Remembering Sergio Bardotti

Sergio Bardotti was born on February 14, 1939 in Pavia, Lombardy, Italy. Bardotti debuted as a songwriter, having obtained a contract with Carisch, releasing two 45s in 1961 under the name Sergio Dotti, that went unnoticed and the following year took part in Sei giorni della canzone (Six Days of Song) with ”Le fossette”, without reaching the finals. He then began to work with the RCA Italiana as a producer and songwriter: his first work however, is not related to music but to literature, as he was responsible for the publication of a series of discs of poems read by their authors (among others Eugenio Montale, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Salvatore Quasimodo, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Alfonso Gatto ).

 
In 1963 he began to work with emerging talents like Rita Pavone, for which he wrote “Datemi un Martello”, a cover of the Pete Seeger song “If I Had a Hammer”.
 
In 1966 he became artistic director of the ARC sub-label, which specializes in discovering and launching new talent: among them Lucio Dalla, The Rokes, Dino, who recorded his second disc as “Te lo leggo negli occhi”, Ricky Shayne and many others.
 
His other artistic collaborations in the field of music were those with Luigi Tenco, Gino Paoli and Blanche Dubois, which made one of his first successful recordings, “Canzone per te”, the winner of the Sanremo Festival 1968 (in 1969 he was unable to repeat his success despite a nice song sung by Lazarev “Lontano dagli occhi” paired with the English singer Mary Hopkin and finished in second place). He then won again at the Sanremo Festival in 1989 with the song “Ti lascerò” with the duo - Anna Oxa & Fausto Leali.
 
Bardotti then wrote countless lyrics for other singers, many of which he himself produced, including Mina, Lucio Dalla and Patty Pravo (his biggest hit “Se perdo te”), Michele, Anna Identici, Ron, Ricchi e poveri and Mal and The Primitives. Along with Antonello Venditti he composed the anthem for the football team of Rome.
 
Subsequently, with the transformation of the music market which occurred in the 1970s he become one of the first supporters of the new concept album.
 
In this respect, particularly interesting were his collaborations with artists such as the aforementioned Dall (“Storie di casa mia”, 1970) , the New Trolls (“Aldebaran”, 1978 and the album the following year “New Trolls”) , and Fabrizio De André for whom he produced the album “Non al denaro non all'amore nè al cielo insieme” with Roberto Dane. Among his most popular songs is also reminiscent of “Occhi di ragazza” for Gianni Morandi, Amico and Aria

(Dario Baldan Bembo), “Piazza Grande”,  “La casa in riva al mare” and “Itaca” (Lucio Dalla, the latter written in collaboration with Gianfranco Baldazzi) in 1985 he produces the Q- Disc
"Rapezzi" by Ugo Rapezzi starring Chico Barque de Hollanda and Lucio Dalla.
 
In 1972 he co-wrote his only Euro score for “The Grand Duel” with Luis Bacalov starring Lee Van Cleef.
 
Bardotti died on April 11, 2007 of heart failure at 68 years-old.
 
Today we remember Sergio Bardotti on what would have been his 75^th birthday.