Conductor, composer, arranger, he was a pop icon of the Festival and of TV. He was 69 years old
Few figures have become as iconic in Sanremo as Peppe Vessicchio, who died yesterday at the age of 69 due to complications from pneumonia. Musician, arranger and conductor, he managed to conquer the public not only for his talent, but also for his presence that is never intrusive but charismatic. His name has been synonymous with Sanremo for years: «Maestro Peppe Vessicchio conducts the orchestra» has become a cult phrase on Italian television. A pop icon, a master in arranging and enhancing artists’ songs with a classic and modern style at the same time.
Of all his performances at the Festival, there is one that has gone down in history, staged during the 1996 Sanremo hosted by Pippo Baudo. With Elio e le Storie Tese Vessicchio was the protagonist of a cult and revolutionary moment in the Italian song festival becoming the ideal accomplice to mess up all the rules by directing La terra dei cachi, a brilliant puzzle piece made of rock, neomelodic hints, Charleston tarantella and so on. In the piece, in which all the orchestra members were involved, without exception, the beginning was marked by the Ariston with the unpublished and ironic jun “Ready, go, go” shouted by Vessicchio in place of the traditional count.
He is always there to conduct the piece every evening, Beppe Vessicchio, accomplice and director of one of the performances that made the history of the Festival. He is always there on the podium while Elii appear dressed in purple (an unpopular color in the world of entertainment) or with a silver-coloured shaved skull, disguised as Rockets (the historic French space disco rock band). And Vessicchio always leads the band in a brilliant provocation: the bizarre regulation of that edition of Sanremo in fact provided that the competing artists could sing an excerpt of the song on the final evening with only one minute available.
Everyone just played the chorus but the Elii directed by Vessicchio broke all conventions and decided to propose the entire piece played at a crazy speed. Shock effect and a rightful place in the history of the Festival.
For them and for Maestro Peppe, who as director he had won the Festival four times: in 2000 with Sentimento by Avion Travel, in 2003 with Per dire di no by Alexia, in 2010 with For all the times by Valerio Scanu and in 2011 with Call me again love by Roberto Vecchioni.
