Mourning in the world of music: Franco Gatti dei Ricchi e Poveri died in Genoa. He was 80 years old. The Rich and Poor together with their family announced it to ANSA: “A piece of our life has gone away. Hello Franco”. Franco leaves his wife and daughter.
He was one of the four members of the Rich and Poor musical group, born in 1967 and thus renamed by Franco Califano because, he said, they were “rich in ideas, but poor in money”. Born as a polyphonic quartetformed by two male voices, ‘the mustache’ Franco Gatti and ‘the blond’ Angelo Sotgiu, and two female voices, ‘the brunette’ Angela Brambati and ‘the blond’ Marina Occhienathe Ricchi e Poveri lost Occhiena herself, who left the group in 1981, and continued the journey as a trio.
After a career studded with great international successes such as It will be because I love you, What will it be, If I fall in love, The first beautiful thing, Mamma Maria and Voulez vous danserin 2016 it was Franco Gatti who left the Ricchi e Poveri to devote himself more to his family, after tragically losing his son. “A simple life choice,” he said, wishing his companions still many successes. A year after his abandonment, Angela and Angelo decided to try the adventure as a duo. The great reunion, on the stage of Sanremo, with the triumphal return of Franco and Marina it was a blow scored by the manager Danilo Mancuso and consecrated on the stage of the Ariston theater by Amadeus, in 2000, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the song ‘La prima cosa bella’ and the first participation in the 1970 Festival: a roundup of hits and a funny gag with Fiorello, a peak of ratings from that first Amadeus Sanremo festival. For Franco, going back to singing at the Ariston was a sort of artistic and moral compensation given that just in Sanremo, a few years earlier, in 2013, he had been reached by the tragic news of the sudden death of his son Alessio, only 23 years old, found lifeless in his home in Nervi, in Genoa. In that circumstance Franco had been forced to leave Sanremo where he was supposed to perform with the Ricchi e Poveri and receive a career award.
Sanremo, Rich and Poor: ‘Friendship is the first beautiful thing’
