Equipe 84

The most famous Italian group during the whole decade. Formed in Modena in 1964, the Equipe 84 published their first single discs, mainly covers from US and UK songs, with the label Vedette. In 1966 they signed a contract with the main Italian label of the period, Dischi Ricordi (the same of the Dik Dik) and with its support they had the opportunity to propose for the Italian market the versions of Bang Bang, the international success of Cher, very well known also in the peninsula, an announced success, and then, with a very good intuition, You Were On My Mind by the We Five (and Barry McGuire), in Italian Io ho in mente te (you are in my mind), the song that they proposed in the Cantagiro on summer of 1966, the main music event of that period (a series of concerts in the main Italian towns, associated to a competition, inspired to the Giro d'Italia or Tour de France, the bike race). They won this competition after a long head-to-head competition with The Rokes, confirming so to be the n.1 in Italy.

The name of the group, according to the official version, comes from the sum of the age of the four members, Maurizio Vandelli, the leader and the singer, characterized by his curly hair, Victor Sogliani (recently passed-by), the electric bass, you can remember him being extremely tall, Alfio Cantarella, the drummer, that was instead very short, and finally the second guitar Franco Ceccarelli, the handsome one of the group. A very good mix that helped the beat people in Italy to remember the group. But the sum of their ages was 85 when the group started the activity ...

After the period of the covers and starting the declining phase of the beat genre, the group started to propose original songs, by important Italian authors as Francesco Guccini (also from Modena and friend of the four musicians) with songs as Auschwitz, L'antisociale, E' dall'amore che nasce l'uomo and especially Mogol and Battisti, that gave to the Equipe 84 their peculiar song 29 Settembre, a great success in 1967 (n.1 in May).

See more information, including personnel, cover images and discography, on Music Graffiti website (in English).