It was with great honour that I had the opportunity to interview Rita Pavone, a queen of the Italian music scene. I have decided to re-present here on my blog my interview that appeared in the online magazine www.sbircialanotizia.com so that it can also be disseminated in English, French and Spanish.
Rita Pavone’s artistic itinerary has prodigiously conformed over the six decades of her unparalleled career to new fashions and styles. Rita Pavone’s artistic career began with humble beginnings as an adolescent phenomenon in the effervescent musical environment of the 1960s, but the young and charismatic Rita immediately burst into the collective imagination with songs steeped in light-heartedness, such as La partita di pallone.
Her popularity was soon such that she crossed national borders and reached England and even the United States. The great ability to interpret songs in different languages confirms Pavone’s extreme artistic versatility.
With the arrival of the 1970s came a significant artistic maturity. Rita’s talent thus embraced the epicentre of Italian pop and the more mature forms of singer-songwriter music. Pavone also began writing her own lyrics and shaping her own arrangements, demonstrating a growing creative autonomy.
In the following decades (1980s and 1990s), her artistic evolution experimented with other musical currents that enriched her repertoire. Meanwhile, her involvement in television and theatre programmes consolidated her position as a versatile artist admired everywhere.
The new millennium saw the rebirth of Rita Pavone’s career. Warmly welcomed, her performances sound like a hymn to her artistic legacy.
At the Venice International Film Festival in 2021, she is awarded the prestigious Golden Lion with which Rita Pavone is honoured as an icon of Italian music. And it is precisely in 2021 that the artist celebrates 60 years of her career. A moment of deep reflection on the long road she has travelled and the exceptional contribution she has made to Italian music.
My exclusive interview
Hi Rita, it is truly an honour for me that you have accepted this interview. What are the artists or genres of music that inspire you or that you particularly like today?
Hi Pierluigi, it is a pleasure for me.
Those who have inspired my generation and my musical life are names from the past who have shown that they can do anything. Despite the fact that music or dance was their main passion, they still managed to prove that talent, if it belongs to you, allows you to be able to do the rest as well.
My great loves are those of the generation before mine and those who preceded mine by only a few years. Many of them, in addition to singing, also showed incredible abilities as actors, as comedians, as dancers, musicians and impersonators: Judy Garland, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Bobby Darin, Sammy Davis Jr., Aretha Franklin, Shirley Bassey, Barbra Streisand, Tina Turner, Timi Yuro were my favourites and in dance: Ann Miller, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor who, in addition to dancing, sang wonderfully well.
While in more recent times I loved the voices of Sinead O’Connor and Amy Winehouse, today I love the voices of Adele and Lady Gaga. The latter, then, has demonstrated a highly ductile vocal ability to be credible in every musical genre she has tackled. She is also a wonderful actress. Chapeau! She started off in a somewhat equivocal way – a much ‘cheekier’ Madonna (see the meat dress she wore to an important event) and then revealed unimaginable facets: ballads, rock, swing – see the concerts with Tony Bennett…
I still remember how stunned I was when, at the Oscars, she made a tribute to Julie Andrews by singing with a soprano voice, songs like Sound of Music. It was incredible! Overwhelming!
In Italy at that time, even before my television beginnings, I loved, and still do, Caterina Valente, an extraordinary and multifaceted artist – you only have to see an American film in which she performs next to Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald looks at her admiringly to understand her greatness, and then Mina, Sergio Endrigo, Umberto Bindi. While, among today’s singers, I love the voices of Elisa, of Arisa (if she has the right pieces Arisa can do wonders. She has a unique vocality and is always in tune), then Giorgia and Elodie. In the men’s field, I love Mengoni, Diodato, Lazza, Irama, Ultimo and Alex, the guy from ‘Amici’ They are the ones who sing things that can remain in time. Then I adore Il Volo and I love Maneskin, who, even though they refer to the great US or British bands of the past even in their behaviour and clothing, are still new and unheard of for the Millennials generation. And then Damiano has a crazy vocality.
Can you share any interesting or funny anecdotes related to your experience on stage?
