Word: modugno
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Italy's muff-haired Domenico Modugno, a guitar-plunking crooner with a gypsy wail, turns out lyrics that make no sense, and he cannot read the music he composes and sings. But last year his song Volare (To Fly) was the world's biggest hit, with 7,000,000 records sold, including 2,000,000 for Decca Records in the U.S. alone. Last week Modugno, glowing in a powder-blue tuxedo, weepily twanged his latest effort, Piove (It's Raining), at the annual San Remo Song Festival, walked off with the festival prize-no cash...
Gypsy Rhythm. The bestselling version of the song (Decca's) was recorded by Composer Domenico Modugno himself. Last week, as if to make the success official, the swarthy, mop-headed Sicilian followed his voice to the U.S. And as soon as he alighted at New York's Idlewild Airport, exuberantly sliding down the banister of the landing steps, Domenico treated his welcoming committee to a rendering...
Like many another schoolboy, Giuseppe Conte, 16, a sophomore at Rome's Leonardo da Vinci High School, felt misunderstood. He was sure, for instance, that his math teacher had it in for him. He was always prepared, Giuseppe assured his parents, but Professor Renzo Modugno, a crippled war veteran, twisted the questions so he couldn't possibly answer. Last week, when the semester's grades were announced, Giuseppe heard that he had flunked his math. To make matters worse, Professor Modugno humiliated him by announcing that even the failing grade was higher than he deserved. Giuseppe walked...
Cold Steel & Cowardice. When the math lesson ended, Giuseppe put his hand on the bulge in his pocket and left the classroom. Out in the corridor, Professor Modugno leaned against the door to light a cigarette. Giuseppe calmly took aim and tired three shots which hit his teacher in the right lung, the skull and the groin After giving himself up, he said he had planned to kill himself too, but decided it would be cowardly...
Professor Modugno regained consciousness only long enough to forgive Giuseppe before he died. Huge bareheaded crowds turned out to watch while schoolboys carried the coffin through Rome's silent streets. At the professor's bier in the Piazza di Spagna, Mayor Salvatore Rebecchini spoke for all high-school teachers: "Be good, boys and girls, be good...