Gianni Morandi

The following year was as well massimally successful thanks to "La fisarmonica", runner-up at Canzonissima, "Notte di ferragosto", which gave him a second Cantagiro win, the protest song "C'era un ragazzo che come me amava i Beatles e i Rolling Stones", and "Se perdo anche te", a cover of Neil Diamond's "Solitary Man".

[3] He reprised his career in April 1968, closing the decade with another string of hits, notably Cantagiro runner-up "Chimera", Canzonissima winning song "Scende la pioggia" (a cover of the Turtles' "Elenore") and "Bella Belinda".

[3] The same year he enjoyed critical acclaim for his acting performance in Pietro Germi's A Pocketful of Chestnuts and represented Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest 1970 with the Lucio Dalla's penned "Occhi di ragazza".

[3] In the following years, his career suffered a commercial downturn, with his ambitious 1975 album Il mondo di frutta candita, enterely penned by Oscar Prudente and Ivano Fossati, being a resounding failure.

[3] The same year he recorded a cover of Bob Seger's "We've Got Tonite" in a duet with Amii Stewart, "Grazie perchè"; the song was chosen as opening theme of Domenica in and reached the third place on the hit parade.

[3] After two well received albums (Immagine italiana and Uno su mille, whose title-track became a classic in his repertoire) and a Targa Tenco for best performer, Morandi won the Sanremo Music Festival 1987 with "Si può dare di più" together with Enrico Ruggeri and Umberto Tozzi.

[3] The decade ended for Morandi with another significant success, the half a million copies-selling album Varietà and its top ten singles, the Mogol-Lavezzi title-track and "Bella signora" by Lucio Dalla and Mauro Malavasi.

[5] In 2002, Morandi co-hosted with Lorella Cuccarini and Paola Cortellesi the Rai 1 Saturday night show Uno di noi,[8] and released the album L'amore ci cambia la vita, which was certifid double platinum.

[10] In 2006, Morandi hosted a new Rai 1 show, Non facciamoci prendere dal panico, released the new album Il tempo migliore, and penned an autobiography in a diary form, Diario di un ragazzo italiano.

[11] Morandi was chosen to be the presenter of Sanremo Music Festival 2011, together with Belén Rodríguez, Elisabetta Canalis and comedians Luca Bizzarri and Paolo Kessisoglu from Italia 1's satire show Le Iene.

Morandi and Laura Efrikian in In ginocchio da te (1964)
Morandi in 2002