Sal Da Vinci before “Forever Yes”

«Mine is there victory of a people and the victory of all who have persevered in following a dream. I’ve been doing this job since I was 7 years and I carried it forward with perseveranceBetween steep falls and climbs. Even when there was the stormy sea I have always tried to bring the ship to port. It wasn’t easy. This is the victory of all those who, like me, they come from below», said Sal Da Vinci the day after the victory of Sanremo Festival 2026 with his “Forever yes”. At the Festival the 56 year old Neapolitan singer-songwriter he took more than one revenge. Last year, in the wake of the exploit on TikTok Of “Lipstick and coffee”had presented to Carlo Conti a duet song with his son Francis (actor and singer, known to most for starring in “Gomorrah – The series”in 2019), which also appears as co-author of “Forever yes”, together with Alessandro La Cava, Federica Abbate, Eugenio Maimone And Merk & Kremontwho also have it produced. It didn’t go well: discarded. For the thirtieth time.

Televoting in Sanremo in 2009

He himself said that before setting foot at Ariston for the first time in 2009, when Paolo Bonolis took him to the race with “I can’t make you fall in love” (written with Gigi D’Alessio And Vincenzo D’Agostinoreference lyricist of the Neapolitan scene, recently deceased), tried to participate in the event for good thirteen timesalways without success. And after the third place of that year – «at a certain point the televoting. People who tried to vote for me couldn’t do it. I still have the evidence, in the old phones. Only the technicians of the time know the reason” – he tried to apply for others seventeen timesbefore finally being taken by Conti with “Forever yes”. At the time of the winner’s announcement on Saturday evening, Salvatore Michael Sorrentino – this is the real name of the artist, born in New York in 1969 as the father Mario Da VinciNeapolitan singer and actor who died in 2015, was engaged in a tour in the USA – he began to prancing around on stage for happiness. Then, clasping his hands, he looked up. Finally, still with your hands clasped, you are kneeling in front of the Ariston stalls, under the rain of confetti. “I don’t understand anything,” he said, accepting the award, crying. «I want to share this award with mine familywhich helped me so much to overcome every moment. And to my city, Naples», he added, before once again singing the “Forever yes” dedicated to his wife Paola Pugliesefrom forty years at his siderunning to hug the teacher Adriano Penninoarranger and producer of reference for Neapolitan music, historic right-hand man of Gigi D’Alessio (at the Festival this year he also conducted the orchestra for Luchè).

Among his fans also Silvio Berlusconi

His wife himself, on the eve of the final, said in an interview with The Republic her husband’s far from simple past: records that remained confined in the Campania territory (the first, “Miracle ‘and Christmas”was released in 1976when Sal Da Vinci was just 7 years: he recorded it together with his father, as well as the next six before his solo breakthrough in 1980 with “’A carousel”), economic difficultiesambitions that regularly clashed with him skepticism and it record company snobbery. To try to get out of Naples and its surroundings in 1992 participate in “A voice for Sanremo” to Sunday Inconducted by Toto Cutugno And Alba Parietti. In the 1994 it is instead among the competitors of Italian music festivalorganized by Channel 5 – and presented by Mike Bongiorno And Antonella Elia – to create an alternative to the Sanremo Festival. By the way: after Sal Da Vinci’s victory at the Sanremo Festival, old rumors resurfaced according to which Silvio Berlusconi was a supporter of the Neapolitan singer-songwriter, enough to invite him to private parties and to ask him to write a new one anthem for the PDL intended to replace “Thank goodness Silvio is there” (but the project did not come to fruition and Berlusconi wrote the anthem himself, together with Maria Rosaria Rossi). At the Italian Music Festival Da Vinci ranked at first place with “True”contained in the first album recorded for a national record label, la Memories recordssimply titled “Sal Da Vinci”.

The theater experience with De Simone

In the 1999when he already has it under his belt fifteen albumsfive of which were recorded without his father, the Neapolitan singer-songwriter and actor (did you know that in 1985 Carlo Verdone he had him do a part in “Too strong”?), receives a phone call from the great Neapolitan theater director and musicologist Roberto De Simonewho wanted it “The comic opera of Maundy Thursday”. «When Roberto De Simone asked Sal to perform “L’opera buffa del Maundy Thursday” at the theatre, he hesitated, he didn’t accept immediately, because he wanted to continue being a singer. I was the one who asked him to say yes to the teacher. I confronted him with reality: “We have two small children, what do we give them to eat?”. It was the period in which the record companies turned up their noses, they didn’t want to produce him, they told him: “You’re from the drama””, said his wife. The success of “Once upon a time… Scugnizzi”musical written by Claudio Mattone and Enrico Vaime and inspired by the film Scugnizzi Of Nanni Loy which keeps him busy again in the theater after the experience with De Simone (also in the cast Serena Rossi), sees him as the protagonist for five seasons.

The boom of “Lipstick and coffee”

The general television audience finds him again in 2009fifteen years after participating in the Italian Music Festival, on the stage of Sanremo Festival. With “I can’t make you fall in love” he is eliminated from the opinion poll jurybut fished out from televoting. Televoting which allows him to access the three-way finalwith Marco Carta (competing with “La forza mia”) e Povia (“Luca was gay”), where however the former winner of Friends of Maria De Filippi has the upper hand. In the following years he continued to work steadily: albums, tours, musicals, collaborations. But the national popular success he doesn’t seem to want to know he’s coming, despite the support of a giant of Italian music like Renato Zerowho in 2017 acted as his artistic director for the album “Non si fa amministrazione” (also signing several songs on the album). Then, in 2024it happensunlikely. One of his songs, yet another, thanks to the push of TikTok turns out to be one hits: we are talking, of course, about that “Lipstick and coffee” that has come to surpass su Spotify 70 million streams. «Sal came from a period of crisis after the advent of trap and raphe said: “Where am I going with my music?”. I tried to give him strength: “Love, you have the theaterit’s your home.” Falls and ascentsof course, but I underline that we have always been unitedin dark moments and in beautiful ones, like this one”, said his wife.

“From below”

In Sanremo, despite having been discarded, last year he returned to sing “Rossetto e caffè” in the evening of coverstogether with The Kolors: «I always came one step away from being included in the cast, then it never went well. Every Christmas I felt sad, knowing I had received yet another “no”. It was yet another revenge of a project started from the bottomwithout the push of record companies, exploded thanks to the people». Who’s going to stop him now?