Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

  Eurovision winner (and runner up) Gigliola Cinquetti teamed up with another Eurovision winner France Gall in Sanremo 1969 and their song La pioggia . Despite this being one of Gigliola's biggest hits and reached #2 in the Italian charts in Sanremo it only placed 6th.... 

Loreen of Sweden is the 15th previous Eurovision song contest winner who has decided and/or managed give it another try. Only Ireland's Johnny Logan has managed to win twice, as we all know. One can't really do a ranking however as the contest had changed so much from the 1950's with maybe a dozen songs to the approx 40 we have these days. In coming days I will feature the winners who decided to come back  after  winning the contest as there also many winners who have won with their second or third try.   Closest winning for the second time so far has been Italian Gigliola Cinquetti (75). Just 16 she took an overwhelming victory in 1964 with Non ho l'età scoring 49 points vs runner ups 17. She launched a successful international career singing all over the globe in multiple languages scoring hits here and there and everywhere. Ten years later she was chosen internally by Rai (whereas Non ho l'età was Sanremo winner) with Si. Weird choice in a way as Rai self censore...

Italy took its well deserved third victory - finally! - at the Eurovision song contest 2021. Over the years several other Italian entries would have been worthy winners. In this series I will go through all of them from the worst ranking to the winner s. Gigliola Cinquetti , then only 16, remains the only Castrocaro new talent festival's winner to win Sanremo the same year, and Non ho l'età the only Sanremo winning song to win also Eurovision until Måneskin in 2021. Non ho l'età was performed in Sanremo also by Italian.Belgian Patricia Carli and Cinquetti's win didn't please none other than Domenico Modugno who left furious and didn't save his words.... Two years later whoever he would win the festival with the very same La Cinquetti.  Non ho l'età was and still is one of the  most clear winners of Eurovision having won with 49 points vs runner up's 17. Read more about Gigliola Cinquetti (73) and her second time at Eurovision here

Italy took its well deserved third victory - finally! - at the Eurovision song contest 2021. Over the years several other Italian entries would have been worthy winners. In this series I will go through all of them from the worst ranking to the winner s. Gigliola Cinquetti (73) , the 1964 winner returned to Eurovision this time as a Canzonissima winner but Italians didn't get to see that until a month later as at the time there was a referendum on divorce and Rai was afraid the song title Si (Yes) could be seen as political. She placed second right after a certain Abba and almost became the first double winner and went on to record the song in English (UK #8), French , Spanish and German . Gigliola was only 16 when she first won Castrocaro, then Sanremo, then Eurovision back in 1964. She scored hits in a steady flow in the 1960's and in the 1970's she was already an international star singing in multiple languages including Japanese. As an artistic soul she also set to de...

Italy took its well deserved third victory - finally! - at the Eurovision song contest 2021. Over the years several other Italian entries would have been worthy winners. In this series I will go through all of them from the worst ranking to the winners. Dio, come ti amo! (God how I love you) by Domenico Modugno (1928-1994) is the only Italian nul pointer, and very undeserved one. In fact it's one of  this blogger's all time favourite entries. It's Modugno's third Eurovision entry following global success of Nel blu dipinto di blu aka Volare and Piove (Ciao ciao bambina) and was performed in Sanremo also by 1964 Eurovision winner Gigliola Cinquetti (as at the time songs were performed by two artists each), but Modugno went to Luxemburg himself and apparently managed to insult the orchestra along the way and wanted to perform it in his own arrangement and musicians. Many various stories are around about the incident but as said, it all resulted in zero points. Did the j...

  "Siamo fuori di testa, ma diversi da loro"  they wrote in Instagram already in May 2017. The street musicians from Rome have gone a long via X Factor to Sanremo and to Eurovision in a short time. As I didn't do any artist presentations this year, and to be honest I'm not so familiar with Måneskin, let's do a short biography who they are and what they have been up to in the past few years. The band is made of lead singer Damiano David (21), Victoria De Angelis (20) in bass, Thomas Raggi (19) in guitar and Ethan Torchio (20) in drums.  Novembre 2015. Damiano asked Victoria to form a band, she brought in her friend and school mate from Monteverde Thomas. Ethan was found after an ad in Facebook. The year after they took part in a competition Pulse - High school band contest and won it.  The same year they had their official concert and usually they were found playing in the streets of Rome, their hometown.  2017. They took part in X Factor when they all were j...

Francesco did Milan..... Vaclav did a video shoot.... Maraaya did Warsaw... Dami did Nashville.... Donny did Dundalk (that's Ireland btw)...  Mørland did beach... Poli did Prag... Sin+ did JazzAscona... Cascada did Budapest (shopping)... Vaidas did India... Gigliola will do Tokyo... Michal did... errr.... Helena and Tamta did a duet... Francesco did get good news... (one day she will share with us hopefully) Musiqq did celebrate 8 years together... Gigliola did Toto's make up for a photo shoot... Demy did a video.... Eric did have standars... Loic did a video shoot, too... Senhit did wear fake fur and sat on a fake leather.  Just to be clear!

