Nino D’Aurelio playlist

Nino D’Aurelio

Genetics are mysterious and one cannot fail to be amazed at how one of the fundamental characteristics of every human being is passed on: the voice. If, in addition to the voice, a strong musicality and a good intonation are handed down from father to son, we are even more amazed, and this is what happened with Giovanni Guidi (1908-1958), to his son Giorgio, aka Johnny Dorelli, and his nephew Gianluca, son of Johnny.

Giovanni Guidi began recording at the end of the 1930s and later moved to New York in 1946, following the successful outcome of an audition he'd done in Milan. In the United States, he was clearly successful as an interpreter of Italian and Neapolitan songs.

Two years later he was joined by his wife Teresa and son Giorgio, and the family stayed in the States until the mid-1950s, in time to see their son Giorgio's career blossom. His name came from the distorted way that Italian-Americans pronounced it: Johnny instead of Giovanni and Dorelli instead of D'Aurelio.

He had a classical voice, closer to that of a light tenor rather than a crooner, which instead characterized his son Giorgio's unmistakable timbre. He died very young, at fifty years of age and only a week after the Sanremo triumph of Johnny Dorelli and Domenico Modugno with Nel blu, dipinto di blu: just in time to rejoice in his son's success and be gratified by the choice he made in the U.S. of introducing him to the world of song.