Toto Cutugno

Salvatore Cutugno (born July 7, 1943), better known by his stage name Toto Cutugno, is an Italian pop singer-songwriter.

Biography

Cutugno was born in Fosdinovo, Tuscany, to a Sicilian father and a Tuscan mother (called Olga). Shortly after the family moved to the nearby city of La Spezia (Liguria), which Toto now considers his own city of origin.

He began his musical career as a drummer, but later formed a band that performed his own songs. He also had written for popular French-American singer Joe Dassin, contributing some of his most famous songs, including "L'été indien" ("Africa"), "Et si tu n'existais pas" and "Le Jardin du Luxembourg" (written with Vito Pallavicini). He also co-wrote Dalida's "Laisser moi danser" (Voglio l'anima"), which became a Platinum record shortly after its release.

In 1976 Cutugno participated for the first time in the Sanremo Music Festival coming up with 3rd place with his band Albatros ^rd. He then won in 1980 with the song "Solo noi" ("Only us", in Italian), and subsequently finished second in six editions: in 1984 with the song "Serenata" ("Serenade"), in 1987 with "Figli" ("Sons" or "Children"), in 1988 with "Emozioni" ("Emotions"), in 1989 with the song "Le mamme" ("The Mamas"), in 1990 with Ray Charles with the song "Gli amori" ("Loves", but entitled "Good Love Gone Bad" in Charles' version) and in 2005 with Annalisa Minetti with the song "Come noi nessuno al mondo" ("No One Else in the World Like Us"). In total Cutugno participated in the festival 13 times.

He won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1990 with his own composition "Insieme: 1992" ("Together: 1992"), a ballad which celebrated European political integration. Along with Gigliola Cinquetti, Italy's only other Eurovision winner from 1964, he presented the 1991 contest, which was staged in Rome as a result of his victory. However, when the scoring ended with a tie for first place the event descended into a degree of chaos, partly due to confusion over how the scoring system worked.

Toto Cutugno is most famous known for his worldwide hit song L'Italiano (Lasciatemi Cantare), which was on his hit CD entitled "I Grandi Successi".

In November 2009 Cutugno accused the writers of the pro-Viktor Yanukovych song “Leader” written for the 2010 presidential campaign of Yanukovych of plagiarism of his song "Ti amo", Yanukovych distanced himself from the song “I have heard nothing and I have ordered nothing”.^[1]

Discography

• Albatros (1976)
• Come ieri, come oggi, come sempre (1978)
• La mia musica (1981)
• L'italiano (1983)
• Azzura malinconia (1986)
• Voglio l'anima (1987)
• Innamorata, innamorato, innamorati (1987)
• Mediterraneo (1987)
• Toto Cutugno (1990)
• Insieme 1992 (1990)
• Non è facile essere uomini (1992)
• Voglio andare a vivere in campagna (1995)
• Canzoni nacoste (1997)
• Il treno va (2002)
• Cantando (2004)
• Come noi nessuno al mondo (2005)
• Un falco chiuso in gabbia (2008)

See also

• List of Eurovision Song Contest presenters

References

External links

• Official website
• Toto Cutugno at the Internet Movie Database
• "Insieme: 1992" lyrics with English translation
• MSN Group