He had achieved international success with his title “L’Italiano” in 1983. Toto Cutugno died on Tuesday August 22 following a “long illness”, his manager Danilo Mancuso told the Ansa news agency. The singer passed away at the age of 80 in hospital in Milan. In France, Toto Cutugno had composed several hit songs for popular singers in the 1970s and 1980s: “L’Été Indien” and “Si tu n’existais pas”, for Joe Dassin, “Derrière l’amour” for Johnny Hallyday, “En chantant” and “Musica” for Sardou or even the original version of “Monday Tuesday” (Let me dance) for Dalida, she who did not want to record it at first.
“After a long illness, the singer’s condition had worsened in recent months,” said Danilo Mancuso, quoted by the Ansa agency. “Ciao a Toto Cutugno, un Italiano vero”, immediately reacted on X (ex-Twitter) Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Salvatore Cutugno, known as Toto Cutugno, was born on July 7, 1943. His biggest hit, “Un Italiano vero” (also called simply “L’Italiano”), reached number one on the charts in Italy and Switzerland in 1983, and number two in France. The song also appeals to audiences in Israel, Iran and South Korea. The catchy chorus of this timeless hit is still a hit on radio: “Lasciatemi cantare con la chitarra in mano, lasciatemi cantare, sono un italiano” (“Let me sing with the guitar in my hand, let me sing, I am an Italian”).
The music video for the song, shot on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, is a succession of rather caricatural shots about Italy and Italians: we see the singer eating pasta and flirting with the waitress. In 1990, he won Eurovision with “Insieme: 1992”, a song about Europe. After Gigliola Cinquetti in 1964, he is the second Italian to win Eurovision. The following year, he presents with the latter the program of the competition which takes place in Rome.
Toto Cutugno composed for many French singers, especially in the 1970s: from Michel Sardou to Mireille Mathieu (“Ciao bambino, sorry”) via Gérard Lenorman (“Here are the keys”), Joe Dassin (“Il was a both of us times”), Johnny Hallyday, Hervé Vilard (“We”), Dalida (“Woman is the night”) and Sheila (“Kennedy Airport”). The singer-songwriter has also participated fifteen times in the Sanremo song festival, a real institution in the peninsula and followed each year by millions of viewers.
