Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

This is a sad day. Giuseppe Mango, or simply Mango suffered a heart attack last night during his concert while singing his first big hit Oro and didn't survive. Italy has lost one of its greatest voices and song writers. This blogger is particularly taken by the news as Mango has been one of my top favorite singers since his hit Australia back in 1985. Since then he has created his own style and released some fantastic songs full of Mediterranean flavor and heat of the south. The 1990's in particular were fantastic but also in 2000's he scored hits like La Rondine , one of his best songs ever. I was always keeping up the hope to see him do Eurovision one day..... His songs have been covered also my many foreign artists. His wife and mother of his two kids is Laura Valente, once a Matia Bazar singer.....  He also wrote a lot of songs for other artists including Mia Martini , Loretta Goggi , Andrea Bocelli ,  Scialpi , fabulous  Andrea Mirò , Dennis Fantina an...

One month to go before RAI and Carlo Conti will publish the list of the artists and songs for the 2015 Sanremo festival and the rumour mill running wilder than ever. Some interesting new names have emerged among the possible ones. First of all Nina Zilli who is currently one of the judges in Italy's Got Talent and has recently given final touch to her new album to be released. It would be only logical she would try to launch it with Sanremo. Amici winner Deborah Iurato is about to fight it again against Dear Jack , this time in Teatro Ariston's stage. Malika Ayane may be in the list again seeking revenge for her previous attempts when Sanremo didn't treat her as well as she deserved. Francesca Michielin is in the list as well now. Recently she has collaboratd with Alice and Franco Battiato. Then we have Tiromancino as a big maybe, as well as Sanremo newcomer's winner 2014 Rocco Hunt . As for the old glories - so fond for Carlo Conti's team in their attempt t...

To continue with yesterday's Mango post here is some more of him for you! I discovered he has been covered both in Greece by Eleftheria Arvanitaki and in France by Helene Segara besides the several local Italian covers I already knew. That great female artists want to cover him is nothing new as already back in 1976 Mia Martini did Se mi sfiori and over the decades Patty Pravo , Loretta Goggi , Mina, Mietta, Leo Sayer , Neri per caso , Scialpi and Wender ft Saretta have covered his songs. Besides that he has written songs to Mietta , Loredana Bertè , Andrea Bocelli , Andrea Mirò and Dennis Fantina , just to name a few. And he himself has covered many songs by other artists, like Franco Battiato for example. And this is Mango, too. And if pnly one day Mango would collaborate with Alice....

Finnish artists have been doing cover versions of Italian songs since the 1950's and many of them have become real evergreens and most people don't even know they're covers. This summer I plan occasionally present some of them and today's offer is maybe the biggest of them all.  Loretta Goggi did Maledetta primavera in Sanremo 1981 and came second to Alice . Paula Koivuniemi covered the song in 1982 and today it's a real anthem for independent women. And gay people. My bet is every Finn knows more or less the lyrics by heart. In summer 2008 she performed it in rock festivals with thousends of heavy rockers singing along! Aikuinen nainen means Grown or Adult woman (who knows what she wants). But this is by no means Paula's only Italian hit!

As we know Italy has been absent from Eurovision since 1997 but they started skipping years already in the 1980's and continued to do so also in the 1990's before stopping participating altogether. Even if often the Sanremo winner was sent to Eurovision that was no rule and especially in the 1980's artists were invited by other merits, or often the singer had won Sanremo not that year but the year before. Anyways, I would like to stick to the original idea and think that the winner (or runner up) would have been sent and in this series will speculate on that. So, here we go with 1981 - the year Italy skipped Eurovision for the first time: 1981. Officially because of the low quality of the songs, and judging the skirt ripping winners in Dublin they might just be right... Alice won this edition with classic Per Elisa beating another classic, Maledetta primavera by Loretta Goggi. This contest also provided an international megahit for Ricchi e Poveri with Sará perche ti a...