Sanremo Music Festival 1965

The festival was organised by Società ATA, the concessionary of the Sanremo Casino and held between 28 and 30 January 1965.^[3] Gianni Ravera reprised his role as artistic director.^[4]

The format stayed largely the same as the format from the 1964 edition. Each song was performed twice, once by an Italian artist and once by a foreign artist.^[5] Italian artists were limited to performing only one song, while foreign artists were allowed to perform two.^[6]

ATA received 242 song submissions from music publishers for the competition. An advisory commission chaired by composer Carlo Savina, composed of the seven journalists Giorgio Berti, Angelo Cavallo, Sandro Delli Ponti, Filippo D'Errico, Rodolfo D'Intino, Vittorio Franchini and Velia Veniero, narrowed down the list of submissions to thirty-five in November 1964.^[5][12] ATA then selected twenty-four for the competition in December.^[13][6]

Before the list of twenty-four songs was finalised, the record label RCA Records decided to withdraw their participation in protest of ATA not accepting all five of the songs they wanted chosen for the event, planned to be performed by their artists Paul Anka, Alain Barrière, Dalida, Neil Sedaka and Gino Paoli.^[14][15]

Among the competing Italian artists were Vittorio Inzaina [it] and Franco Tozzi [it], who were given the right to participate after winning the 1964 edition of the Castrocaro Music Festival for newcomer artists.^[5][16]

Both the American singer Dionne Warwick and the English singer Julie Rogers were initially included on the list of competing artists released by ATA on 11 January, set to perform the songs "Di fronte all'amore" and "Aspetta domani" respectively, but their record label announced their withdrawal from the competition shortly after. Rogers was replaced by Kiki Dee, while Dusty Springfield took up "Di fronte all'amore" as her second song in Warwick's absence.^[14][17][18]

The festival consisted of three live shows held between 28 and 30 January 1965. Each night consisted of twelve songs performed twice, once by an Italian artist and once by an artist of foreign origin. The shows were presented by Mike Bongiorno, who was assisted by Grazia Maria Spina.^[4][5] The television production was directed by Romolo Siena [it].^[3]

During the first two nights, the songs were presented in groups of three, with foreign artists always performing their songs after an Italian artist had already done so.^[11] The running orders were determined by random draw, decided on the day they took place.^[19][11] For the final, all of the Italian artists performed in the first half of the show, followed by the foreign artists in the second half.^[9]

Final night

The final night took place on 30 January 1965 at 21:00 CET.^[3] The twelve songs admitted to the final were performed again and a winner was chosen.^[25]

The winning song was "Se piangi, se ridi", written by Mogol, Gianni Marchetti and Bobby Solo, and was performed by Solo and the American group The New Christy Minstrels.^[4][25]

  Winner

More information R/O, Song ...

Final night – 30 January 1965^[26][25]

R/O	Song	Italian artist	Foreign artist
1	"Se piangi, se ridi"	Bobby Solo	The New Christy Minstrels
2	"Aspetta domani"	Fred Bongusto	Kiki Dee
3	"Abbracciami forte"	Ornella Vanoni	Udo Jürgens
4	"Vieni con noi"	Milva	Bernd Spier
5	"Le colline sono in fiore"	Wilma Goich	The New Christy Minstrels
6	"L'amore ha i tuoi occhi"	Bruno Filippini	Yukari Ito
7	"Si vedrà"	Vittorio Inzaina	Les Surfs
8	"Ho bisogno di vederti"	Gigliola Cinquetti	Connie Francis
9	"Prima o poi"	Remo Germani and Le Amiche	Audrey
10	"Amici miei"	Nicola Di Bari	Gene Pitney
11	"Invece no"	Betty Curtis	Petula Clark
12	"Io che non vivo (senza te)"	Pino Donaggio	Jody Miller

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