RITA PAVONE BBL-147 RCA Victor
1. La partita di pallone (Carlo Rossi-Edoardo Vianello)
2. Abbiamo sedici anni (Dino Verde-Bruno Canfora)
3. Clémentine Chérie (Camucia-Tallino)
4. T’ho conosciuto (Carlo Rossi-Dansavio)
5. Sul cucuzzolo (della montagna) Carlo Rossi-Edoardo Vianello
6. Le lentiggini (Dino Verde-Bruno Canfora)
1. Il ballo del mattone (Dino Verde-Bruno Canfora)
2. Come te non c’è nessuno (Franco Migliacci-Oreste Vassalo)
3. Cuore (Heart) Barry Mann-Cynthia Weill; Italian words by Carlo Rossi
4. Alla mia età (Carlo Rossi-Roby Ferrante)
5. La commessa (Carlo Rossi-Piero Piccioni)
6. Amore twist (Bovenzi)
released in Brazil in October 1963
The liner-notes on the back of Rita Pavone’s first album say she was a 17 year-old from Turin who had won a new-talent contest in Rome in September 1962, and went on to record a 45 rpm single for RCA Italiana. ‘La partita di pallone’ (The football match) a song first released in the summer of 1962 to cash in on FIFA's World Cup fever in Chile where Brazil came up on top for the 2nd time in a row. Cocky Mazzetti’s original record was the lament of a married young lady who is left home alone on Sundays while her fancy-free hubby goes out to watch his favourite football team playoffs. She suspects he might actually be seeing someone else and tells him she’ll go back to her mum’s if he doesn’t change his ways. Pavone’s record had an infectious guitar introduction devised by Argentine arranger Luis Enriquez played by Enrico Ciacci, that hooked the listener straight away. The single went all the way to number one in the Italian charts. That was Pavone’s way of saying: ‘Here I am, take heed!’
Shortly after, Rita was featured in ‘Alta Pressione’ (High pressure) a youth-oriented TV programme on RAI Uno that made her freckled-face popular overnight. Rita’s amazing luck continued as few weeks later when Mina, Italy’s number one songstress, had to leave ‘Studio Uno’ due to being pregnant with a love child. Producers Antonello Falqui and Guido Sacerdote had to re-arrange ‘Studio Uno’ to Rita’s teen-age appeal and she was given the mammoth task of leading the highest-rating TV show in the land. She was supported by I Collettoni (tall-collared boys) a 7-member singing-dancing group of young men who helped her introduce guests and songs. The new formula catering for a younger audience on a Saturday night show paid off in the end. The times they were indeed a-changing.
The songs featured in Pavone’s first album were mostly written by staff musicians and lycists working for RAI and RCA Italiana. Many of the tunes were custom-made for Rita’s idiosyncracies like her age ‘Alla mia età’ (At my age), ‘Abbiamo 16 anni’ (We are 16 year-olds), her freckles ‘Le lentiggini’ (Freckles) and her red hair in ‘Pel di carota’, even though the latter was dropped out from the Brazilian album in favour of ‘Cuore’ that had been recorded after the Italian album had come out.
At first I intended to review the Italian release (April 1963) but I changed my mind and decided instead to review the Brazilian release (October 1963) because the latter is a better album.
‘LA PARTITA DI PALLONE’ – The football match – This was the first Pavone song I have ever heard. It got some air play in Brazil as of September 1963, when it was released as an EP along with 'Come te non c'è nessuno', ‘Alla mia età’ and ‘Clémentine Chérie’. I remember my older brother coming home one day and saying there was a record out by an Italian singer who sang something ‘obscene’. For some Brazilian ears the part Rita says: ‘u-una volta non ci porti pure me?’ (why don’t you take me to the match some time?) sounded like ‘o cú na boca...’ which means ‘the arse in the mouth’. For Anglo ears who are not used to hearing foreign hits played on their radios it may sound strange that such a thing may have happened but to Brazilians whose hit parades were filled with hits sung in other languages (than the native Portuguese) everything was possible. I remember my younger sister thought Gigliola Cinquetti sang ‘um belo cú de ferro’ (a lovely iron arse) instead of ‘un bene così vero’ (a love so true) in ‘Dio come ti amo’, in 1965. So it is quite commom for folks to misunderstand foreign-language hits and find swearing words.
‘ABBIAMO SEDICI ANNI’ (We are sixteen-year-olds) - Dino Verde, head of a writing team at RAI TV wrote most of the texts of the songs performed by Rita Pavone at Studio Uno 1963-1964. This song was usually sung by I Collettoni with slightly different lyrics every time Pavone presented a new number in the show. In the Brazilian album sleeve it was never properly identified as being sung by I Collettoni so nobody had a clue why Rita’s voice had dropped so ‘low’. It took me years to know that the voices in ‘Abbiamo 16 anni’ are those of Gianni Morandi, Roby Ferrante and other unidentified RCA singers. All the musical numbers shown on Studio Uno were previously recorded at the RCA studios, then taken to RAI where they were mimed by the various acts. The whole show was actually pre-recorded on video-tape and beamed on Saturday night throughout the Peninsula.
