La dolce vita, night spots and high society

In Rome, it was primarily Cinecittà that dictated the rules, and the nightclubs became hangouts for actors, directors, singers, and the affluent in general. The clientele was often foreign and chose venues like the Brick Top, the club owned by Ada Smith (1894-1984), better known in Europe and the USA as Bricktop, for her brick-coloured […]

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RAFFAELLA’S COVER

Raffaella Carrà’s recording career began in 1970, with the release of Ma che musica maestro, the theme for Canzonissima 1970, a television broadcast combined with the New Year’s Lottery which Carrà hosted with Corrado Mantoni. In fact, her first recording dates back to 1966. She was participating in the musical comedy Ciao Rudy, and recorded […]

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Mina, the voice of the modern italian woman

The way Mina tackles this song [Il cielo in una stanza], this flow of melody and lyrics without the traditional anchor points, is truly extraordinary. All in all, she has a good experience behind her, having interpreted songs that were almost exemplary for their adherence to canonical formal schemes (Tintarella di luna is a chorus-bridge […]

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FESTIVALS AND PROMOTION OF TOURISM IN THE 1950s

Sanremo and Naples, having realized the kind of popularity they were able to garner, immediately produced clones. From the mid-1950s, festival fever literally exploded. The festivals multiplied, on the initiative of entrepreneurs and local administrations seeking opportunities for visibility and promotion, not only in tourism, or enterprising entrepreneurs, specialized in organizing competitions and events: in […]

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CHRISTMAS POP

The number of Christmas pop songs in Italy is ridiculously low compared to the numbers on the international scene, but for some years now – more and more frequently – we are witnessing a thriving targeted production, often packaged and sold with newspapers or weekly magazines, showing a still immature market that is beginning to […]

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