He’s not a divaĬonte is a musical all-rounder, he is not interested in conventions. In 1979 he made his breakthrough with the album “Un Gelato Al Limon”. He then wrote the hit “Azzurro” for the singer and actor Celentano, who was already known at the time.Ĭonte was not enthusiastic about his own voice, which is why it took more years before he dared to take the stage as an interpreter. Conte wrote his first songs during a law lecture, as he later recalled. In fact, he then studied law and joined his father’s office.Īt first, music was just a hobby. But they didn’t think much of the musician profession – Paolo, like his brother, father, grandfather and uncle, was supposed to become a lawyer or notary. There he got to know jazz from his parents at an early age, because both were enthusiastic amateur pianists. He was born into a family of lawyers in the wine town of Asti in the northern Italian region of Piedmont. “Sometimes it seems to me that all my life I have sung for these speechless and longing men of the post-war era.” He was supposed to be a lawyer In 2010 he told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” about a “collective sadness in my generation”. When the artist started in the 1960s and 70s, his addressees were primarily men who developed “a certain kind of melancholy” within themselves during and after the Second World War. Paolo Conte’s music reaches people in the most varied of moments and emotional states. In the darkest Corona hours at the beginning of 2020, many Italians sang “Azzurro” on their balconies in lockdown, encouraging each other. He composed the song first for Adriano Celentano and later included it in his own program. In addition to hits like “Sparring Partner” or “Via con me”, one of Italy’s unofficial anthems also comes from Conte – the world-famous “Azzurro”. He sings about lemon ice cream and the love for his wife (“Un Gelato al Limon”), about jazz (“Sotto le Stelle del Jazz”), about a legendary racing cyclist (“Bartali”) and about an entire continent (“Sudamerica”) ).
Lemon ice cream and a racing driverĬonte has written songs in different genres that have their place in the national canon. The musician will be 85 years old on Thursday (January 6th). “He is the prince of Italian music, a nobleman, he is the greatest, he towers over everyone,” enthused actor and director Roberto Benigni most recently in a film documentary about his longtime friend and artist colleague.
With his music and smoky voice, however, the songwriter from Piedmont has shaped an entire country for half a century. Rome – When Paolo Conte sits at the piano with narrowed eyes and a slightly wrinkled nose, he doesn’t necessarily look like the grand master of Italy’s “Cantautori”. But then he wrote “Azzurro” for Adriano Celentano, a little later he dared to take the stage himself and became one of Italy’s greatest musicians. Music is actually just a hobby of the lawyer Paolo Conte. Paolo Conte at the opening of the Montreux Jazz Festival 2018.
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