Actors - Luigi Tenco

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	Actors - Luigi Tenco

Luigi Tenco (March 21 1938 – Sanremo, Imperia, January 27 1967) was a popular Italian singer, songwriter and actor.

Biography

Tenco was born in Cassine (province of Alessandria), the son of Teresa Zoccola and Giuseppe Tenco. He never knew his father, who died in unclear circumstances. It has been rumoured that indeed Luigi Tenco was the spawn of his mother's extra-marriage relationship.

Tenco spent his childhood in Cassine and Ricaldone until 1948, when he moved to Liguria, first in Nervi and then in Genoa, where his mother had a wine shop. During high school, Tenco founded the Jerry Roll Morton Boys Jazz band, in which Tenco played the clarinet and another later famous singer, Bruno Lauzi, the banjo. Gino Paoli, also a future famous Italian singer-songwriter, was a member of the later Tenco's band, I Diavoli del Rock ("The Rock Devils").

Tenco made his debut in the world of Italian professional music with the band I cavalieri ("The Knights"), which included Giampiero Reverberi and Enzo Jannacci among the others. In this period he used the pseudonym Gigi Mai. In 1961 Tenco released his first single, under his true name, entitled Quando ("When").

In 1962 Tenco began a short-lived cinema experience, with Luciano Salce's movie La cuccagna. He also collaborated on the soundtrack for the film. In this period he also formed a strong friendship with the Genoese anarchist poet Riccardo Mannerini. In 1963, however, his friendship with Gino Paoli broke up, due to a troubleed relationship with the actress Stefania Sandrelli.

Tenco's first LP was released in 1962, Ballate e canzoni. One of the songs, "Cara maestra" ("Dear Teacher"), was censored by the then thriving Italian media censorship. It struck again in the following year, against his songs "Io sì" ("I Do") and "Una brava ragazza" ("A Good Maiden").

In 1966, suffering through a period of compulsory military service, he released Un giorno dopo l'altro ("A Day After Another") for RCA. In Rome during the same year, he met and befriended the Italo-French singer Dalida. The two were eventually became lovers.

In 1967 he took part to Italian Song Festival in San Remo. It was rumoured that he participated against his will. The song was Ciao amore ciao ("Hello Love, Hello"), which he had to sing together with Dalida. Tenco allegedly committed suicide on January 27, after learning that his song had been eliminated from the final competition. Tenco was found in his hotel room with a bullet wound in his left temple and a note announcing that his gesture was against the jury and public's choices during the competition. Only days earlier Tenco's wedding to ] had been announced. It was she who discovered his body.

Tenco was buried in Ricaldone. In 1974 the Tenco Award was instituted, and has been held every year since in San Remo. Many of the most renowned Italian singer-songwriters from the 1970s declared explicitly the influence of Tenco over their work. Francesco De Gregori's album Bufalo Bill of 1976 contained a song, "Festival," about Tenco's suicide; it points out the hypocrisy with which the music establishment tried to minimize the dramatic event, in order to let the show go on.

The French television channel TV5 recently carried a full-length dramatization of the love affair of Tenco and Dalida. Tenco was played by Sabrina Ferilli.

The Italian judicial system later began re-examinining Luigi Tenco's suicide. It was pointed out that the bullet hole was on the left temple, while the singer was right-handed. It had also been revealed that no autopsy had been done on the singer's corpse, and no calligraphic analysis on the suicide note with which he explained his final gesture.

On 15 February, 2006, Italian police exhumed Tenco's body for further investigation . The next day they confirmed that he had died of the gunshot wound and that his death was a suicide.

Discography

Ballate e canzoni (1962)
Luigi Tenco canta De André, Jannacci, Bob Dylan, Mogol (1963)
Ti ricorderai di me (1963)
Se stasera sono qui (1964)
Pensaci un po' (1964)
Le canzoni di Luigi Tenco (1965)
Luigi Tenco, Ricordi (1962)
Luigi Tenco, Jolly, (1965)
Tenco, RCA (1966)

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