Peppino di Capri died on the morning of July 11th in his villa on Capri, the island where he was born and where he had chosen to return to live. He was 86 years old and had been fighting an illness for some time. He would have turned 87 on July 27.
Giuseppe Faiella, this is his real name, grew up in a family of musicians and began playing the piano as a child. At the end of the fifties, together with his Rockers, he had the intuition that would mark his career: mixing American rock'n'roll and twist with the Neapolitan melodic tradition. The result was an elegant and recognizable style, which renewed the Neapolitan song and made it modern precisely in the boom years.
In 1965 he was the only Italian artist to go on stage that hosted the Beatles on their Italian tour, opening concerts at the Velodromo Vigorelli in Milan and at the Cinema Adriano in Rome. He participated in the Sanremo Festival fifteen times, a record, and won it twice, in 1973 with A great love and nothing more and in 1976 with I don't do it anymore.
In his repertoire they remain evergreen as Roberta, Capri moon, St. Tropez Twist and above all Champagnethe song that more than any other has fixed his name in the collective memory, which has become the soundtrack of parties and toasts for generations. Over the years the song has been rediscovered, so much so that in 2015 Gué wanted it with him in Champagne rivers.
