Domenico Modugno

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Domenico Modugno (Polignano a Mare, Bari January 9, 1928 - Lampedusa August 6, 1994) was an Italian singer, songwriter, and in later life, a member of the Italian Parliament.

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 worldwide, specially in the USA, achieving two Grammy Awards with sales long over the million of copies, and representing Italy in the 1958 Eurovision Song Contest, where it came third.

Modugno wins the Sanremo Music Festival for the second time in a row in 1959, with Piove (also known as Ciao, ciao bambina), and reaches second place in 1960 with Libero, this comes in a successful period of time where he represented Italy again in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1959 and when his hit Io is selected by Elvis Presley to version the song in english with the title Ask me.

In 1962 third time wins Festival di Sanremo with Addio..., addio..., followed four years later with Dio, Come Ti Amo, the same year that comes back to represent Italy in Eurovision 1966.

The seventies mantain his voice and mind busy in more classic music genres and profiles, as a singer and as a musician, adapting poetry, acting in TV or in main singer roles of modern operas.

In 1986 he entered the political arena in Italy, as a member of Partito Radicale, being elected congresist in June 1987 by Torino. In this last stage of his life, he was very active in social protection, specially of the weakest people, for example fighting against inhuman conditions of patients of the Agrigento psychiatric hospital.

Domenico Modugno died in Lampedusa, Italia, on the 6th of August of 1994, in his house, in front of the sea.

He is the singer that has more winner songs in the Italian Music Festival, and one of the greatest and latest artistic composers, those who still maintained music as an art by definition, based in the concepts of beauty, romance, love and sensibility. This is clearly opposed to the main lines of eighties music, that mostly non artistic talents promoted, for the sake of fame, with the only demonstrated ficticious ability of (temporally) perverting human concepts and with the only excuse of globalized mass markets. In other worlds the proletary massive consumism, that world economies intelligently and badintentionally (in self benefit, understood as only fame makes money, and only money makes power, and finally only power makers more money) adopted from the middle 60s/70s of the 20th century.

[edit] Hits

Lu Pisce Spada
Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu - also know as "Volare" (San Remo winner song, 1958), coauthored with Franco Migliacci
La Lontananza
Piove - also known as "Ciao, Ciao Bambina"
Sopra Il Tetti Azurri Del Mio Pazzo Amore
Vecchio Frack
Non Piangere Maria

[edit] See also

Volare (song)

[edit] External links

Domenico Modugno official site (Italian) (some multimedia contents require QuickTime)

Selected Eurovision winners/participants for Congratulations
Eurovision winners/participants that participated	ABBA \| Brotherhood of Man \| Celine Dion \| Sertab Erener \| France Gall \| Dana International \| Johnny Logan (twice) \| Domenico Modugno \| Mocedades \| Nicole \| Olsen Brothers \| Elena Paparizou \| Cliff Richard