| DOMENICO
MODUGNO (ARTIST BIOGRAPHY)
Domenico Modugno (January 9, 1928 – August 6, 1994)
was an Italian singer and songwriter.
From a young age Domenico wanted to become an actor and in 1951,
after his military service, he enrolled in an acting school. While
still studying he had a role in a cinematographic version of
Filumena Marturano by Eduardo De Filippo, and some other films.
In 1957, his song Lazzarella, sung by Aurelio Fierro, came second in
the Festival della Canzone Napoletana, bringing him the first
popularity.
In 1958 he took part to the Festival della Prosa, in Venezia, with
the comedy La rosa di zolfo by Antonio Aniante. The turning point of
his career came in that year, when he also participated to the
Sanremo Music Festival, presenting, together with Johnny Dorelli,
the song Nel blu dipinto di blu. Co-authored by him and Franco
Migliacci, the song won the contest and suddenly became an enormous
discographical success.
Nel blu dipinto di blu represented Italy in the 1958 Eurovision Song
Contest, where it came third.
Become widely known as Volare, from its refrain, it was translated
in many languages (Dans le bleu du ciel bleu, France; En el azul del
cielo, Spain; Jown ogen, Belgium; Taivaan sinessa, Finland; Azul
pintado de azul, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil) reaching the top of the
charts all over the world; the year later the first Grammy Awards
was held and Modugno received (as an author of the song) both the
Song of the Year and the Record of the Year awards. As of 2006, this
is the only time an Italian artist received a Grammy award.
The Billboard magazine also conferred him a prize for the best song
of the year and he got three gold albums from the recording industry:
best singer, best song, best-seller album.
The song also fared very well in the long run, and was voted as the
second favourite song in the Eurovision Song Contest history at the
50th anniversary concert in Copenhagen, Denmark, 2005. The song has
received many covers over the course of the years.
Modugno won the Sanremo Music Festival for the second time in a row
in 1959 and represented Italy again in the Eurovision Song Contest
in 1959 (with Piove, also known as Ciao, Ciao Bambina) and 1966.
In 1967 Modugno and PIER PAOLO PASOLINI co-wrote Cosa sono le nuvole,
the ending song (sung by Modugno himself) of “Che cosa sono le
nuvole?”, one of the six episodes of the italian movie “Capriccio
all’italiana”. |