Let's go on with some other entries running for SanremoNewcomers selection. Out of these 60 shortlisted 12 will make it to the live show on Raiuno in December, and six of them to Sanremo festival next February. And could also end up in Kyiv for Eurovision should the Big winner decline the offer.... Tommaso Pini is a singer-songwriter from Florence and sings Cose che danno ansia . He's also from The Voice and tried to get to Sanremo also last year. His song is.... errr, interesting? Ethan Lara is the most recent Castrocaro winner, the contest for new talents that has given us for example Gigliola Cinquetti who went on to win Sanremo first, and Eurovision right after. He's 19 and also from Florence. His entry is Pensami , a classy and classic Sanremo song. Maybe too much so. He got a free ticket to this selection thanks to his win. Enrico Nigiotti is from Amici, and already did Sanremo Giovani in 2015 losing to eventual winner Giovanni Caccamo in the semifinal du...

The 59th Castrocaro festival for the new voices and talents will be aired on Raiuno this Friday and Saturday. Once again it's a mix of total newcomers and some more seasoned artists trying their big breakthrough. Below you can have a taste of their voices with official videos, live performances or whatever they have on offer in Youtube. Enjoy! Vittoria Tampucci (16) Anastasia Pacilio (17) Tomas Ray Tai (27) Ethan Lara (18) Christian Riccetti (16) Luce (Maria Luce Gamboni, 21) Anna Guerra (26) Francesca Notarfrancesco (16) Lucia Golemi (22) Andrea Tortolano (20) Nicole Stella (18) Rosa Chiodo (34) Do you recognize the stars at their first steps to stardom? Past winners include Gigliola Cinquetti (1963), Giusy Romeo aka Giuni Russo (1967), Carla Bissi aka Alice (1971), Michele Zarrillo (1979), Luca Barbarossa (1980), Zucchero Fornaciari (1981), Fiordaliso (1981), Donatella Milani (1982), Lena Biolcati (1984), Rosario Di Bella (198...

The Dome in Brighton hosted the 19th Eurovision song contest on April 6, 1974. BBC took over the contest after Luxembourg declined to host for the second year in a row after their win in 1973 at home. All of 17 countries took part when Greece debuted, and France withdraw in the middle of Eurovision week after the death of president Pompidou, whose funeral fell on the day of the contest. Their entry was ment to be number 14, Dani's La vie à vingt-cinq ans . Also Malta withdraw without giving reasons but before the contest. Their chosen entry was Enzo Guzman's Paci fid dinja . Portugal's entry literally started a revolution. It being payed on radio on April 24 was a signal to get ready and start the coup! Italy also had some drama when their entry titled Si (Yes) was banned from RAI for over a month due the divorce referendum. Italy didn't even broadcast the contest until summer. Shame, as Italians missed the excitement of the 1964 winner Gigliola Cinquetti almost...

Sammarinese Valentina Monetta had a busy weekend. First she was again, for the third time in a row, in the Eurovision in Concert in Amsterdam performing her entry this year, Maybe . And also meeting a lot of familiar faces, giving interviews and also having some fun. The day after she was a guest star in The Dome in Brighton where the 40th anniversary of ABBA's win with Waterloo was celebrated. She sung of course Maybe , but also Gigliola Cinquetti's runner up in 1974, Si . Dressed in a blue dress just like Gigliola, she gave a lovely Valentinalised version of that fantastic song and the audience loved it. Maybe her next project could be an album full of Italian classics performed in her style? How about Dio come ti amo as bossanova?

April 6, 1974 a historic moment was relived in the Eurovision song contest. ABBA won at The Dome in Brighton. It changed the contest and started the international career of one of the most influencal and succesful pop bands ever. Like them or not, you can still hum several of their big hits. Those hits will relive again this Sunday again in Brighton's Dome marking the 40th anniversary of that date. Join writer, performer and life-long ABBA fanatic Christopher Green for a unique opportunity to remake ABBA’s historic Eurovision Song Contest win on the very spot it happened, 40 years to the day. Christopher will also be joined by Brighton Gay Men's Chorus , who'll be delivering their unique take on ABBA's repertoire. In this party performance lecture celebrating ABBA and their momentous triumph, you’ll discover more about the history of the group and their cultural significance, experience their finest moments on film, and witness some extraordinary cover versio...

