OBITUARY
OBITUARY
A scene from Desert Mice
would lead to him being recognised by other well-known acts, and Toto found himself writing and composing songs that went on to be recorded by established performers, including Johnny Hallyday, Mireille Mathieu, Domenico Modugno, Claude François, Gigliola Cinquetti and Gérard Lenorman among others. Number One Choosing to develop a solo career, Toto left Albatros in 1978 and, two years later, found himself at Samremo once again where his song, Solo Noi ( Only Us ), took first place. However, this did not lead to Eurovision participation at that time. In 1983, Toto returned to Sanremo , and a song co-written with Cristiano Minellono entitled L’Italiano . Despite only coming fifth, many now consider this song to be Toto’s greatest achievement, achieving gold record status and reaching Number One in Italy, France, Switzerland and, perhaps more surprisingly, Portugal. Including being part of Albatros, Toto entered the Sanremo Festival on 15 occasions, but failed to repeat his first place successes of 1976 and 1980. Coming second in 1984, 1987, 1988 and 1990, this led to many describing
him as ‘l’eterno secondo’ (‘the eternal second’), although he did manage to win the Classic category in 2005 when he performed Come Noi Nessuno Al Mondo ( No One Else In TheWorld Like Us ) with Annalisa Minetti. In 1990, after the winners of Sanremo , Pooh, refused to accept the honour of representing Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest, second-placed Toto was approached by RAI. Rather than perform Gli Amori ( Loves ), which was covered by Ray Charles as Good Love Gone Bad ,Toto wrote and composed Insieme: 1992 ( Together: 1992 ) especially for Eurovision. Seen as an outsider by many, the politically-themed song spoke of a united Europe that would appear once the Maastricht Treaty was ratified to create the European Union in 1992. Fierce The competition was fierce, but Toto managed to win the contest for Italy, scoring17 points more than the joint- second placed entries from France ( Black &White Blues by Joëlle Ursull) and Ireland ( Somewhere In Europe by Liam Reilly). Insieme: 1992 was not the chart success that many Eurovision winners have been, and only managed to reach number 14
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