Righeira

Righeira
Origin	Turin, Italy
Genres	Italo disco synth-pop new wave electronic
Years active	1983–1992 1999–2016
Labels	CGD EMI Teldec RCA SAIFAM A&M
Associated acts	La Bionda Subsonica Gruppo Italiano
Past members	Stefano Righi Stefano Rota

Righeira were an Italo disco duo formed in Turin in 1983. The duo conisted of Stefano Righi (lead vocals and keyboards) and Stefano Rota (backing vocals and keyboards). Originally rooted in the early stages of Italo disco music, Righeira's musical style evolved throughout their career, incorporating elements of synth-pop and new wave in their songs in innovative ways, later exploring music styles such as electronic music and regular pop, yet maintaining the quality built on Righi's deep and expressive vocals backed up by Rota's lighter vocals. Gaining popularity for their extraordinary style, the duo have staged several performances in popular night clubs and music festivals throughout the years.

The duo was formed when the members wanted to revolutionize the music industry with their futuristic sound, after attending the "Albert Einstein" scientific high school as classmates, and striving after performing together on stage. Within the first months of their career, they signed with several record labels and released their debut album, Righeira (1983). With the release of the album, and the singles "Vamos a la playa" and "No Tengo Dinero", Righeira established their reputation as a modern dance duo.^[1] In the mid-1980s, they were once again highlighted in public after the release of the single "L'estate sta finendo", a popular song among young people, and their winning performance at the Festivalbar singing competition in 1985. The duo's second album, Bambini Forever (1986), earned less success in public when it was released but included songs as "Italians a Go-Go", "Oasi In Città" and "Innamoratissimo", with which they performed at the Sanremo Music Festival in 1986.

Righeira worked actively throughout the 1980s, earning themselves a name in the Italian public. Soon after the release of their third studio album, Uno, Zero, Centomila (1992), they made their first break-up in 1992. Working separately for seven years, both singers produced music and pursued a new musical direction by which they were influenced by Eurodance, rock, reggae, and house. In 1999, they were reunited and made a successful comeback by then recording and releasing music, embracing a more ironic and electronic image. The duo released re-recorded versions of some of their hit songs, including "Vamos a la playa" in 2001. Experimenting with their new image, they released their fourth album, Mondovisione (2007), gaining mixed success. After performing together for over 25 years, the duo broke up for the second time in 2016.

Righeira have released four studio albums along with several singles throughout their career, selling millions of records worldwide. The duo remain as one of the most progressive ones in the italo disco genre, along with their producers La Bionda. Throughout their career, as both a musical duo and as individuals, they have earned a role as pioneers in the Italian music industry with their unique sound and unusual image.

History[]

1980–1983: Formation, Turin and early years[]

Stefano Rota and Stefano Righi first met each other as classmates of the "Albert Einstein" scientific high school located in the district of Barriera di Milano in Turin.^[2] Sometime around 1980, Stefano Rota changed his name to Michael Righeira and Stefano Righi his to Johnson Righeira, after deciding to start performing together and becoming "musical brothers", both adopting the surname "Righeira", a name that Johnson had jokingly obtained by Brazilianizing his surname Righi while playing football with his friends during the hours of physical education in school.

In 1980, Righi recorded his debut single called "Bianca Surf", as a solo singer, with the executive production by Giulio Tedeschi and the artistic production by Oderso Rubini. The Bologna-based comedy punk band Skiantos played on the same disc, and a punk rock version of the song was later recorded by Righi with the help of the band's lead singer Roberto "Freak" Antoni. Songs and early musical material recorded and produced by Righi was released in Italy in 2006, as both an album and as a CD, entitled Ex Punk, Ora Venduto.

