Goodbye to Tony Dallara, king of the ‘screamers’

He died at the age of 89 Tony Dallarapseudonym of Antonio Lardera. Among his greatest successes can be mentioned “As before”, “Romantica”, “I’ll tell you” and “Baby, baby”songs that at the end of the 1950s marked a change in the history of Italian song. Dallara was, in fact, one of the first so-called “screamers”, due to a particular and new interpretative style that broke with the bel canto tradition of those years.

Dallara, born in Campobasso, grew up in Milan. His passion for singing led him from a young age to perform in clubs with some vocal groups, including i Rocky Mountainswhich they will later become The Champions. Tony looks at the song from overseas, especially the Platters. In 1957 he was signed by the Music record label after the director of Music heard him in a Milanese club. It will have an impact “As before”. The song published at the end of 1957 achieved great success.

Between the end of the fifties and the beginning of the sixties Tony Dallara publishes his greatest hits: “I’ll tell you”, “Blue shiver”, “Non partir”, “Boiling Ice”, “Julia”. In 1960 he won the Sanremo Festival paired with Renato Rascel with the song “Romantic” and Canzonissima also wins with the same song. In 1961 he returned to the Sanremo festival paired with Gino Paoli with “A Man Alive” and conquers Canzonissima with “Baby, Baby”will be his last great success. Public taste changed and in the Seventies Dallara withdrew from the world of music and threw himself body and soul, with good success, into painting.