The singer browses with us the many covers that Oggi has dedicated to him. To reread an entire life. Tell a lot of backstories. And explain for the first time (and definitively) why the great love with Romina went up in smoke. And smoking has something to do with it, but not tobacco

Albano Carrisi in Cellino San Marco in the exclusive images of Oggi Photo Video

Sixty-three covers of Oggi. Turned upside down on a table like a tarot deck in which to re-read a life and its meaning. Loves, triumphs, thuds, tragedies. Like a fortune teller, Albano Carrisi observes them, moves them, turns them over and over again. “I remember them all,” says the singer. It is in the hall of his villa, in the center of his Cellino San Marco (Brindisi) estate, in the center of a world that belongs to him, not by notarial deed, but because he is the one who gave it shape. Tanned, ripped jeans, white hat on his head, he can't stand still for a moment. It's a force of nature. He has five children, three grandchildren and the age of a patriarch: 80 on May 20. He doesn't show them. Maybe he doesn't accept them. 'Eighty no, four times twenty' - photo | video

Albano Carrisi: 'I'm not 80, I'm 4 times 20' Albano Carrisi: 'I'm not 80, I'm 4 times 20'

Albano Carrisi: “The divorce from Romina Power has slain me. And love with Loredana Lecciso…

With the hope of reaching five. “Twenty more, I'm in. I will also experience those the same way. As mother nature commands. Always with a great desire for the truth, never bluffing».

Regrets? 'Nobody. Saying it weighs on me. You lose a daughter, like we lost Ylenia, swallowed up in nothingness, and you have this agony that never leaves you. But for better or for worse you have to live life for what the good Lord proposes you to live. And never give up.'

Listen Albano, our covers are interesting, but they too have a certain age. Why doesn't he try to re-read them in hindsight? And to tell the background, with everything that was not said at the time or, perhaps, was not understood? 'A bit dangerous game. But I can try.'

Today we started in 1969, but let's start from March 10, 1999, when she announced the separation to us. After 24 years does that mean why is it over? “Today I say it for the first time: the problem was marijuana. Romina smoked that junk even four times a day. And she had been doing it for years, even before Ylenia's disappearance. She was another woman. She smoked and was cheerful; when the effect was over, she became sad and cried. She was unrecognizable. She no longer expressed that attachment to things, the passion for life, for what we had lived and built during those years. It was the beginning of the end.'

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In some circles it runs even worse. 'I am not interested. In my house, the pipes were enough to cause a disaster. Once, to understand, I smoked one. I had to write a number and I couldn't do it, I put it vertically. I hate all substances that are bad for living. You invent a reality that doesn't exist, you distance yourself from real life. Unfortunately many of us fall, even some of my children. I've never taken anything. Before the concerts a glass of whiskey. On the advice of Placido Domingo: 'Free the esophagus and vocal cords', he told me. That's how it is, a panacea ».

With Loredana Lecciso another great chapter of her life and of our covers opens. «In Loredana I found that energy and that charge that makes me feel alive. And I will never stop thanking her because when Romina left she took the boys away too and there was no one left here. Loredana gave me two wonderful children, life has returned here, the house is filled with children, with chaos, as a home should be. But then…'.

Of course, he is free to take off other pebbles. «Loredana made choices that I didn't agree with at all. Nothing really. Without telling me anything, she made contacts to make television. Everyone said I was behind it. And instead she had already made her whole program on her own. But to be fair, if she really had certain things in mind, she should have told me before we got together ».

Please help yourself, take another cover. «The premiere, February 5, 1969. I was in Cannes for a concert and I invited Romina. We had already met and loved each other tremendously on set. Between ups and downs, she had been going on for a year. Nobody knew about us, but Cannes was teeming with paparazzi. finish up Today , now I admit it, I was pleased. It was an authoritative way to make our story official.'

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You were already famous for a series of high glycemic films. Not exactly masterpieces. “They were the mirror of an era. And, as the producer Gilberto Carbone said, our extra-popular films financed auteur cinema».

