Cantagiro was an Italian summer song contest held from 1962 to 1972 and 1990 to 1993. It featured three categories, A for famous artists, B for newcomers and C for groups. The creator of the competition was

Ezio Radaelli Ezio is an Italian masculine name, originating from the Latin name ''Aetius''. It may refer to: * Flavius Aetius (c. 396–454), Roman general, after whom Metastasio's libretto and all the operas below are named. ** Ezio (libretto), opera libretto ...

. The name of the festival was a reference to the

bicycle race "Bicycle Race" is a song by the British rock band Queen. It was released on their 1978 album ''Jazz'' and written by Queen's lead singer Freddie Mercury. It was released as a double A-side single together with the song " Fat Bottomed Girls", rea ...

Giro d'Italia, and, as the Giro, Cantagiro was organized as a

stage race A race stage, leg, or heat is a unit of a race that has been divided in several parts for the reason such as length of the distance to be covered, as in a multi-day event. Usually, such a race consists of "ordinary" stages, but sometimes stages ...

consisting of eleven or twelve daily stages, each set in a different city. A peculiar characteristic of the festival was that, while traveling between one stage and the other, singers were required to travel in an open car, to be at the disposal of the crowd of fans, otherwise risking fines or disqualification from the competition; accordingly the travel usually resolved into a huge crowd, with fans waiting their idols in every corner of the path. The festival was the main subject of two

musicarello The musicarello (; plural: musicarelli) is a film subgenre which emerged in Italy and which is characterised by the presence in main roles of young singers, already famous among their peers, and their new record album. In the films there are alm ...

films, ''Urlo contro melodia nel Cantagiro 1963'' (1964) and ''La più bella coppia del mondo'' (1967).

Winners

Cantagiro

Nuovo Cantagiro

References