What is happening now to Maneskin in the world, for me it started in the summer of 1963, only I was a minor at the time – the age of majority in Italy is 21 and I had just turned 18. Back then there were no social networks and so news arrived very late in Italy. Exactly like foreign records. That’s why covers were made. Because when those songs became a hit in Italy, in the countries of origin they were already long forgotten. Starting in mid-1963, I began to be present not only in the Italian charts, where I surpassed myself (check to believe), but in all the charts of the world. European and otherwise. And even in the U.S. ones.
Five times as a guest on the Ed Sullivan Show, together with artists such as The Animals, Beach Boys, The Supremes etc. etc. and then on all the American networks: CBS, ABC, NBC. On my third appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, on the luminous stage of the theatre on Broadway (it would later be named after the great conductor and famous journalist, and the place where the David Letterman Show was held for years), in March 1965, a few days before my concert at Carnegie Hall in N.Y., scheduled for 20 March and already ‘sold out’ some time ago, on the luminous stage, I found myself being the third name after Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald.
And here’s the anecdote: Apart from hearing Fitzgerald sing “Train” at 9 a.m., with dizzying low notes, scat and super high notes, after the live television performance in the afternoon, from Coast to Coast, didn’t she, the GREAT LADY OF JAZZ, come knocking on my dressing room door to ask for an autographed photo for her son Philip? Well, yes! Fitzgerald asked Rita Pavone for an autograph.
I would die of shock!
How do you manage the balance between your personal life and your artistic career? How did you handle fame?
This is a very difficult question, the answer to which is even more difficult. It is actually a twofold question.
I would have liked to be able to decide to manage my life as I wished, but it was not possible for me precisely because of my younger age. And that remains my biggest regret. I would have liked to stay in the United States to learn the trade. New York City then, was and is, the most magical place, the most coveted and dreamed of place for a young girl who liked to be a part of it, and therefore, trying to learn everything that the word show business contains. I had been taken to see Streisand at the theatre, in Funny Girl. Extraordinary! Immense! I had attended the Sammy Davis Jr. concert in the legendary Copacabana. Prodigious! Incomparable! Sammy sang divinely, imitated, step danced, played drums and trumpet. 60/70 minutes of real enjoyment. He was a comedian, a great actor and an incredible showman! Watching him I realised that only there could I learn a lot of things that I did not know at all. One above all, the English language.
At home, we children of the immediate post-war period spent what we had on our daily bread. The music? The dancing? Learning languages, they didn’t fill our bellies. So, I was singing broken English. “You” became ” IU”. In interviews or business meetings, RCA Victor put a lady next to me to translate everything I said and what others said to me. At that time, the simultaneous translator in use today did not exist and so it became complicated to do TV interviews. Nevertheless, even though I didn’t speak a word of English, I entered the Billboard and CashBox charts, considered the bibles of world music, and the top 20 places with two songs, Remember me and Just Once More. I got a management contract with the biggest entertainment agency in the world, the William Morris Agency, in whose stable were such personalities as Bennett, Sinatra, Streisand, Sammy Davis Jr. and, in addition, I signed a contract for 3 LPs worldwide for RCA Victor.
I was doing full houses everywhere. In Canada, in Toronto, at my very first debut, which was held at Maple Leaf Garden, I had 21,000 people and was the second artist behind The Beatles who had 23,000. This was an important sign, yet my parents opposed leaving me in the United States with a housekeeper to look after me 24 hours a day.
They did not allow me to stay in the States and brought me back to Italy deaf even to the words of the head of William Morris who told them:
“You are making her miss a great opportunity. Rita, after Modugno, is the most loved Italian in the States and can do wonderful things here. ” The same things Ruggero Orlando said on the RAI news during one of his TV commentaries. ‘Rita Pavone entered America through the front door,’ he continued.
But there was nothing to be done. My parents brought me home to my great sorrow. But – and I would only discover this later – it was not because they feared that their daughter might take a bad path or ‘get lost’ in such an immense city so full of dangerous tentacles; or because my being away evoked great suffering in them, but rather because of a problem concerning their marital life that was falling apart, something that I came, or rather, we all came, including Italy, to discover only later. But it was I alone who paid the consequences.