Speaking of great cinema, Romina was the daughter of two stars, Tyrone Power and Linda Christian . “And who knew them? My ignorance was my lifesaver, otherwise I would never have gone looking for someone like this. Among other things, the father-in-law was no longer there, but the mother-in-law opposed me ».

You know, perhaps he aspired to the classic good catch. “No, no, it was more practical. His instructions, and I would discover this years later, were precise: exploit it, squeeze it well and then send it to hell ».

In the face of the mother-in-law. 'It is the truth. In 1967 from Malta to Disco per l'Estate I had won all the existing Festivals. They called me the man with the gold in his throat. I was lost in love, in the ideal conditions to be exploited».

Why did they need to exploit it? “Linda Christian had burned everything, she had also ended up in a psychiatric clinic. Zero money, the weight of the family all on the shoulders of this underage girl. Romina had the name, the beauty, the charm, but she was alone. At that point I felt lifted off the Power weight. And I had the power to say 'now it's your turn'. Love made me break through walls, doors and gates, I stopped at nothing.'

Albano Carrisi speaks: “I am a nice grandfather and a strong old man. It's wonderful with Loredana Lecciso!

Another card from Today's deck, please. “Summer 1970. The wedding. On July 7 in Athens I sang a song against the dictatorship of the colonels: 90,000 people in a frenzy, a scream from start to finish, that when I think about it I still get chills. The next day Romina went to the doctor and she discovered she was pregnant. What do we do, I told her? If you marry me it must be forever. On 26 July we were in Cellino San Marco, my town, in front of the parish priest».

Not just the pastor. «No one was supposed to come, but my impresario was selling the news and unleashed the tom-tam. They didn't start the car, they all pushed it towards the church. And when the priest uttered the formula, 'Do you want Albano Carrisi...', it was not me who answered, but the people. A roar for me, one for Romina. Get married to the uproar of the people».

There were also those who gufava. “When we were fully married, we were separated after a month, at most a year. Instead it lasted. And here the covers on the children, the successes, the tours, the family are countless. It was a dream.'

Apart from love, what credit does Romina recognize? «It may seem like a contradiction, but on the one hand it made me understand the beauty of the land from which I had fled when I was 17 and it brought me back to live here, in Puglia, in my little village, on the other it made me less Apulian. I carried all the southern gifts, but I was also full of rough edges that she smoothed. She taught me to smile at myself and at what happened ».

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So it had some weight. “Its weight was its lightness. The one that gave me the opportunity to fly».

And you flew together. «With Romina we have experienced a perennial state of grace. Everything was born spontaneously. And that spontaneity became music. They said to me, why are you singing with Romina, that she has no voice? But she had great musicality, she knew how to be on stage, she was her and she remained a beautiful woman ».

Allows? September 2013, another cover of Oggi, with the reunion in Moscow, she and Romina together again on a stage. 'I remember. The audience was in a frenzy and I watched in amazement. She was mistress of the scene, you didn't know if she was Callas, Caballé or Mina. She was everything and she was only Romina. That day I wondered how we could have destroyed everything. A world-class show pair. And a love that, for me, should never have ended.

How do you imagine the future? “Identical to the past. I always remain a good farmer, I will continue to sing and I will continue to put what I earn here in my 150 hectares of land. I will continue to produce oil and in the cellar I am building I will go from 1,600,000 bottles of wine to 5 million».

Do you have teachings to give? 'I have not. Drawing on his own experiences, on the things he lives, on what he reads, everyone must become a master of himself ».

Have you ever been to a psychologist? 'Of course, at Island of the famous , you always have one available. After a couple of meetings he told me that he needed me. If I try to look within, I see ego and alter ego that have kept each other at bay and have created a certain balance. Successes or adversities have never confused my ideas, because at the base, within me, there has always been a very strong passion».

What if he were to give a definition of himself? «I am the earth, I feel like an olive tree that walks and flies, always driven by a great desire for love. Beautiful to receive, even more beautiful to be able to give. I was, am and always will be a beautiful love machine, I have produced and will still produce so much».

Source: oggi.it