I remember writing this song back in 1977. I wrote the melodic line & the harmonies first, and while I was singing some words in "English-made-in-Taiwan" I used to sing what later on became the title "SE IL MIO CANTO SEI TU" in the chorus of the song. That's how I sang it for publisher Marco Gaido at Blue-Team/Warner Brothers Publishing in Milan, singing words that didn't make any sense and then hitting the "hook" at the fifth bar of each chorus with "...ma SE IL MIO CANTO SEI TU" ("...but If My Canto Is You"). Since I wasn't writing that many lyrics back then, Marco asked me if I would like to meet his wife Paola Blandi, a renowned DJ at Radio Nova and also a brilliant lyricist. In a day or so, after my first writing session with Paola, "SE IL MIO CANTO SEI TU (If My Canto Is You)" was finished and ready to be recorded. Since in the 70s I was recording quite often at the "Cap Studio," the recording studio located in Milan next door to the famous jazz club "Il Capolinea," I called my friends Angelo Arienti and Alberto Baldan Bembo, co-owners of the studio and respectively chief engineer and arranger-producer, and I booked the studio in order to record a rough demo. I also called several other friends musicians, Flaviano Cuffari (drums) and Mino Fabiano (electric bass), and with their collaboration I proceeded to record the rhythmic tracks. I then added a few overdubs playing myself some guitar, and keyboard parts with also Maestro Baldan's input. I recorded some rough vocal tracks after that,
and then Angelo mixed it all down.
In 1976 and '77, after playing & recording with several bands, I just started recording in the various studios in Milan as a session-guitarist. During one of those sessions at "La Basilica" Studio, the famous recording studio of Mina in a beautiful Fifteen Century cathedral in Corso Italia right in the center of the city, I met the Italian myth herself who asked me if I had any songs for her. A few weeks later Marco Gaido, after sending in my demo tape of "SE IL MIO CANTO SEI TU", was finally able to set up a meeting with the Diva herself and with Maestro Vittorio Buffoli and Osvaldo Michichè, respectively president-director and A&R-director of Mina's label PDU Dischi. I still remember Mina's question as soon as I walked in her offices in Via Senato: "Cantarelli, 'SE IL MIO CANTO SEI TU' is a great song; who's responsible for the arrangement & production of the demo?"
That's how I start working, both as a composer and arranger-producer, with Mina, arguably the most charismatic and talented singer in Italy in the last 40 years. In March/April 1978 I recorded "SE IL MIO CANTO SEI TU" twice, in two different keys: actually I first recorded the song in D minor, as I assumed (it was my first time working with Mina) that a fourth higher than my key (I recorded my demo in A minor) it would be "just what the doctor ordered!!!" I remember Mina attempting the recording of the vocal tracks and in the middle of it she stopped singing and said: "Cantarelli, you gonna have to re-record everything at least one whole-step lower." I did ask her if it was an excuse not to sing the song anymore and, after she assured me with a nice smile "made-in-Cremona" (her birth-town) that that wasn't the case, I went back to work and re-recorded all the tracks (except drums), this time in C minor. For the recordings of Mina's tracks I invited the same musicians who played in my demo, Flaviano Cuffari (drums) and Mino Fabiano (electric bass), and I also invited keyboard player Stefano Pulga,
who is responsible for the beautiful mini-moog solo,
along with programmer & keyboard player Aldo "Banfolino" Banfi.
I will always remember when Mina came back in the studio and sang my song in one take!!! I was blown away by her extraordinary way of interpreting the lyrics with the notes of the melodic lines and within the various moods created also by the harmonies of the composition as well as by the arrangement.
Because of "SE IL MIO CANTO SEI TU" and obviously the friendship that developed with the Artist during the recording sessions and those wonderful lunches and dinners with her then boyfriend Doctor Quaini and her hilarious friends such as artwork director Luciano "Talla" Tallarini, photographer Mauro Balletti and many others, Mina asked me if I would like to play guitar with her "super-band" (20 something members...like Quincy Jones a few years later!!! What is it with me?!?!???) for what it turned out to be her last "live" appearance at "Bussola Domani" in Viareggio. Those concerts in the summer of 1978 were also recorded in a double-live album called "Bussola Domani '78." "SE IL MIO CANTO SEI TU" was released by PDU Dischi as a single in the springtime of 1978, and was also one of the selections of the historic double/album "Attila," the most successful album of Mina, released by PDU Dischi on Christmas 1979.
Over a quarter of a century later (26 years, to be fiscally correct!!!), in the springtime of 2003, I received a phone call from Osvaldo Paterlini, the husband and manager of Orietta Berti who, along with Mina, Ornella Vanoni and Iva Zanicchi, represents a generation of Italian singers who made their imprint in both the music business as well as the Italian culture through the last four decades, and now approaching the fifth one!!! Orietta Berti, more popular than ever also due to her constant appearances in the number one TV show in Italy "Buona Domenica" with television icon Maurizio Costanzo, was recording an album with Sony/Columbia Records featuring some of the most popular Italian songs from the last 50 years. The selections of her new album were decided upon the most popular feedback that she received through the last four or five years during her appearances at the "Buona Domenica" TV show, and "SE IL MIO CANTO SEI TU" turned out to be one of them!!!
It is obvious that I feel a particular attachment to this song that basically got my career started back in 1978, and that is kissing me "good luck" once again, a quarter of a century later, with a very sensitive & moving interpretation by another Italian icon, Orietta Berti, who is also a delicious person and a dear friend. When things like this happen to me, after almost 30 years in the music business, no matter what the mood of the day is, "blues" or "rock & soul" or "classical-crossover," happy or blue, I feel more than ever that I've been blessed and I am thankful to our Lord Father for all the gifts of life...SE IL MIO CANTO SEI TU...If My Canto Is You...whether is in Italian or English-made-in-Taiwan...
P.S.: on a curious note, when Orietta Berti came to Los Angeles and I helped her to master her Album/CD at the renowned "Capitol Studios" here in Hollywood, she played for me "SE IL MIO CANTO SEI TU (If My Canto Is You)" and when I had to congratulate her for the truly inspired performance and interpretation, she said something that was "vaguely familiar"...her arranger Lele Barlera, whom I also personally congratulated, had to re-record the tracks a whole-step lower as the first key she chose turned out to be too high....I can't wait to see if this will happen the next time "SE IL MIO CANTO SEI TU" will be recorded by someone else!!!!! I did record a "funky" version of it in my CBS Album "Confusione" back in 1980, but I did it in the same key that I composed it, so we'll see...