International successes

In 1976, through friends in common, Giancarlo Bigazzi met a young man from Turin, Umberto Tozzi. He wrote for him some masterpieces of Italian light music, which were recognised as such and awarded prizes all over the world. It began with the album “Donna amante mia” and the success of the title song. It was an extremely happy moment in Giancarlo and Gianna’s relationship; they had been living together since ’75 and Gianna was expecting a child…it was one big crescendo and….the moment of “Io camminerò”. This was followed by the LPs “E’ nell’aria…” “Ti amo” , “Tu” , “Gloria….”.  

 “Ti amo... un soldo, ti amo… in aria, ti amo.” Gianna tells a story about this song:  after he saw the great De Simone’s musical comedy “La Gatta Cenerentola” at the theatre, the music had stuck particularly in Giancarlo’s mind. Going home from the theatre at one o’clock in the morning, he sat down straightaway at the piano…and, having spent the night there, the music of TI AMO! was born at nine o’clock in the morning…and in the late evening we already had a third of the text: a great song, exceptional for its composition, where the listener has the sensation of hearing “TI AMO TI” .“Tu pesi poco di più di una gomma piuma”, “Tu”. With “Tu”, the birth of a new artist in Italian Pop music was confirmed and you can still hear it today in all the Italian discos….
“Gloria… Manchi tu nell’aria… manchi ad una mano… che lavora piano…”  A song which is less the fruit of inspiration and more “deliberately thought out”, as Giancarlo used to say; he spent months butting his head against the piano and straining with all his creativity and ability to create a song which would establish Tozzi at world level…after “Ti amo” and “Tu”  which had already been great successes in Europe…..
Once Von Karajan, considered one of the greatest orchestra conductors of all time, interrupted an interview with the famous journalist Luzzato Fegiz from the Corriere della Sera newspaper, because at that very moment they were broadcasting “Gloria” from the Royal Albert Hall on TV. He said: “Sorry, but I have to listen to a masterpiece…”. Not everyone knows that “Gloria” is the song which reached number one in the American hit parade, a thing which only one other Italian song had succeeded in doing (“Nel blu dipinto di blu” [“Volare”]) by the great Domenico Modugno). “Gloria” is also present in the soundtrack of the film “Flashdance”, thanks to Laura Branigan who made a cover in English. One hundred and ten covers have been made of this song in various languages all over the world.