To those who say to me: but Italy has given you so much and continues to give you so much, I reply: I know it well, and I am infinitely grateful to Italy and the Italians for all this affection that has lasted 60 years. Just as I know that without Italian success, I would NEVER have achieved international success, but I was never interested in success per se, let alone earnings. I was interested in learning a trade that I have always deeply loved and that I would have liked to be able to do. However, things went.
I was also often asked: But why didn’t you go back afterwards? Good question … Because in America you only have to kick a rock to find a diamond. The competition is fierce. Even a simple chorister has what it takes to become a star, so you always have to be on the ball. After three years apart, to think of starting again would have been madness. I would have lost both.
The fact remains, however, that although I was back in Italy, many, especially the biggest foreign artists, know who I am, and what little or what much I did in my American and British period Heart- I Hear You Beatin’, a song that Morrissey liked so much, was in the top 20 and stayed there for 12 weeks and ditto for You Only You, two songs that opened me up to the world of music. two songs that opened the doors of England for me, so much so that Sir Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice wrote for me, and today Kiss are talking about me: Gene Simmons is a great admirer of mine. Ask Alvin from Virgin Radio who interviewed him, complete with video.
Ask Morrissey. Not only does he talk about me in his interviews, but even in his biography.
Ask Abba’s Agnetha who, on her solo album, says she was inspired by Rita Pavone.
Ask Nina Hagen, who in 1972 did a cover of my Wenn Ich ein Junge wär, my first big hit in German. Over 800,000 copies were sold by me in Germany in 1963 and a dozen German-language albums released over the years.
The balance sheet is therefore, I dare say, not only positive, but ultra-positive!
Despite my regret for the USA, I have done a lot of things during these 60 years of my career. On television then, anything and everything. From Falqui’s Saturday night shows to ‘Il Giornalino di Gian Burrasca’ with 3 dico 3! Academy Awards behind them: Nino Rota who signed the entire soundtrack, Lina Wertmuller, who was the director, scriptwriter and author of all the song lyrics and finally the arrangements by Luis Bacalov. All three were Oscar winners! Not to mention the costumes and sets by Piero Tosi (Gattopardo and the cast, where the Gotha of Italian theatre was present. Then many specials, such as ” Stasera…Rita! ” And many more that followed over time. Two Cantagiro wins: in 1965 with ‘Lui’ and in 1967 with ‘Questo nostro amore’.
In cinema, my debut came in France at the beginning of 1963 with “Clementine Cherie” whose protagonist was none other than Philippe Noiret. Then with the great Totò, and afterwards, directed by Lina Wertmuller, NOT musicarelli, as they are mistakenly called, but light musical films à la Doris Day: “Rita la Zanzara” and the sequel with Giancarlo Giannini, Giulietta Masina, Peppino De Filippo, Bice Valori, Gino Bramieri, etc. etc.; or “Little Rita in the West” with Terence Hill and Lucio Dalla.
Magazine theatre: with Macario, Carlo Dapporto, Piero Mazzarella, Gaspare and Zuzzurro;
Classical theatre with La XII Notte, directed by and starring Franco Branciaroli, Renzo Montagnani, Pino Micol, Marco Sciaccaluga, and finally La Strada, by Fellini and Pinelli, with Fabio Testi, directed by Filippo Crivelli and costumes and sets by Danilo Donati, Federico Fellini’s favourite set designer.
And the results were always: lots of audiences and great reviews.
How did I manage my fame?
I did not freak out as many do foolishly to awaken their slumbering or never existing creativity.
I experienced my ‘fame’ as a great opportunity that was given to me as a gift. It was a dream come true and therefore one had to know how to manage it. Keeping my feet firmly planted on the ground and enjoying the great thing that was fame, success and money. I was never interested in drugs or strange things. My drug was and remains the adrenalin in my body. To be vocally fit, I slept a lot, wherever I was and especially on long plane journeys.
How do you live fame? Very quietly. Today as then, if I’m not working, I live a more than normal life. I often go shopping in person and at home I iron and sometimes cook like many housewives. My guiding spirit remains Cincinnatus: When I’m not working, I cut the grass!
Have you ever had the opportunity to use your music to support a social or charitable cause close to your heart?
