DOMENICO MODUGNO
Is the father of the Italian songwriters and as author performer
is one of the greatest in Europe. He was born 9 January 1928 in a small
village with the white houses peaking on the sea. From the father he learned
to play the guitar and he inherited a great love for music. He was 19 years
old when he went from his home to go to Turin where it was adapted to make
the tyre repairer in a machine shop. Returned to the country he left again
to go to Rome where, to begin his artistic career, he learned the humblest
trades. He took part in the competition for actors at the Centro Sperimentale
di Cinematografia, where he was accepted as the best student of the
player section. In the 1951, student, took part in the film 'Filumena Marturano'
directed by Edoardo De Filippo and in 1952 in the film 'Carica Eroica'
by De Robertis where he was a Sicilian soldier who sings a child the 'Lullaby'.
From this episode began the legend of the 'Sicilian Modugno'. In
the 1953 he took part in the radio competition 'Trampolino ' and then in
the show 'Radioclub' a tribute to Frank Sinatra. In that occasion
Fulvio Palmieri of RAI (Italian Radio-Television), offered him a
radio show series named 'Amuri... Amuri'.
MODUGNO was the author, the director and, with Franca Gandolfi, the
actor and the sound-effects man. During this period, he composed a lot of
folf songs in sicilian dialect. Miners, fishermen, love stories of in love
swordfish, faithful until death in the slaughter of the tunny-fighing, of
horses become blind and pushed to die under the big hot sun coming from
the darkness of the mines. These ones were the characters of his songs which
aroused and still arouse, interest to the critic. The songs of that period
were: Lu Pisce Spada, Lu
Minaturi, La Sveglietta,
La Donna Riccia, Lu
Sciccareddu 'Mbriacu, Attimo D'Amuri,
etc. In 1957 he won the second prize at the Festival of the Neapolitan Song
with the song Lazzarella (sung from
Aurelio Fierro) that made MODUGNO a very famous artist. And then
other great hits came: Sole
Sole Sole, Strada 'Nfosa, Resta
Cu'Mme, Nisciuno Po' Sape', Io
Mammeta E Tu, which modernized the old style of the Neapolitan
song. In 1958 he took part in the festival of the Italian Song (Sanremo
Festival) with the song Nel Blu Dipinto Di
Blu (Volare) who won the festival, upset the Italian song style
and gave the start to the boom of the Italian record sale. Volare was translated
in all the languages, it was in all the world hit-parade. In USA millions
of copies were sold so that in 1958 he were assigned two Grammy Awards.
Bilboard too assigned him the Oscar for the best song of the year.
For four months the loudspeakers of Broadway and the radio stations
I New York played non-stop the notes of Volare. During this
period he wrote a lot of hit single as Vecchio
Frac, Notte
Di Luna Calante, Io
(recorded like 'ask me' by Elvis
Presley). In 1959 won again the first prize at the Sanremo Festival
with the song Ciao Ciao Bambina and
in 1960 the second prize with the song Libero.
In 1961 after a year of stop for a car incident, he made one's debut as
protagonist in the musical 'RINALDO IN CAMPO' by Garinei & Giovannini,
in which he composed the original soundtrack also. That musical was defined:
'the most large happening in Italy than all the times', recording
sold-outs never caught up in this field. In this show there are the songs
Se
Dio Vorrà, Notte Chiara, Tre
Briganti E Tre Somari / La Bandiera. In 1962 he won again the first
prize to the Sanremo Festival with the song Addio…Addio…
which he followed Giovane Amore and Stasera
Pago Io. In the same year he won the Festival of Naples with the song
Tu Sì' 'Na Cosa Grande. The first prize of the Sanremo Festival in 1966
with Dio,
Come Ti Amo. Fan of poets Modugno wrote the music for the poems 'Le
Morte Chitarre' and 'Ora Che Sale Il Giorno' by Salvatore Quasimodo.
For he wrote the music for the Pier Paolo Pasolini's 'Cosa Sono Le Nuvole'
and he sang the song in the homonymous episode of the film 'Capriccio
All'Italiana'. In 1984 during the tests of a television show, an ictus
disabled him in the word and the movements, but not in the spirit. In 1991
he was assaulted again by the disease, but although this in the 1993 he
recorded a new album, 'Delfini'. He dies in Lampedusa 6 august 1994
in his home in front of the sea. |
