The Sanremo Music Festival 1968 (), officially the 18th Italian Song Festival (), was the 18th annual Sanremo Music Festival, held at the Sanremo Casino in Sanremo, Italy, between 1 and 3 February 1968. It was organised by Società ATA, concessionary of the Sanremo Casino and was broadcast by Radiotelevisione italiana (RAI). The shows were presented by Pippo Baudo and Luisa Rivelli. Gianni Ravera served as artistic director.

Each song was performed twice by both Italian and foreign artists. The winning song was "" written by Sergio Endrigo and Sergio Bardotti, performed by both Endrigo and Roberto Carlos. The festival was only used to select the artist that would represent Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest, following a change in the contest's song eligibility rules ahead of the 1967 edition, requiring songs to not be commercially released until a month before the contest took place. Therefore, Sergio Endrigo was chosen from the two artists to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest 1968, and went on to compete with the song "".

In January 2018, restored versions of all three shows were uploaded to RAI's streaming service RaiPlay in collaboration with Rai Teche.

Format The festival was organised by Società ATA, the concessionary of the Sanremo Casino. Gianni Ravera reprised his role as artistic director for the seventh consecutive year.

Voting system Various changes in the voting system were implemented for the edition. The vote in each show was conducted by a jury formed by twenty-six different newspapers, with twenty-five members each set up in their respective newspaper office. Juries were required to be composed of thirteen men and twelve women, with a majority under the age of 25, and have a specific array of professions and social classes. Each jury member gave one vote to seven different songs during the first two nights, while for the final they gave one vote to three songs. Additionally, the festival returned to awarding the top three songs for the first time since 1963, with the top three songs announced at the end of the final and performed again.

Competing entries ATA received 227 song submissions for the competition. A special commission chaired by composer Carlo Savina including Renzo Arbore, , Rodolfo D'Intino and Enrico Gramigna was tasked with selecting twenty-two entries. Eventually, they selected twenty-four to compete.

Among the competing artists were Giusy Romeo and , who were given the right to participate after winning the 1967 edition of the Castrocaro Music Festival for newcomer artists.

Initially American jazz singer Sarah Vaughan was announced among the competing artists, set to perform the song "", but withdrew due to a surgery she had to undergo. She was replaced by Eartha Kitt.

Songs in the rhythm and blues genre were included in the competition for the first time, as well as more jazz compositions than in previous years. Notable artists within these genres, such as American singer Wilson Pickett and renowned American trumpeter and vocalist Louis Armstrong, were featured in the list of competing artists.

+Competing entries Song Artist 1 Artist 2 Songwriter(s) Conductor(s) "" Adriano Celentano Milva "" Sergio Endrigo Roberto Carlos "" Ornella Vanoni Marisa Sannia "" Peppino Gagliardi Eartha Kitt "" Massimo Ranieri I Giganti "" Fausto Leali Wilson Pickett Gianfranco Intra "" Wilma Goich Dino "" Tony Renis Domenico Modugno Franco Pisano "" Nino Ferrer Pilade Nino Ferrer Pino De Luca "" Johnny Dorelli Paul Anka "" Al Bano Bobbie Gentry "" Gianni Pettenati Antoine "" Shirley Bassey "" Tony Del Monaco Dionne Warwick "" The Rokes The Cowsills "" Pino Donaggio Timi Yuro "" Lara Saint Paul Louis Armstrong "" Giusy Romeo Sacha Distel Enrico Intra "" Iva Zanicchi Udo Jürgens "" Anna Identici The Sandpipers "" Gigliola Cinquetti "" "" Orietta Berti Piergiorgio Farina "" Little Tony

Shows The festival consisted of three live shows held between 1 and 3 February 1968. The first two nights consisted of twelve songs performed twice, in which seven would qualify, creating a final of fourteen songs performed twice. All shows were presented by Pippo Baudo, his first of thirteen editions as host, along with actress Luisa Rivelli. The television production was directed by Enrico Moscatelli.

Performances could be accompanied by a 36-piece orchestra, along with backing vocals provided by the vocal group I Musicals. For the first time, solo artists could be accompanied on stage by a band of their choice.

A draw took place on 31 January to decide the running order for the first two nights. Songs were presented in groups of three, with the draw also deciding the order artists would perform in. For songs performed by both an Italian and foreign performer, the latter would always perform second. In the final, foreign artists performed exclusively in the second half of the show, while the decision of which half Italian artists would perform in was made by each artist's record label. After the performances in each show concluded, a recap of the competing songs was performed by American jazz musician Lionel Hampton on vibraphone, with accompaniment from the orchestra conducted by .

First night The first night took place on 1 February 1968 at 21:15 CET. Twelve songs were performed and seven were selected for the final.