Stefano Righi had come up with the first version of "Vamos a la playa" in early 1981. He had visited a music studio in Florence along with his friends owned by their mutual friend during the New Years Eve. Righi created the melody by putting his hands on a keyboard and playing simple tunes out of feeling in order to create a futuristic sound. According to Righi, the refrain "Vamos a la playa, oh oh oh oh oh" came to mind while he was sitting by the keyboard and playing.^[3] Melody for the record was later produced by playing on an old analog synthesizer.^[4] The song was influenced by the 1960s and was meant to come out as a post-atomic beach song featuring an electric sound. The project had been born early in 1981 and the song was written before Righi and Rota left for military service, only to be edited and released later during the spring. With the song gaining its popularity in public, both were allowed by the command to leave the barracks in order to appear on television performances under several occasions.^[5] In 1981, when Stefano Rota auditioned, he sang both "Vamos a la playa" and an Italian cover of German electropunk band Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft's song "Der Mussolini" called "Balla Marinetti", while he was partially known under the pseudonym of "Italo Monitor". The Italian title "Balla Marinetti" is a reference to Futurism movement founder Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

Wanting to start a career on their own, neither Righi or Rota were classically trained and were more interested in the sound of their music rather than making it. Both singers had an interest in graphic design that were either artistic or taken from films, and they were very aware of how the concept of a modern Italian musician would look like at the time. With Righeira being officially founded in 1983, and both members lacking the knowledge of producing and releasing music by themselves, they made use of the record production of the successful Italian La Bionda brothers Carmelo and Michelangelo from Milan, whom they had met in early 1982 and signed a record production contract with, which came to last until 1987.^[6]

The La Bionda brothers wanted to produce a television variety show for Righeira as they thought their energy was perfectly fitted for such a production. Righi and Rota denied and encouraged La Bionda to think of another project. While signed under Carmelo and Michelangelo La Bionda, Righeira was capable to truly experiment with their own sound. The duo's debut album, Righeira, released in 1983, featured a futuristic and modern sound with lyrics about nuclear annihilation.^[7] This differentiated the duo from their producers, as La Bionda was rooted in the disco genre with their lyrics about love.

1983–1990: International success and touring years[]

Vamos a la playa and No Tengo Dinero[]

In the spring of 1983, the summer torment "Vamos a la playa" was released by the Italian record label CGD, and achieved massive success in continental Europe during the summer. The name of the song became a popular catchphrase during the summer of 1983 and reached the top of the Italian charts, remaining there for seven weeks (from 20 August to 1 October), while gaining commercial success abroad managed in selling over three million copies. With "Vamos a la playa" being such a resounding success, and one the first summer torments of Italian discography, Stefano Righi and Stefano Rota became well-known faces that year. The original version of "Vamos a la playa" song had been written, recorded and released in 1981 by Stefano Righi, while already then signed by the CGD record label, but featured a different sound than from the version released in 1983.

A short promotional film was made to "Vamos a la playa" and the duo aired an performance on Top of the Pops on 1 September 1983. Climbing the music charts, the duo was prevented from capitalizing on their success as they were recalled into fullfilling their military service.

In the autumn of the same year, their next song, "No Tengo Dinero", became another holiday hit. The song which was written in Spanish, just as "Vamos a la playa", was seen as rather unusual in a time period in which English dominated as a popular language in Italian music productions. It peaked lower on the charts than their previous hit, but it still managed to keep the duo as a relevancy of that year in music. "No Tengo Dinero" soon came to be released in other countries, including England and the United States, by the A&M record label. Stefano Rota had come up with the idea of the song, which was then developed with the help of La Bionda, but was at first criticized as it seemed to be a bit passed off as the follow up to "Vamos a la playa".

The promotional music video for "No Tengo Dinero" was an animated video, a rather unusual technique of making music videos at the time. In between the military service, the duo would have time to finish their debut album, Righeira, and make use of their short breaks to perform their songs live. As the duo couldn't record music videos on their own, storyboards were sent to a director to make animated videos. This method helped the duo to popularize their new postmodern futuristic look and promote their music.