Marco Mengoni is already having success in Spain and taking over the Latin American market with Incomparable is the most logical next step. But now there's interest also in Japan! The plans are in early stage and it's not sure if he should try it there with the Italian, Spanish or English version of the song and the album. As this blogger has some knowledge of the Japanese market and their likes I would say the Italian version would be the best. Japanese are like Finns, they love all things Italian! Mengoni wouldn't be the first Italian Eurovision artist to release music and have success in Japan as Gigliola Cinquetti was big in Japan in the 1960's and 1970's and even recorded in Japanese for the market, like this one . Or this one . Also Alice released an album Kusamakura for the Japanese market in 1988. More recently the Sanremo 2008 newcomer winners Sonohra released their debut album in English version in Japan a year after their win. This might we the way...

The air has really changed in Italy. Not only is the media picking up big time that Emma is representing them in Eurovision 2014 and today the official news were given in the RAI2's TV-News Tg2 confirming also La mia cittá as the entry. The news report was headlined "Emma wants to win in Europe" and started with Emma singing Gigliola Cinquetti's winning song Non ho l'età 50 years ago in Copenhagen and she continued: "I'm very happy that I have been chosen internally by RAI without passing Sanremo as it usually has been. It gives me more strenght and I hope to represent my country Italy the best possible way!" The the reporter and Emma tell her musical story in short biography since she was nine years old and perfromed in public for the first time. Here (in Italian of course). This blogger would like to publicly thank RAI's Head of delegation Nicola Caligiore and his team for a great step by step work done in Eurovision and Italy the past f...

Gigliola Cinquetti (born December 20, 1947 in Verona) won the Castrocaro 1963, the legendary contest for new voices and gained also a right to participate in the next Sanremo festival. This sweet 16-year-old came, sung Non ho l'età and won the hearts of Italians and the festival. Next she was off to Copenhagen for the Eurovision and stormed to victory. But her story with Sanremo was just begun. She returned the year after with Ho bisgono di vederti and went to the final. She scored another victory the year after with Dio come ti amo , that Domenico Modugno himself took to Eurovision , only to score the worst Italian placement ever (apparently the juries boycotted him for having acted a bit of a diva, or so the rumors go). Then she participated six further times in coming years: 1968 Sera (8th), 1969 La pioggia (6th), 1970 Romantico blues (6th), 1971 Rose nel buio (9th), 1972 Gira l'amore (9th) and 1973 Mistero , that didn't reach the final. Then she had a break ...

Tomorrow the 14 Big names will be announced live in TV news at 13.30 local time. The speculations are running wild as there are rumors of some very big names entering the race at very last minute. However, those who know usually have cut the list to 22, and it will be interesting to see tomorrow how right they are - who is among those eight left out, and if there will be names in outside the list?! Out of the Eurovision veterans we have Alice, Raphael Gualazzi and Enrico Ruggeri listed. Besides them previous Sanremo winners include Alex Britti, Dolcenera and Antonio Maggio (of Newcomers), Francesco Renga and Ron (of Big). All are bringing two songs so there might be even guest artists for one of the songs, like Mietta is rumored as Renga's duet partner! Alex Britti is supposed to be in duet with Bianca Atzei while another duet is also listed: Violante Placido and Roberto Dell'Era . Sanremo was won in 1987 by a trio Morandi-Ruggeri-Tozzi and there could be anoth...

In Italy they have this very popular Tale e quale TV-show on RAI1 were a number of singers/actors each week practice and then imitate in a live show other singers. This season among the ones we have for example Gigliola Cinquetti who has done already another Eurovision legend, Domenico Modugno . She's done also Milva so far. But the real surprise has been Mietta who we know as a dark husky voiced pop singer, winner of OGAE Song contest 1990 and has delivered some great tracks in Sanremo over the years ( Baciami adesso and Fare l'amore for example). The first week she did Ornella Vanoni , then Donna Summer and this week Maria Callas! And who thought she could sing like that???  Mietta won the second show as Donna Summer and came third in the third one as Maria Calla s while Gigiloa Cinquetti won that one as Gianna Nannini ! Next week Mietta will do Jennifer Lopes while Gigilola will be Gloria Gaynor! You can follow the progress of the show here . 

My flying reporter Robert had a very private interview with Kaliopi as the icing on his fantastic cake of work he did for me and for you readers in Baku. It is long, it is deep, it is fun. In one word: it's a treat! Sit back, have a cup of coffee and enjoy: Thank you Kaliopi for this interview. I have been trying to get hold of you all week and finally I have you here, just in time before I leave back to Amsterdam! I hope it's not because I'm such a big Diva! No, no... It has been so busy and you know now we have the pleasure to be alone ! Without other people around :-) No journalists, just you and me here in my hotel having coffee and tea or chai... isn't this nice ? Yes indeed. But let's get to business. Maybe not all readers know you very well so how would you describe Kaliopi? What are your qualities? What do you find important in life? Hmmm, it's always difficult to talk about yourself but I try to be honest. It's very heavy to be honest. I...