"
I
'm going back
to Sanremo with a beautiful song
, a great Italian song that, at first listen, had the same emotional impact on me as 'Losing love'. I'm going to compete because as a guest you don't feel the same adrenaline": promises sparks
Massimo Ranieri
who, at 70, enthusiastically faces his return to the Ariston.
The spirit is that of someone who gets back into the game.
"I'm going to have fun"
, he told
ANSA
in the first interview after the announcement of the 24 artists competing.
Two years ago he was a guest. He presented the unpublished 'My reason' and duet with Tiziano Ferro on
'Losing love'
, a winning song in '88 and one of the most important and loved ones in the Festival's roll of honor. "Even with 'My reason' I thought about competing, I thought about it a lot, but then I didn't feel like it. This time - says Ranieri - I took 15 days to decide and give an answer to Amadeus. You can see that at 70 years old one puts his mind, puts his brain. If I had not been convinced of the song I would not have done it ".
"It is a stage that has something magical.
You feel the adrenaline on you like in no other event
. It is scary but then in the end everyone goes", he says who, still a minor, made his debut at the Festival, in the original location of the casino. , in '68, with 'As a child' (in combination with I giants) and returned in '69 with 'When love becomes poetry' (with Orietta Berti).
After a long break from music, to devote himself to the theater, he triumphed in 88 and competed again, always with good results in the standings, also in '92 with
'You think'
, in '95 with
'La dressing gown'
("an Aznavourian piece , not very festive, but that the public always asks me in a loud voice ", he says) and in '97 with
'I will speak to you of love'.
In the race there will be an old acquaintance of his, Gianni Morandi, with whom he could have been a guest last year, a hypothesis later vanish.
"I didn't know that Morandi was also in the race!
I learned about it from the media - he says - when the list of artists was revealed.
After the announcement we
spoke and Gianni said to me 'Let's go have fun, now for a certain age, what do you want to do ... Even if I'm older than you '", he reports imitating him. "We are the two rival singers, bitter friends-enemies who after so many years find themselves in an event, as in the days of Canzonissima, it seems to relive those years", he says. It was the early seventies and Ranieri triumphed, right in Canzonissima, with hits like
'Twenty years'
,in '70, ed
'Grass of my house'
, in '73.
Almost 50 years later "here we are, I'm happy and can't wait to see Morandi again, to talk to him, to have a chat and find out what his mood is", adds Ranieri.
"From the only phone call it seems to me that the spirit is the same as he is, as I am: that of two kids who meet again for a football match after so many years", he adds.
In the cast, in addition to old glories such as
Morandi, Rettore, Zanicchi
, there are
also emerging artists, idols of the very young
. "I know them very little - confesses Ranieri - but in recent years I have heard many interesting proposals". In the race, you know, with a part of the verdict entrusted to televoting, anything can happen. "I don't care - he reiterates - I just want to play this song that has wonderful lyrics and music. I'm sure it will also hit the audience. With 'Losing love' - he remembers - I was a fish out of water. I didn't sing more for years to devote myself to the theater and, after the first performance, I thought I could go home. I hadn't even read the rules ". Twenty years earlier, at the end of the 1960s, the record companies had advised him against returning after the first two festivals. "You can't play your career in two and a half minutes", they said,preferring Canzonissima which instead included four performances over two months.
Of the first time in the city of flowers, in '68, Ranieri recalls: "I was in the enclosure among sacred monsters and characters like Louis Armstrong
. Dazed like a child they took to the rides and he sees the wheel, the lights ... And does not know where to go ".
The Festival "was terrifying", he recalls
. Today, with one of the most dazzling careers in Italy, between theater, cinema, music and TV, the 'singer' seems to have nothing to lose.
The competition song "that sings life" was put aside a year ago for a future record.
It will come out with the next album of unreleased tracks
.
"It will not be ready in February for the Festival - announces Ranieri - but in April, with arrangements by Gino Vannelli, as in the last album".
While his autobiography,
'All dreams still in flight' (Ed.Rizzoli)
has just been published
and he runs from city to city to retrieve 60 live dates postponed due to the pandemic, Ranieri hopes that this can really be the Sanremo of normality and restart.
With no audience in the theater last year "was terrible".
"The worst is behind us, hopefully. God willing - he sighs - at least for the most part, it's gone".