Hey Mama[]

"Hey Mama", a song recorded in both Italian and Spanish during the summer of 1984, did not peak high on the music charts, and was nevertheless a good success like songs from their debut album Righeira, that included "Luciano Serra Pilota", inspired by the 1938 war drama film with the same name starring the actor Amedeo Nazzari. The song "Hey Mama" was at heavily criticized like many other songs, at first hand seen as a bit too delusional, and not strong enough to make it out on the musical market as a single. When Righi and Rota presented the song lyrics to the La Bionda brothers, they were perplexed and had it re-written. "Hey Mama" was heavily influenced by the hip hop culture which was emerging around the world at that time. In an interview, Righi stated: "The song (Hey Mama) was the fruit of a vision we had at the time. Hip hop culture was emerging almost everywhere. You had for example Afrika Bambaata, the Universal Zulu Nation ... and us, always in our almost psychedelic perspective of things, at a certain point were out to do the promotion around Europe, and we began to have these visions of animalism ... Back to the roots, to the essentials ... let's see this thing about the horns. At that time we saw horns everywhere." He went on to say, "You walked into a nightclub and there was a video and something to do with horns. Then we bought some croissants, Neapolitan ones, with the hunchback. The horns have become a representation of hip hop culture to us ... in reality, I'm now explaining it rationally, but at the time it was all absolutely instinctive."

L'estate sta finendo and Festivalbar 1985[]

"L'estate sta finendo" was released in May 1985 and quickly hit the music charts, peaking at No. 1 in Italy where it stayed for two weeks.^[8] The song has since found popularity as a reworked football chant at several clubs throughout the world, such as at Liverpool F.C. where it is known as "Allez Allez Allez".^[9] With the same song, Righeira participated in the Un disco per l'estate summer festival and did also manage to win the Festivalbar singing competition the same year. The song was also, despite the title, launched when the holiday season had just begun. After the victory at Festivalbar, "L'estate sta finendo" became the most popular song in Italy during the summer of 1985, as the most played song on a jukebox.^[10]

In 1985, Stefano Rota co-starred together with Enrico Beruschi in a sketch for the Italian television variety show Drive In, broadcast on Italia 1.

Sanremo Music Festival 1986 and Bambini Forever[]

The duo made a performance at the 36th anniversary of the Sanremo Music Festival in 1986 with the song "Innamoratissimo", which finished in fifteenth place in the votes out of the eighteen participating contesters. Regarding the duo's lack of staging experiences and participating in the first live version of the Sanremo Festival, they were met with positive criticism. This piece too was centered on electronic arrangements that continued the musical discourse undertaken by their producers and arrangers, and the La Bionda brothers who had already marked musical trends with disco music in the previous decade.

The response from the public was less for the single "Italians a Go-Go" from the album Bambini Forever, also containing the song "Oasi in città" which became a hit during the summer of the following year. Among the many musicians who collaborated with Righeira during the 1980s, there is for example Steve Piccolo of The Lounge Lizards, Curt Cress of Alphaville and also Rocco Tanica of Elio e le Storie Tese who was a co-author of the song "Innamoratissimo". Swedish musician Mats Björklund played the guitar in "Gli parlerò di te", who was famous for earlier playing together with Donna Summer.

Rimini Rimini and Zecchino d'Oro[]

Righeira released the single "Rimini Splash Down" in 1987, written together with La Bionda and singer Raffaella Riva of the Italian italo disco band Gruppo Italiano. The song ultimately became the theme song of the Rimini Rimini anthology comedy film directed by Sergio Corbucci, released in the same year. Gruppo Italiano made several collaborations with Righeira in their career and recorded a cover of the duo's 1985 hit "L'estate sta finendo". Later the same year, the duo released the song "Annibale", which was later performed at the 30th anniversary of the Zecchino d'Oro song competition.

Canada 1988[]

On 4 September 1988, Righeira made a live performance at the Canada's Wonderland theme park in Vaughan, Canada. The performance included songs from the Righeira and Bambini Forever albums as well as the duo's 1988 single "Compañero" and a cover of Patrick Hernandez's song "Born to Be Alive".^[11]

1990–2016: The last projects[]

Controversies, Uno, Zero, Centomila and first saperation[]

"Ferragosto" was released in 1990, a dance single which resembled some of the early songs, with a sound inherent to the music of the period. In 1992, the duo collaborated to record and release the album Uno, Zero, Centomila which contained songs such as "Vivo al 139" with house sounds. After the release of the album, Righi and Rota went different ways and the duo broke up.

