|
Gigliola Cinquetti (born 20 December 1947) is an Italian singer.
She was born in Verona. At the age of 16 she won the Sanremo Music Festival in 1964 singing "Non Ho L'Età" ("I'm not old enough"), with music composed by Nicola Salerno and lyrics by Mario Panzeri. Her victory enabled her to represent Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest 1964 with the same song, and she went on to claim her country's first ever victory in the event. This was the first Eurovision Song Contest winner, entering UK Top 75. In 1966, she recorded "Dio, come ti amo" ("God, How I Love You"), which became a world-wide hit.
She returned to big fame in 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, again representing Italy, and finished second behind Sweden's ABBA with the song "Sì" ("Yes"), the music and lyrics of which were written by Mario Panzeri, Daniele Pace, Lorenzo Pilat, and Carrado Conti.
The live telecast of her song was banned in her home country by the Italian national broadcaster RAI as the event partially coincided with the campaigning for the 1974 Italian referendum on divorce which was held a month later in May.
Rai censored the song due to concerns the name and lyrics of the song (which constantly repeated the word "SI") could be accused of being a subliminal message and a form of propaganda to influence the Italian voting public to vote "YES" in the referendum. The song remained censored on most Italian state TV and radio stations for over a month.
An English version of the song, Go (Before You Break My Heart) reached eighth position in the British charts in June 1974.
One of her other songs, "Alle porte Del sole" (released in 1973), was re-recorded in English and Italian by Al Martino, 2 years after its initial release, and reached #17 on Billboard's Top 100 list 1975 in the United States.
Cinquetti went on to co-host the Eurovision Song Contest 1991 with Toto Cutugno, who had brought the event to Italy with his victory in Zagreb the previous year - the country's first win in the contest since her own twenty-six years earlier.
|