‘CLÉMENTINE CHÉRIE’ – Theme song from Pierre Chevalier's 'Clèmentine Chérie', a French movie shot in early 1963, where Rita appears at a Parisian dancing party with adults talking about classical music and a young set only thinking about the twist. Suddenly, someone mentions Mozart’s Turkish March and out of a corner comes Rita Pavone singing a twist number based on the Mozart tune accompanied at the piano by Teddy Reno. The song was written by two Italians but in the original French film Rita is dubbed in French by some female local singer who is not credited. In the Italian release which is obviously dubbed in Italian, Rita appears at the very beginning singing it in Italian, and later at the dancing party (in Italian again). The Italians also inserted another musical number (Pel di carota) half way through the plot. The song itself is a rocker that starts with the strains of Mozart's Turkish March and tells the story of a funny girl who's not quite sane.
‘T’HO CONOSCIUTO’ – I have just met you – This is a beautiful soft ballad where Rita is accompanied mainly by a double-bass. It was written by Ennio Morricone under the alias of Dansavio; words by omnipresent Carlo Alberto Rossi. It could have easily been a single. Actually this first album is almost a ‘Greatest Hits’ if you come to think of it.
‘SUL CUCUZZOLO’ (Della montagna) – At the top of the mountain – Even though it’s in the first album, that track was Pavone’s fourth hit-single in Brazil, coming after ‘Cuore’, ‘Datemi un martello’ and ‘Scrivi’. The reason for 'Sul cucuzzolo' being released as a single in Brazil is strictly local. When Rita toured Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and first sang this rocker there was a tumultuous reception to it. It’s an up-tempo gay song but the uproarious reception to it had a different reason: as in 'La partita di pallone' before, she pronounced a 'cuss-word': ‘sci-sci’ (pronunciation: 'shee-shee') which is the equivalent of ‘pee’ – urine, in children's talk. So every time Rita sang those words Brazilians of all age had a little laugh... and children went wild about a grown-up singer being allowed to say such word in public. All of a sudden ‘Sul cucuzzolo’ became a hit in Brazil, and RCA had to release it as a single that went to number three in October 1964.
‘LE LENTIGGINI’ – Freckles – It’s a customized song for the girl who had a face full of freckles. Dino Verde's smart lyrics tell of a girl who’s necking with her boy-friend at a dark corner... all of a sudden the moon waxes large illuminating her freckled face; the boy stops the kissing right there turned off by so many freckles he had the chance to see for the first time. She goes on blaming those horrible, hateful freckles which made her so lonely.
‘IL BALLO DEL MATTONE’ – The brick dance – It's a kind of slow dance in which a couple won't move too far either to the left or to the right; in other words, they'll concentrate in counting the beat and 'neck' at the same time. Got it? By 1963, most of the new dance-crazes like the twist, rock, hully-gully, madison were danced separately. Couples did not touch each other. ‘Il ballo del mattone’ tries to revert that trend. She tells her lover not to be jealous when she dances rock, twist or hully-gully with other boys. When it's time to slow-dancing she'll certainly come back to him.
‘COME TE NON C’È NESSUNO’ – There’s no one like you – Arguably the best ballad in the album, especially if one does not include ‘Cuore’ which was not in the Italian album. This was Rita’s second single. When RCA realized they had a ‘gold mine’ in their hands they managed to come up with original material. Rita shines all the way through the long finale... which in the Brazilian album invites the listener to prepare his ears (and heart) for the double-bass' introductory ‘thump thump’ of 'Cuore'.
‘CUORE’ – Heart! I hear you beating – It was written by Cynthia Weill and Barry Mann, a wife-and-huband team who spent their formative years working for Al Nevins and Don Kirshner at Aldon Music, at the legendary Brill Building on Broadway that manufactured pop hits as if it were an assembly-line in the early 60s. ‘Heart’ was Wayne Newton's very first 45 rpm for Capitol. It reached no higher than # 84 at Billboard in early 1963. It just went unnoticed in the US.
It took Luis Enriquez’s sensibility to arrange ‘Cuore’ in such a way that it took everyone's breath away and went all the way to the top of the Italian charts in mid-1963. It starts with the faint beating of a double-bass that slowly goes on in a crescendo with the gradual addition of voice, drums and strings to literally explode in the half time. Then Rita does what she does better: she shouts to the top, contorts, plea, cries and begs! She ain't no James Brown but she should've been named the 'hardest working woman in Italian show business'.
‘ALLA MIA ETÀ’ – At my age – In 1963, it was commonplace for teen-age performers to sing about their own ages. Françoise Hardy had her biggest hit with ‘Tous les garçons et les filles de mon age’ (All the boys and girls at my age), which Belgian teen-beauty Catherine Spaak covered in Italian. Gigliola Cinquetti won San Remo 1964, with the teary ‘Non ho l’età per amarti’ (I don’t have the proper age to love you). ‘At my age’ is almost a sex-education class explaining how hormones play havoc with poor teenagers’ bodies. Musically it reminds ‘Tous le garçons et les filles’ a lot. It was Pavone’s third hit-single in a row.
‘LA COMMESSA’ – The shop assistant – Jazzy tune about a shop-assistant who just can’t wait for closing time for her to see her lover. Accompanied mainly by a piano, Rita shows that even as a 17 year-old Italian girl she had already been exposed to 'scat' done most likely by Ella Fitzgerald.
‘AMORE TWIST’ – It was the B-side of ‘La partita di pallone’ and it shouted the magic word: twist! It was still ‘twisting time’ in Italy, so the year must be 1962, even if it was late 1962! Those dance crazes had a very short use-by-date. One can almost tell what month it was by the title of a dance-song from that era.
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