Trivia

In 1960, Dallara won the Sanremo Music Festival and the Canzonissima competition with the song "Romantica". The following year, he won Canzonissima with the song "Bambina bambina".

Italian singer, the son of a La Scala chorus member. His biggest hit was also his first released single. "Come prima", although refused for admission to the Sanremo Festival, was published in December 1957 and sold 300,000 copies, becoming the biggest selling single in Italy up to that point.

Worked as a barman, clerk and delivery man before becoming a singer.

Youngest of five children.

Originally from Campobasso but had move to Milan as a child with his family,.

Often compared with Tony Williams of the Platters, Tony Dallara was one of Italy's top vocalists of the late '50s and early '60s.

After a long absence due to health problems (he was even in a coma for 2 months) on 21 and 28 January 2024 and again on 4 February 2024 he returned to TV taking part in Mara Venier's Domenica in show, singing his hits Romantica, Come prima, Ti dirò and Bambina bambina live.

In 1964, he reached at the Sanremo Festival the finals with "Come potrei dimenticarti", performed in a double performance with Ben E. King.

Dallara decided to present himself at the selections for the 2008 Sanremo Festival , with Teo Teocoli with the song Cartà d'identità but he was not admitted.

In 2019 he participated in the song Anime by rapper MAK.

Since the early months of 2008, Dallara has been a television commentator on L'Italia sul 2 on Rai 2.

Friends with Louis Armstrong, he accompanied him to Sanremo and Mine where Armstrong performed what would prove to be his final concerts.

Throughout the 1960s , Dallara was no longer able to enter the charts: even television and radio slowly forgot about him. In the 1970s, after a final participation in " Un disco per l'estate 1972 " with "Mister amore " (a song excluded from the final phase of the competition), he retired from the music world and devoted himself to painting, exhibiting his works in various galleries and earning the friendship and esteem of Renato Guttuso.

In the early 1980s, Dallara decided to resume his activity, at least as far as his evening performances were concerned: thanks in part to the revival, he returned, especially in the summer months, to perform his old hits. He also re-recorded his old hits with new arrangements.

He began his musical career in the band Rocky Mountains and his singing style was inspired, in particular, by American singers such as Frankie Laine and Tony Williams.

His career began in the 1950s when, together with Bruno De Filippi, a great guitarist and author of "Tintarella di Luna", among other songs, he formed "I Campioni", the group in which Lucio Battisti took his first steps after several line-up changes. In 1958, he was noticed by Walter Guertler, director of the Music record company, the label for which the singer-songwriter recorded the iconic "Come prima," one of the most iconic songs on the national scen.

In 2001, Tony Dallara was named Cavaliere della Repubblica by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, in recognition of his contribution to music and for bringing Italian song to the world.

Dallara is also known for being the first of the "Urlatori" (Screamers), a group of artists who, between the late 1950s and early 1960s, decided to abandon the tradition of Italian "melodic" singing, introducing the new rhythms of American rock and roll. This circle of "pioneers" included musicians of the caliber of Adriano Celentano, Mina, and Giorgio Gaber.

In the 1970s, he retired from the stage to devote himself to painting, a passion that allowed him to come into contact with Andy Warhol, Lucio Fontana, Roberto Crippa, Enrico Baj, and other great artists of the time. His last exhibition dates back to 2023.

A well-rounded artist, he always combined his love of music with his love of painting. In 1960, he opened his first solo exhibition at the renowned Galleria Cairola on Via della Spiga in Milan, introduced by an essay by Dino Buzzati published in the Corriere della Sera .