo Turra, the Italian guitarist who made his name covering classics by Stevie Wonder, Bruno Mars and more... Born in Milan, his funk guitar sensibility can be traced back to the dance studio where his mother taught, and the tunes he heard blasting out of her boombox. "I like to experiment with a lot of genres, but the really interesting thing for me is I really grew up on funk, and a little bit of jazz and fusion music," he says.

- By Jonathan Horsley - Photos by Alec Strickland

Giacomo Turra is so goddamn funky he should come with a government health warning. Take some gentle stretches before listening. Apply Deep Heat to core muscle groups. Those insufficiently warmed up are liable to do themselves an injury when pressing play on his cover of Stevie Wonder's I Wish or Michael Jackson's Rock With You, two highlights from his from his 2021 covers collection The Groove Sessions. The rhythm is gonna to get you. But under the glitter ball, on Friday nights illuminated by neon and enlivened by something shaken over ice, the Italian funk guitar phenom is just what the doctor ordered to help us reconnect with our physical relationship with music, with dance.

Dance classes are how it all started for Turra. Born in Milan, his funk guitar sensibility can be traced back to the dance studio where his mother taught, and the tunes he heard blasting out of her boombox. "I like to experiment with a lot of genres, but the really interesting thing for me is I really grew up on funk, and a little bit of jazz and fusion music," he says. "My mum used to be a dance teacher and she had this little stereo that she used to bring for her lessons, and sometimes I would go with her and she had this tape cassette made, and it was Stevie Wonder and all these '90s breakbeat James Brown remixes."

His father's record collection introduced him to Weather Report, Herbie Hancock and Curtis Mayfield. Even if the electric energy of the indie-rock scene circa 2010 was hard to resist - it was funk that had the greater gravitational pull.