The first of the Urlatori has passed away, the voice whose songs "Come Prima" and "Romantica" helped bring Italian songwriting to modernity. Tony Dallara succumbed to a long illness after a career that essentially shone through the 1950s and 1960s, earning him a prominent place in the history of popular music . He died after being hospitalized in Milan, but had already been experiencing health problems in 2024 and had been in a coma for two months.
He was born in Campobasso in 1936, where he was registered as Antonio Lardera , but he actually spent his life in Milan, which in the 1950s was an extraordinary laboratory of ideas, with grand theater, artistic revolutions, and jazz that happily mingled in nightclubs with the early craze of rock 'n' roll. That very world would later give rise to artists like Gaber, Jannacci, and Celentano, to name just three. Dallara had a natural talent as a singer, a powerful voice , and the physique du role. He loved Frankie Lane (who, for the record, was Francesco Paolo LoVecchio and sang the English version of "Una lacrima sul viso" at the Sanremo Music Festival in 1964) and, above all, Tony Williams, the legendary lead singer of The Platters' "Only You." In short, he was at ease in those contexts, halfway between melody and the then-aggressive rock 'n' roll.
The turning point in his career came when, together with Bruno De Filippi, a great guitarist and author of "Tintarella di Luna," among others, he formed I Campioni, the group in which, after several lineup changes, Lucio Battisti took his first professional steps as guitarist . It was with I Campioni that Dallara recorded "Come Prima" in 1958, the song that achieved resounding success—over 300,000 copies sold, and is still used in commercials today— and earned him a place among the ranks of the Urlatori, the term coined to describe the new wave formed by Dallara, but also by Mina and Celentano, who were changing the rules of songwriting , distancing themselves from the tradition of Gino Latilla and Claudio Villa.
Within a few years, he entered the whirlwind of 45s, such as "Ti dirò," "Non Partir," "Brivido Blu," and musicals like Lucio Fulci's "I ragazzi del Juke Box," as well as festivals and TV shows that defined that season. Indeed, in 1960, he released the most famous song of his career: "Romantica," with which he won the Sanremo Festival , partnered with Renato Rascel, and "Canzonissima": a worldwide hit, also translated into Japanese. A success that has never been replicated. At the same festival, he also performed "Noi," partnered with Jula De Palma.
In 1961, he returned to the Sanremo stage with Un uomo vivo, paired with Gino Paoli, and in 1964 with Come posso dimenticarti, alongside Ben E. King. Just a few years later, his career shifted toward a melodic genre that was completely counter to Beat and the new movements sweeping youth music . In the 1970s, he retired from the stage to devote himself to painting, finding among his supporters Dino Buzzati, who promoted his first solo exhibition at the Galleria Cairola in Milan as early as 1960, and Renato Guttuso: a passion that brought him into contact with Andy Warhol, Lucio Fontana, Roberto Crippa, Enrico Baj, and other great artists of his time, and shaped his creative journey until his last exhibition in 2023.
Once back on the scene, he occupied the roles that television has long assigned to past glories, which foster the proliferation of evenings. His successes, the original hiccups of his style, and those triplet arrangements that have been assimilated into viral singles produced by artificial intelligence, remain in our memory. In 2001 , Tony Dallara was named Cavaliere della Repubblica by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi , in recognition of his contribution to Italian music and for bringing Italian song to the world, acknowledging his long-standing success and career.
(Unioneonline)