Luigi Tenco (21 March 1938 – 27 January 1967) was an Italian singer-songwriter. He died on the night of 27 January 1967 after a performance at the Sanremo Music Festival. His death was ruled to be the result of suicide, but even decades later, a plethora of evidence in favor of murder was cause to reopen the investigation twice.
Biography
Tenco was born in Cassine (province of Alessandria) in 1938, the son of Teresa Zoccola. He never knew his father. Teresa Zoccola was married to Giuseppe Tenco, and they had a son, Valentino, but the couple eventually separated, and Teresa moved to Cassine. It has been rumoured that Luigi Tenco was the product of an extramarital relationship between his mother and an unidentified man of the Micca family, for whom she worked at the time: potentially the sixteen-year-old son or his father. When Zoccola discovered the pregnancy, she returned to Cassine. The boy was given the name of her husband, Tenco, who died in a work accident while she was several months pregnant.
Tenco spent his childhood in Cassine and Ricaldone until 1948, when he moved to Liguria, first to Nervi and then to Genoa, where his mother had a wine shop called Enos in the quarter of La Foce. He developed an early interest in music, teaching himself to play guitar, clarinet and saxophone. During high school, Tenco founded the Jelly Roll Morton Boys Jazz band, in which Tenco played the clarinet and Bruno Lauzi, another singer later to become famous, played banjo. Gino Paoli, who would become one of Italy's most famous singers and songwriters, also played with Tenco in the band he was later involved in, I Diavoli del Rock (The Rock Devils). Director Luigi Comencini considered Tenco for the role of Bube in his film La ragazza di Bube, based on Carlo Cassola's novel. He ultimately chose George Chakiris, the West Side Story star, instead. During this period, Tenco formed a strong friendship with the Genoese anarchist poet Riccardo Mannerini. In 1963, however, his friendship with Gino Paoli broke up, due to a troubled relationship with the actress Stefania Sandrelli.
Tenco's first LP, Ballate e Canzoni, was released in 1962. One of the songs, "Cara maestra" ("Dear Teacher"), was censored by the then-thriving Italian media censorship. For this song, he was banned from Rai for two years. In Argentina, "Ho capito che ti amo" was the soundtrack of the popular soap opera El amor tiene cara de mujer.
In 1966, enduring a period of compulsory military service, he released "Un giorno dopo l'altro" (One Day after Another) for RCA. The military service did not stop him from travelling to Argentina together with Gianfranco Reverberi to meet the fans of El amor tiene cara de mujer. How he managed to arrive in Argentina while his passport was still in possession of the Italian Army is unknown. Moreover, under the military service, one was not allowed to leave Italy, and the punishment was detention, which he did not experience according to his service record book.
In Rome during the same year, he met and befriended the Italian-French singer Dalida. It was widely assumed that they became lovers; however, Tenco had a fiancée, Valeria, to whom, a decade after his death, many letters were discovered. Tenco's mother also confirmed that he treated Dalida only as a good friend. Lino Patruno, a close friend of Tenco, described his relationship with Dalida as a 'marketing trick'.
1967 Sanremo Festival and death
In January 1967, Tenco took part in the Sanremo Music Festival 1967. It was rumoured that he participated against his will. On 26 January he performed the song "Ciao amore, ciao" ("Bye Bye, My Love") with Dalida. The video of the performance is lost; however, the audio track, recorded from the radio, survives. That evening, Tenco sang badly and off time, presumably because he had taken barbiturates with alcohol shortly before the performance to cope with anxiety. After the show, on the evening of the 26th, he was seen at the Nostromo restaurant together with Dalida, other friends and colleagues. He left early, leaving the group behind. Several people close to Tenco witnessed that he was more upset with the corruption and bribery at the festival and planned to hold a press conference to unveil it all.
The inquiry
thumb|220px|Grave of Luigi Tenco
Initially ruled as a suicide, Tenco's case was reopened in 2005-09 and then again in 2013–15.
In 2004, on TV program Domenica in, commissario Arrigo Molinari, the detective who led the case, when asked by host Paolo Bonolis, stated that he was sure that Tenco did not commit suicide and defined his death as "a collective murder". He also justified his own faults concerning the Tenco inquiry by declaring that he had been prevented from investigating properly. In 1967, upon learning of Tenco's death from Dalida and still in his own home, Molinari phoned ANSA and declared that the singer had killed himself. All this took place before he had arrived at the Savoy and before the forensic team could intervene. Shortly after the quoted 2004 interview, Molinari was stabbed to death in his own hotel in Andora. Some police photographs from the scene, unedited and publicly shown only in 1994, showed that Tenco's body and face was bruised. On the back side of his head a trauma was evident, which forensics didn't confirm to be related to post-mortem falling. Additionally, the concierge of the Savoy, when asked if he had seen Tenco return that night, stated that the keys were not on the reception desk and not that he had seen Tenco return. Traces of sand were spotted on Tenco's hair, clothes and in his car, though journalists confirmed that the car was washed before going to Nostromo.
The Italian judicial system later began re-examining Luigi Tenco's suicide. It was pointed out that the bullet hole was on the left temple, while the singer was right-handed. On 15 February 2006, Italian police exhumed Tenco's body for further investigation. The next day, results from the new autopsy and ballistics analysis were reported. According to Italian experts, what had been thought to be the entry hole on Tenco's left temple was actually the exit site. The bullet trajectory was said to be compatible with suicide.
In the early '90s, Tenco's older brother Valentino met a woman, Valeria, who had in her possession several letters written by Tenco himself that stated that they had been engaged, their relationship starting in 1964 and lasting until his death. In one of these letters, Tenco writes that his relationship with Dalida was nothing but a clumsy attempt to forget Valeria, who, months before, had left him. He describes Dalida as: "spoiled, neurotic, ignorant, who rejects the idea of being defeated in her profession as in private life". Valentino Tenco identified those letters as written by his brother.
To date, besides the official conclusion of suicide, journalists have come up with three theories:
- A robbery gone bad — on 26 January, Tenco won almost 3 million liras at a casino, but the money was never found after his death;
- A murder of jealousy — Morisse, Dalida's ex-husband, was seen leaving room 219. Morisse was known as an incredibly jealous man who tried to control Dalida and her affairs even after their divorce;
- A murder to prevent Tenco from causing a scandal by uncovering the bribery and corruption schemes at the Sanremo Festival.