One of the most popular voices in Italy, Mino Reitano, passed away yesterday at the age of 64, following a long battle against cancer.
The famous Italian singer was born in a small village in Calabria (a region in the deep South of Italy) in 1944.
After attending the local school of music for eight years, he decided to seek fame and fortune abroad and in the early 1960s he left his native village for Hamburg in Germany where so many Italians before him had found work.
And it was there that Reitano began his career as a singer; he also had the chance to play with The Beatles back then known as The Quarrymen! But Mino Reitano hit the big time only a few years later with such songs as Se tu Sapessi Amore Mio or If You Only Knew, my love (see the above video from 1973); Il tempo delle more or Blackberry Season or Italia which became an instant success among Italian emigrants.
Here’s our photo gallery entirely dedicated to him.
Goodbye, Mino Reitano: a true Italian voice