Stefano Righi was arrested on November 19 1993, along with thirty-seven others, for drug dealing. He remained in prison for five months only to be acquitted at the end of the trial. Righi later described the situation in an interview, "The world collapsed on me, I felt like I was in a dead end street ... my cellmates helped me a lot."

In the mid-1990s, Rota gave life to a new project called Gloria Mundi together with songwriters and musicians Franco Battiato and Giusto Pio, which lasted the space of two albums. Meanwhile, Righi recorded a song together with the Italian duo Montefiori Cocktail called "Papalla", which was a manifesto of the newborn Italian lounge scene. In 1999, after a seven year-long break, the duo was reunited and Righi and Rota returned to producing music together.

Mondovisione, Tanzen Mit Righeira, collaborations and second separation[]

Righeira released an EP in 2001 containing different versions of their classic hit "Vamos a la playa" and participated in several Italian television shows, such as C'era una volta il festival and La notte flies, a competition between famous celebrities that were popular and had a successful musical career during the 1980s.

In 2006, the duo recorded the album Mondovisione, later released on 30 May 2007, including the single "La Musica Electronica" with which they reached a moderate success by its nostalgic style. In August of 2007, Righeira took part in the conduction of the radio program The summer is ending on the radio station R101. Stefano Righi took part in short films and experiments in metropolitan cinema, including Pink Forever by Genoese Davide Scovazzo. A documentary was released in 2008 entitled Tanzen Mit Righeira, taken from the title of the song with the same name released as part of the duo's debut album Righeira, produced by Endeniu and made by Alessandro Castelletto, which traces the artistic and human story of the two "brothers".

On June 13 2011, Italian rock band Subsonica released the song "La funzione", in which Righeira was featured after they had made a collaboration with the band.

The duo's second separation since the first one in 1992 came in 2016, when lead-vocalist Stefano Righi announced his separation, while Stefano Rota announced his plans on moving to the town of Thiene, located in the province of Vicenza in northern Italy.^[12]

2016–present: After the break-up[]

2010s[]

Since the second separation in 2016, Righi and Rota's relationship as friends has deteriorated, not having much contact. In an interview made in August 2020, when Righi was asked if Rota were to show up, he answered, "I don’t think he’ll want to, but if he does, I won’t send anyone away."^[13]

2020s[]

Stefano Righi founded his own record label, Kottolengo Recordings, in 2020.^[14] The record label is based in Canavese, Italy.

On 28 May 2021, marking the 40th anniversary of the release of "Vamos a la playa", Stefano Righi re-released the single in a brand new electro-krautrock version remixed by musician and record producer Gaudi.

Musical style and development[]

Influences[]

One of the duo's earliest influences was the Italian poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, who was the founder of the Futurism movement.

Genres[]

Originating as an Italo disco duo, Righeira's early sound was synth-pop-influenced electronic music. Righeira embraced the sounds of new wave early in their musical career and helped pioneer the Italo disco genre together with their producers, La Bionda.

In the studio[]

Coming up with innovative ways of using technology to record their music, Righeira were free to experiment with their sound by La Bionda and their recording engineers. Righeira's albums were significantly contributed to, due to their desire of creating new sounds on their recordings, combined with La Bionda's producing and arranging abilities.

Legacy[]

In addition to their singles, Righeira were highly appreciated by the younger audiences for their extravagant appearances; in the early stages of their career they used to dress with fake mustaches in the manner of Charlie Chaplin.

Awards and achievements[]

Righeira won the Festivalbar singing competition in 1985 with the song "L'estate sta finendo".

Personnel[]

Principal members

• Stefano Righi – vocals, keyboards (1983–1992, 1999–2016)
• Stefano Rota – vocals, keyboards (1983–1992, 1999–2016)

Discography[]

• Righeira (1983)
• Bambini Forever (1986)
• Uno, Zero, Centomila (1992)
• Mondovisione (2007)

Selected filmography[]

Documentaries and filmed performances

• Tanzen mit Righeira (2008)

Citations[]

Sources[]

External links[]

• Righeira discography at Discogs