[10] The two songs were later recorded as his first single, "Nuvole barocche" b/w "E fu la notte", which was released in 1961 and was an imitation of Domenico Modugno.

[11] In his following recordings in the early 1960s, De André found a more personal style, mixing literature with traditional songs (in particular Medieval ones), presenting himself as a contemporary troubador and storyteller.

[13] In 1962, his first son Cristiano De André was born to his first wife Enrica "Puny" Rignon, who he married in the same year.

[16] Despite the popularity of this festival, De André refused to participate in any song competition by principle, and rarely appeared on television.

The lyrics of the first song Il Cantico dei Drogati ("Junkies' Canticle") were co-written with poet Riccardo Mannerini, one of the most-significant persons in De André's life.

In 1969, it was released the album Volume 3; due to their lyrics, some of its songs were censored by the national Italian television channel but were broadcast by Vatican Radio.

The same year, it was released La buona novella (The Good News), another concept album that was inspired by the life of Jesus Christ as reported mainly by the Apocryphal gospels.

In 1973, De André wrote the concept album Storia di un impiegato, which is about the protests of those years, also involving Piovani and Bentivoglio.

In 1975, the experimental (both musically and linguistically[19]) album Volume/8 was a collaboration with the songwriter Francesco De Gregori, and includes a translation of a song by Leonard Cohen ("Seems so long ago, Nancy").

Many years later, in 2020, a video taken from that tour was discovered and published as a DVD with the title "Fabrizio De André e PFM - Il concerto ritrovato".

Together with Sergio Bardotti De André translated the song "Famous Blue Raincoat" with the title La Famosa Volpe Azzurra, which was performed by Ornella Vanoni on her album Ricetta di donna (1980).

[24] In 1981, De André and Massimo Bubola released the single Una storia sbagliata, which was dedicated to Pier Paolo Pasolini and appeared as an opening theme to an Italian television program.

Later in 1981, De André released an album without a title, also known as L'Indiano (The Indian) due to the cover reproducing the painting The Outlier by Frederic Remington.

[28] In 1985, De André co-wrote the song Faccia di Cane however unofficially, which was performed by the New Trolls at the Sanremo Music Festival 1985, where it placed third and won the Prize of the Critic.

In these years, De André collaborated also with other duets in Italian: Navigare with Ricky Gianco (1992) and La Fiera della Maddalena with Max Mandredi (1994).

In 1997, he recorded a new version of Marinella, this time as a duo with Mina, which is included in the compilation Mi innamoravo di tutto.

Two days later, a public funeral took place in the Basilique of Santa Maria Assunta in Carignano, Genoa, in front of a large audience.