The Sanremo Music Festival 1971 (), officially the 21st Italian Song Festival (), was the 21st annual Sanremo Music Festival, held at the Sanremo Casino in Sanremo between 25 and 27 February 1971. It was organised by the company Due Erre and broadcast by (RAI). The shows were presented by Carlo Giuffrè and Elsa Martinelli.

It was the last edition in which each competing song was performed twice by two different artists. The winning song was "" written by Franco Migliacci and Claudio Mattone, and performed by both Nicola Di Bari and Nada.

Format In December 1970, the municipality of Sanremo announced they would assign the organisation of the festival's 1971 edition to the company Due Erre, owned by Gianni Ravera and , for the second consecutive year. They chose to hold the event in its usual venue, the ballroom of the Sanremo Casino, between 25 and 27 February 1971. was chosen as the stage designer.

Voting system The vote in each show was conducted by twenty-three juries formed by newspapers across Italy, each with twenty-five members located in their respective editorial offices. Forty percent of jury members were required to be under the age of 20. In the first two nights, jury members gave one vote to seven different songs, while in the final they gave one vote to three songs.

Competing entries 191 songs were submitted by music publishers for the competition. The festival's organisers, Gianni Ravera and , formed a special commission composed of themselves, the journalists Adriano Bolzoni, Sandro Delli Ponti, Mario Olivieri and Marcello Fratoni, as well as the actresses Cristina Gajoni, and Francesca Romana Coluzzi. However, Coluzzi later resigned from the commission due to disagreements with other members during the selection process. The commission narrowed down the list of submissions to twenty and selected another twelve to be evaluated by a second commission tasked with selecting four for the competition. The second commission was to select songs with a focus on lyrical content, composed of writers and unionists, but ultimately featured members of the film industry. They selected the songs "", "", "" and "" for the competition.

Requests were made by various unions to limit the amount of foreign artists allowed to compete in the competition, as was done so for the 1970 edition. Their request specified only six foreign artists of clear worldwide fame should participate. However, no formal agreement was reached and seven foreign artists were eventually included in the competition.

On 25 January, the two record labels Durium and Ri-Fi announced they would boycott the festival, citing the cost of participation and dissatisfaction with the contest's regulations. On 11 February, the record company Phonogram Inc. announced they would join the boycott, preventing the planned participation of the artists Orietta Berti, Fausto Leali, Anna Maria Izzo, Demis Roussos and Michel Sardou. Additionally, the label Fonit Cetra announced their withdrawal from the competition on 15 February due to not finding any of the competing songs suitable to be performed by their artists Claudio Villa and Gipo Farassino. Two of their other artists, Sergio Endrigo and the band New Trolls, were granted permission by the label to participate on their own behalf.

+Competing entries Song Artist 1 Artist 2 Songwriter(s) Conductor(s) "" Lucio Dalla Equipe 84 "" Al Bano "" Rosanna Fratello Nino Ferrer "" Maurizio e Fabrizio "" Don Backy Gianni Nazzaro Don Backy "" Ricchi e Poveri José Feliciano "" Donatello Marisa Sannia "" Carmen Villani Domenico Modugno "" Paolo Mengoli "" Nicola Di Bari Nada "" Antoine Anna Identici "" Wallace Collection "" I Giganti Vince Tempera "" "" Pino Donaggio Peppino di Capri "" Little Tony Formula 3 "" Gens and Middle of the Road "" Caterina Caselli Dik Dik "" Nomadi Mal Claudio Fabi "" "" Gigliola Cinquetti Ray Conniff "" Mungo Jerry Piero Focaccia Detto Mariano "" Adriano Celentano "" Sergio Endrigo New Trolls Sergio Endrigo

Shows

The festival consisted of three shows held between 25 and 27 February 1971. The first two nights consisted of twelve songs performed twice, in which seven qualified from each show, creating a final with fourteen songs performed twice. Performances could be accompanied by the orchestra in the venue and with backing vocals provided by the vocal group . All shows were presented by the actors Carlo Giuffrè and Elsa Martinelli. The television production was directed by .

The song "" recorded by host Carlo Giuffrè, written by Giuffrè and Paolo Dossena, served as the contest's theme.

In the first two nights, songs were presented in groups of three, while the final was split into two halves—each containing every song performed once. The first half was broadcast internationally and the second half was broadcast only in Italy, with the respective record label of each artist deciding which half they would perform in.

