Nicola Di Bari (born 29 September 1940) is an Italian singer-songwriter and actor. He is considered one of the "sacred monsters" of Italian pop music.[1]
Life and career
Born in
Zapponeta, Apulia, Di Bari was the youngest of ten children from a farming family.[2] He gave up his accountancy studies to work in Rome, and after a short stay in Rome he moved to
Milan.[2] In 1962, in
Cologno Monzese, he won a song contest with a song of which he was also the author, "Piano pianino".[2] In 1964 he achieved his first commercial success with the song "Amore ritorna a casa".[1] Between 1965 and 1967 he entered the competition at three editions of the
Sanremo Music Festival, while coupled with
Gene Pitney.[3]
In 1970 Di Bari obtained even greater commercial and critical success with the song "
La prima cosa bella", which ranked second at the
Sanremo Music Festival and first on the Italian hit charts.[3][4] In 1971 he won the
Sanremo Music Festival and Canzonissima, with the songs "
Il cuore è uno zingaro" and "Chitarra suona più piano".[3] In 1972, he again won the Sanremo Festival and represented Italy at the
Eurovision Song Contest with the song "
I giorni dell'arcobaleno" ("The Days of the Rainbow").[3] In the following years Di Bari grew his international popularity, especially in Latin America, where he recorded several albums in Spanish and where he gradually focused his career.[1][3] Nicola was also very much enamoured with Australia where he toured near and far on several occasions performing at Theatres and Italian Clubs venues organised by Italo-australian impresario Duane d Zigliotto.[citation needed]