He was an unusually prolific composer and a very frequent performer.
Photo: Larisa KUDRYAVTSEVA/EG
Toto Cutugno became famous throughout Europe and throughout the USSR even before he became famous as a singer. It was he who wrote several melodically brilliant songs performed by Joe Dassin: “Salut, c’est encore moi” (“Hello, it’s me again”), “Et si tu n’existais pas” (“If it weren’t for you” ), “L’Été indien” (“Indian Summer”), “Le Jardin du Luxembourg” (“Luxembourg Gardens”). If he had not done anything in his life except this, he would have entered his name in the history of pop music with gold letters. But in the 80’s he also sang “L’italano Vero”-“The Real Italian”, which is better known to us by the first line-“Lashatemi Cantare”.
Toto Cutugno became famous throughout Europe and throughout the USSR even before he became famous as a singer.
Photo: social networks
And there were “Solo noi”, “Innamorati”, “Serenata”. He also wrote “Ciao, bambino, Sorry” for Mireille Mathieu, his songs were performed by Dalida, Ricchi e Poveri, Luis Miguel, Claude Francois, Adriano Celentano… He was an unusually prolific composer and performer very often – in particular, Dio many concerts in Russia. And for many of us, one of his voices was enough to start learning Italian (by the way, these are completely real cases that happened to my acquaintances).
Biography of Toto Cutugno
Salvatore Cutugno was born on July 7, 1943 in the city of Fosdinova. His mother was a housewife and his father a musician and sailor (the family soon moved closer to the sea, to the Ligurian city of La Spezia). He wrote his first song, “Camino del amor”, when he was 14 years old (they say it coincided with his first love), but before that he had learned to play the accordion and the piano. Then there were several musical groups, one of which – “Albatross” – took part in the competition in Sanremo (soon Toto will become an indispensable participant and one of the main stars of this festival).
One of his songs, “Africa”, entered Dassin’s repertoire and he liked it very much. Well, then a whole barrage of Dassin songs followed, which millions of people over the age of 45 closely associate with France (many do not even suspect that their author is a “real Italian”).
His voice alone was enough to start learning Italian.
Photo: social networks
By the way, a funny story was connected with The Real Italian: Cutugno wrote it specifically for Adriano Celentano, who didn’t like it at all; a few weeks later, he simply returned the score and text to the author without explanation. And Cutugno decided to sing it himself in Sanremo, and he was very nervous: it seemed to him that people would decide that he was imitating Adriano, at that time the most popular singer in the country. But no one was ironic about the “imitator”, on the contrary, the people stood up to applaud him. (But relations with Celentano did not deteriorate after that; on the contrary, Cutugno was always happy when a colleague included his compositions in his repertoire). And when, seeing him, the fans began to sing “Lasciatemi cantare” – “Let me sing”, – Toto was never offended.
Toto Cutugno at the New Wave 2013 festival in Jurmala
Photo: Evgenia GUSEVA
Personal life of Toto Cutugno
He said that if he had to describe himself with three epithets, he would choose the words “sensitive, fickle, sincere”. As for her personal life, she was not exempt from violent Latino passions. Cutugno was married to a woman, Carla, for many decades, she dreamed that she would give birth to a son, but unfortunately, due to health problems, she was unable to bear him. And then Cutugno fell head over heels for flight attendant Christina Lanci.
He said that if he had to describe himself with three epithets, he would choose the words “sensitive, fickle, sincere”.
Photo: Mikhail FROLOV
He did not want to leave his wife forever, but was glad when she became pregnant and gave birth to their son Niko. It is clear that the lawful wife was not happy when she found out about this. “I ran 1,300 kilometers by car from Sicily to Rome to see Christina, because I lost my mind over her,” Cutugno admitted in an interview. -When he told her wife everything frankly, it was a terrible blow to her. Karla suffered for a long time, she suffered a lot. And her pain became the most severe punishment for me. But Karla finally forgave her husband and managed to improve relations with her son (who is now in his thirties).
Choir Toto Cutugno and Alexandrov
Photo: Mikhail FROLOV
In 2007, Cutugno became seriously ill with cancer. And he said that he incredibly wanted to be cured to see how his son grows. It was his love for his child that saved him. He underwent surgery, he underwent severe chemotherapy courses, so he lost his hair for a while, but he recovered and continued to sing, giving many concerts, even with us. Here he was familiar with both Pugacheva and Gorbachev, he spoke about Russia in an interview: “This is only my second homeland. I love the Russians very much and I feel love in return. Everyone knows my songs, I’m happy. ” He rejoiced when Russian singers performed his compositions.
Toto Cutugno and the group “SILVER”
Photo: Larisa KUDRYAVTSEVA/EG
On Tuesday, August 22, Toto Cutugno’s manager announced that the singer had passed away: “He was seriously ill for a long time, in recent months his condition worsened and he is no longer with us.” On July 7, all of Italy celebrated his 80th birthday. And now all of Italy, like all of Russia, will cry for him.
Famous goalkeeper Lev Yashin and singer-songwriter Toto Cutugno
Photo: TASS Newsreel.