I do charity work and always try to help those for whom life has reserved the least. I don’t feel like saying how and for whom, but children are often my main contacts. Charity must remain only between the giver and the receiver. I would, however, like to participate in some major TV charity event, but that seems to be a closed circle.
There are always the same names hosting it and I don’t like that very much because, even if you don’t want to, you risk it becoming just self-promotion.
What future projects or aspirations do you have for your musical career? What motivates you to make music today?
I have some big projects in the pipeline, very very intriguing, especially thinking that in two years I will be 80, but I am superstitious and will only say everything when I sign the contracts.
I do music because I love music and because making music makes me happy. And it makes a lot of people who love me happy. As long as a healthy energy sustains me and the voice is there – and for the moment it is, believe me – I will do the job I was born to do and for which I thank the Lord above every day.
Can you share some advice or thoughts on how music can influence people’s emotions and lives both socially and politically?
I think I am the least suitable person to give advice. I still prefer to receive it and treasure it, but I can point to those who have given many and important messages, but who alas, given the way the world is going, are disregarded by most.
Who are they? Gaber, Fabrizio De Andrè, Battiato, Lauzi, Pierangelo Bertoli, Vecchioni, Proietti. And even those who look like madmen but laughingly throw the truth in your face, like Elio e le Storie Tese. Abroad Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, George Michael…
How would you describe your evolving musical style over the years? Is there a song or album you have recorded that has a particular meaning for you?
I discovered, around the late 1980s, that I had a definite penchant for writing. So it was that after a few fortunate episodes in a few songs, I decided that maybe it was time to make an album as a songwriter. It was 1990. It was a self-production of mine, because I was sure that no record company would ever have given me a hand in making that record until after I had listened to it.
I decided to make an all-female record. A record about women’s issues.
Thus ‘Gemma and the Others’ was born. My lyrics and music by Carolain, a very talented Italian-American girl. The result was a gritty, melancholic and extravagant record at the same time. Women who confront each other and tell about themselves, their discomforts, their
their disappointments, their expectations, and without mincing their words. The album got fantastic reviews but no one, or very few, played it on the radio. For the deejays, at 45 I was already a boomer …
And in fact, that was one of my best but least known records, so much so that on RAI, a few months ago, during an interview, when they asked me what I would like to listen to of mine, I said Gemma, which was the title track of the album.
They looked at each other bewildered, but went to look for it and found it. Well, it was still intact with cellophane…
What was the most significant moment in your musical career and why?
Although I am not a musician, I still found a ploy and the right dynamics to be able to compose the music for my songs as well. I started when I was just 17 years old, with a musical genre indicated to me by others, but I have always tried to make it my own and make it great, and seeing the 50 and more million records sold worldwide, I would say that I have never let them down, but I love soul, rock, ballads and swing. So MY landmark record is definitely Masters, which has all that in it. A great album still self-produced by me, which sees a musical world of 15 foreign tracks sung by me in the original language + 15 covers of the same in Italian. Songs that I loved very much in my teenage years and whose arrangements, totally revamped but not distorted by Maestro Enrico Cremonesi, a young and extraordinary arranger, sound great, thanks also to the contribution of two Grammy Awards. Well, these songs – whose Italian language versions are signed by Enrico Ruggeri, Franco Migliacci, Lina Wertmuller, Dario Gay and yours truly – have other arrangements that differentiate them from the English language versions. So no copy and paste, but confirmation that when a song has a real melody, you can give it several readings, and rest assured that they will give you enormous satisfaction. Released in 2014 and distributed by Sony, it ??? entered the Italian charts at number 10, but this record too, except for one track,
I Want You With Me, which launched Elvis Presley in ’55, had very little radio airplay. A pity because it really is a great record.
What was the most important lesson you learnt in your musical career?
The lesson I learnt?
To have a deep self-esteem for myself. Both as a woman and as an artist.
And that is not arrogance.
Arrogance is feeling superior to everyone.
Self-esteem is not feeling inferior to anyone.
This is me. This is Rita Pavone.
In her total simplicity and humility, Rita told me about her artistic journey, which is characterised by her constant ability to adapt and reinvent herself through the various eras of pop music, from her extraordinary debut as a youthful prodigy to her profound exploration of more mature musical genres, thus capturing a versatility and longevity unique in the history of music.