First night The first night took place on 25 February 1971 at 21:30 CET. Twelve songs performed and seven were selected for the final.

+First night – 25 February 1971 Song Artist 1 Artist 2 Points Place 1 "" Donatello Marisa Sannia 461 2 2 "" Domenico Modugno Carmen Villani 383 4 3 "" Mau Cristiani Pio colspan=2 4 "" Rosanna Fratello Nino Ferrer colspan=2 5 "" Caterina Caselli Dik Dik 380 5 6 "" Pino Donaggio Peppino di Capri 358 6 7 "" Ricchi e Poveri José Feliciano 498 1 8 "" Don Backy Gianni Nazzaro 400 3 9 "" Maurizio e Fabrizio I Protagonisti colspan=2 10 "" Sergio Menegale Wallace Collection 319 7 11 "" Nomadi Mal colspan=2 12 "" Fabio Trioli I Giganti colspan=2

Second night The second night took place on 26 February 1971 at 21:15 CET. Twelve songs performed and seven were selected for the final.

+Second night – 26 February 1971 Song Artist 1 Artist 2 Points Place 1 "" Formula 3 Little Tony 373 5 2 "" Lorenza Visconti Edda Ollari colspan=2 3 "" Nada Nicola Di Bari 524 1 4 "" Sergio Endrigo New Trolls 345 7 5 "" Antoine Anna Identici colspan=2 6 "" Gigliola Cinquetti Ray Conniff 367 6 7 "" Lucio Dalla Equipe 84 408 3 8 "" Coro Alpino Milanese Adriano Celentano 398 4 9 "" Gens Jordan and Middle of the Road colspan=2 10 "" Mungo Jerry Piero Focaccia colspan=2 11 "" Al Bano Aguaviva 411 2 12 "" Mark e Martha Paolo Mengoli colspan=2

Final night

The final night took place on 27 February 1971 at 21:00 CET. The fourteen songs admitted to the final were performed again and a winner was chosen.

The winning song was "" written by Franco Migliacci and Claudio Mattone, performed by Nicola Di Bari and Nada. In second place was the song "" written by Franco Migliacci and Jimmy Fontana, performed by Ricchi e Poveri and Puerto Rican musician José Feliciano. "" written by and Lucio Dalla, performed by Dalla and Equipe 84, finished in third place and received an award for the best lyrics among the twenty-four competing songs, decided by a committee of journalists, writers and politicians appointed by the municipality of Sanremo. Dalla also received the Giorgio Berti award for best performer, decided by journalists at the event.

+Final night – 27 February 1971 Song Artist 1 Artist 2 Points Place 1 "" Don Backy Gianni Nazzaro 76 7 2 "" Gigliola Cinquetti Ray Conniff 58 9 3 "" Wallace Collection Sergio Menegale 18 14 4 "" Nicola Di Bari Nada 357 1 5 "" Carmen Villani Domenico Modugno 95 6 6 "" Pino Donaggio Peppino di Capri 50 11 7 "" Ricchi e Poveri José Feliciano 316 2 8 "" Little Tony Formula 3 43 12 9 "" Sergio Endrigo New Trolls 30 13 10 "" Caterina Caselli Dik Dik 56 10 11 "" Donatello Marisa Sannia 136 4 12 "" Al Bano Aguaviva 69 8 13 "" Lucio Dalla Equipe 84 297 3 14 "" Adriano Celentano Coro Alpino Milanese 115 5

Broadcasts Local broadcast The final was broadcast on Programma Nazionale (television) and Secondo Programma (radio) beginning at 21:00 CET. The first two nights were broadcast on Secondo Programma (television) and Secondo Programma (radio), with the first night starting at 21:30 CET and the second night starting at 21:15 CET. The final was broadcast on television in Italy to an estimated 24.4 million viewers.

International broadcast The first half of the final was broadcast via the Eurovision network in other countries. Known details on the broadcasts in each country, including the specific broadcasting stations and commentators are shown in the tables below.

+International broadcasters of the Sanremo Music Festival 1971 Country Broadcaster Channel(s) Commentator(s) CTV UCTV IBA Israeli Television NHK NHK Yutaka Ishida TVR DBC Lee Hae-seong MBC

Notes

References