If you’ve read my story you already know who I’m going to talk about. But I want to tell you about the importance of this woman who has accompanied me for almost half a century of my life. It is often said that at a great man’s side there is always a great woman. Personally I have never felt myself to be great, not at all….but luckily I’ve certainly lived alongside a great woman, and not only that. She’s stayed at my side for decades, intelligently, without bossing me, with great dedication, understanding and heroic tolerance.
Friend, lover, mother, wife, counsellor, accomplice and now, alas, nurse. Always with excessive conscience and passion (she has a true spirit of sacrifice) in everything she does, for everything she believes in. She has such a generous spirit that it exposes her to great disappointments, betrayals and so on. Because she idealises everything and everyone, often ingenuously: friends, relatives, companions, collaborators.
So we, especially me, tend to take advantage of her benevolence. She is the “Good Samaritan”, a kind of avenger of the weak, animals or people. She has a whole world to save, help, develop and defend. Her altruism and readiness to help are formidable!
I have many sins to be forgiven. I wasn’t born to be a husband and a good father. The justification is that having lived in different times I didn’t have an example, and there was no way I could learn. Music was my redemption, not only from a childhood lacking in affection, but also from a middle-class Florentine environment and from my father (whose maximum aspiration was for his son to become a bank clerk!); and it also in a certain sense redeemed my mother’s “melancholy”. Music and Gianna saved me. Otherwise I’m sure I’d have lost my way……
Another of my wife’s virtues has been to understand and never complain about having to share me not only with my work but also with everything surrounding it. My narcissistic egoism, my passion, my working at home for 18 hours a day, I believe created a kind of promiscuity and total lack of family freedom and intimacy, a kind of circus, with all kinds of animals, children, aspiring singers, all kinds of phone calls, musicians and loafers. A “Fellini-like” world, as she used to say, of which she was in total control.
I don’t know how she did it, but Gianna managed to surround everyone with protectiveness and love. She was housekeeper, friend, helper, secretary always ready to help anyone. In conclusion, certainly the only woman who could have stayed by me or rather put up with me in the long term. She was the prototype “woman of destiny”! My lifeblood. What’s more, she gave me my only son Gianni, the best part of myself. Good-looking and good-hearted like his mother, with a marked artistic sensitivity which he expresses through music and art photography. Gianni, “I count on you”…
Mother and son have been and still are my better half, much more important than the music. It is thanks to them that I’m still here with you! Now my mind takes me back to the beginning of this adventure and to my “mentor” Ettore Carrera. It was he who way back in 1966 had faith in me as an author, giving me the chance to join the Great Sugar Family, not only professionally….it was the right meeting at the right moment, and it changed my LIFE! A special thought and thank-you to the Sugar family, Piero, Caterina and Filippo.
My long professional journey, from its dawning to its present twilight, is connected to them in a friendly, affectionate way. Back in the ‘sixties they always supported and invested in this clumsy, sometimes neurotic, exaggeratedly unconventional “cheeky Tuscan devil”. So today too they, particularly Caterina with her proverbial determination, want my story to have the right ending. I honestly don’t know if I deserve so much love…..
We know that record production, the music world and music itself are greatly affected by the huge crisis we’re going through at present. But as long as there is Caterina and the Sugar company, music will keep going. They are the only ones in Italy and even outside Italy who work with such passion, force and determination, like true craftsmen of yore. But this is the only way they can succeed today in creating true artists who can travel the world. But now I must mention other friends.
Gaetano (Totò) Savio. It is difficult for me to express in just a few lines the affection, friendship esteem and all the other things that bound me to Totò, my all-time best friend. Totò certainly represented the best part of me, not only professionally but also humanly speaking. His balanced nature, wisdom and Neapolitan philosophy from the best school were his contagious strength. He was a fine musician, absolutely the best one I’ve collaborated with in my career. His help was never superficial, he was a close, close friend who knew every streak of my character…and so he was able to understand and help me. With him I finally learnt classic Neapolitan music.
These were the best years of creativity, writing etc. We worked together, accomplices in life and songs. His splendid voice, his teachings, his charm and his cheerfulness were part of my professional and general development. The finest memories….I know Totò and I will meet again to write our last but best song.
Mario Ragni - Another important friend and collaborator in my long career. He worked alongside me with great skill and intelligence. He was an accomplice in adventurous projects, but thanks to his determination and passion he was always right. For example, back in ’87, the victory of the trio Tozzi/Ruggeri/Morandi at the Sanremo Festival with the song “Si può dare di più”, which in time became a kind of national anthem. There are so many anecdotes and artists which we created together. Mario, all I can say is you might have stayed with us, your friends, a bit longer! I in particular really needed you in order to achieve great things.
Franco Daldello - Ettore Carrera’s right-hand man, friend, counsellor, prompter, excellent mediator between me and a world not always that kindly disposed towards me! Among other things it was he who introduced me to Umberto Tozzi, a meeting which was to lead to eighteen years of hugely successful world-level collaboration. Franco was born to be a publisher and a trusty friend. Thank you, Franco!
Elio Gariboldi - Without Elio my songs would never have got beyond Italy. He was a great friend and very professional (he was in charge of Sugar productions in Germany). His ability and knowledge of music in the world were infinite. My international successes and contacts (Giorgio Moroder and many others) were thanks to Elio. His passion for his work gave him the strength to go on living. I really miss him.
My heartfelt thanks to all of you who helped me gallop through this half-century to the sound of music. Working with and creating music has always been the most beautiful job in the world. I consider myself a privileged man! I hope I’ve repaid this privilege by giving people with my songs some pleasant moments to remember or even better to whistle!
Giancarlo Bigazzi