+First night – 1 February 1968 Song Artist 1 Artist 2 Points Place 1 "" Mario Guarnera Little Tony 487 3 2 "" The Rokes The Cowsills colspan=2 3 "" Pino Donaggio Timi Yuro colspan=2 4 "" Giusy Romeo Sacha Distel colspan=2 5 "" Peppino Gagliardi Eartha Kitt colspan=2 6 "" Gigliola Cinquetti Giuliana Valci 400 5 7 "" Wilma Goich Dino 499 2 8 "Deborah" Fausto Leali Wilson Pickett 415 4 9 "" Annarita Spinaci Yoko Kishi 372 6 10 "" Marisa Sannia Ornella Vanoni 531 1 11 "" Tony Del Monaco Dionne Warwick 322 7 12 "" Nino Ferrer Pilade colspan=2

Second night The second night took place on 2 February 1968 at 21:15 CET. Twelve songs were performed and seven were selected for the final.

+Second night – 2 February 1968 Song Artist 1 Artist 2 Points Place 1 "" Sergio Endrigo Roberto Carlos 505 1 2 "" Milva Adriano Celentano 503 2 3 "" Al Bano Bobbie Gentry 370 7 4 "" Tony Renis Domenico Modugno colspan=2 5 "" Elio Gandolfi Shirley Bassey colspan=2 6 "" Iva Zanicchi Udo Jürgens colspan=2 7 "" Johnny Dorelli Paul Anka colspan=2 8 "" Orietta Berti Piergiorgio Farina colspan=2 9 "" Gianni Pettenati Antoine 485 3 10 "" Anna Identici The Sandpipers 447 4 11 "" Massimo Ranieri I Giganti 412 6 12 "" Lara Saint Paul Louis Armstrong 420 5

Final night

The final night took place on 3 February 1968 at 21:00 CET. The fourteen songs admitted to the final were performed again and a winner was chosen. The show opened with a medley consisting of songs from past editions of the festival: "" by Domenico Modugno, "" by Joe Sentieri, "" by Tony Renis and "" by Claudio Villa.

The winning song was "" written by Sergio Endrigo and Sergio Bardotti, performed by both Endrigo and Brazilian singer Roberto Carlos, with "" written by Don Backy and Eligio La Valle, performed by Ornella Vanoni and Marisa Sannia placing second; and "" written by Don Backy and Detto Mariano, performed by Adriano Celentano and Milva placing third. Performances of the top three songs were repeated at the end of the show, with the exception of Celentano's rendition of "", as he refused to appear on stage.

+Final night – 3 February 1968 Song Artist 1 Artist 2 Points Place 1 "" Gianni Pettenati Antoine 176 5 2 "" Sergio Endrigo Roberto Carlos 306 1 3 "" Al Bano Bobbie Gentry 92 9 4 "" Lara Saint Paul Louis Armstrong 49 13 5 "" Wilma Goich Dino 71 11 6 "" Ornella Vanoni Marisa Sannia 255 2 7 "" Gigliola Cinquetti Giuliana Valci 97 8 8 "" Annarita Spinaci Yoko Kishi 53 12 9 "" Massimo Ranieri I Giganti 123 7 10 "" Little Tony Mario Guarnera 83 10 11 "" Anna Identici The Sandpipers 126 6 12 "" Tony Del Monaco Dionne Warwick 28 14 13 "Deborah" Fausto Leali Wilson Pickett 224 4 14 "" Adriano Celentano Milva 251 3

Broadcasts Local broadcast The final was broadcast on Programma Nazionale (television) and Secondo Programma (radio) beginning at 21:00 CET, with the first two nights broadcast on Secondo Programma (television) and Secondo Programma (radio) at 21:15 CET. In Italy, the final was broadcast on television to an estimated 20.1 million viewers, with the first and second nights broadcast to an estimated 18.7 and 18.3 million viewers respectively.

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 1968 Country Broadcaster Channel(s) Commentator(s) Canal 9 BRT BRT BT BT ARD Wolf Mittler MTV MTV MR Kossuth Rádió TP TVR TVR TVE TVE 1 RNE RNE, SRG SSR TV DRS TSR TSI Radio Monte Ceneri JRT

Incidents and controversies Dispute over Don Backy's participation Two songs written by singer-songwriter Don Backy were accepted into the competition: "" and "", the latter of which he intended to perform at the festival himself. However, in 1967 the singer made accusations towards his record label Clan Celentano of altering the accounting of his record sales. As a result, manager of the label Adriano Celentano held a press conference on 15 December announcing he would sue the singer for defamation and personally replace Backy as the performer for "" at the festival, as the label had final say over the choice of performer.

Despite Celentano's half-hearted performances of "" to spite Backy, the song went on to achieve third place at the festival. At the end of the show, Celentano refused to appear on stage to reprise his performance. He later stated he made the decision because he "couldn't tolerate that the victory went to Endrigo".

Dispute over Eartha Kitt's participation The American jazz singer Sarah Vaughan was initially announced as a competing artist in the festival, set to perform the song "", but later withdrew after being admitted to a hospital and having to undergo surgery. ATA announced that Eartha Kitt would replace her. The decision was not supported by one of the song's writers, Carlo Alberto Rossi, who after hearing her rehearsal performance on 31 January, claimed she was unfit to perform the song and falsely announced her withdrawal from the competition. He also made a request to ATA to play Vaughan's studio recording during the show, which was subsequently denied for being against the competition's rules. Gianni Ravera, the festival's artistic director, made a statement confirming Kitt would remain the performer, as her participation was contractually bound to ATA.

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