Toto Cutugno

Born Salvatore Cutugno on July 7, 1943, in the northern Tuscan town of Fosdinovo, the Italian who would claim the 1990 Eurovision Song Contest began his musical life as a drummer. Shifting into songwriting during the early 1970s, he supplied material to European performers including Joe Dassin, Mireille Mathieu, Dalida, Johnny Halliday, Michel Sardou, Claude François, and Gigliola Cinquetti. He also fronted his own group, Albatross, whose self-titled debut album appeared in 1976.

That year the band entered the San Remo Music Festival with “L’Albatross” and finished third. They returned the following year with “Gran Premio,” the first of Cutugno’s eventual fifteen appearances at the event as either bandleader or soloist. Striking out alone, he secured his sole San Remo victory in 1980 with “Solo Noi” (“Only Us”). Subsequent runner-up finishes came in 1984 with “Serenata” (“Serenade”), 1987 with “Figli” (“Sons”), 1988 with “Emozioni” (“Emotions”), and 1989 with “Le Mamme” (“The Mothers”).

A steady stream of recordings marked the decade: the 1980 solo debut Voglio l’Anima paired with Innamorata, Innamorato, Innamorati, followed by La Mia Musica in 1981, L’Italiano in 1983, and both Mediterraneo and Cofanetto in 1987. In 1990 Cutugno again reached the San Remo final, this time duetting with Ray Charles on “Gli Amori,” the song Charles later recorded in English as “Good Love Gone Bad”; the entry placed second. Shortly afterward his composition “Insieme 1992” (“Together 1992”), written to mark the impending unification of the EEC, won the Eurovision Song Contest, and the accompanying album Insieme became his most widely recognized release.

Activity declined after the early 1990s. Non È Facile Essere Uomini arrived in 1992, Canzoni Nascoste in 1997, Il Treno Va in 2002, and Cantando in 2004. In 2005 he resurfaced at San Remo alongside Annalisa Minetti to perform the title song from his new album, “Come Noi Nessuno Al Mondo,” again finishing second. Toto Cutugno died in Milan on August 22, 2023, at the age of eighty.