Alfio Cantarella, the former drummer of Equipe 84, is dead. As reported by some local newspapers, the musician died after a few days of hospitalization in the intensive care unit of the Magalini Hospital in Villafranca di Verona, where Cantarella had lived for about thirty years before finding out after the disappearance moved to the Little Brotherhood of Dossobuono with his wife. The drummer celebrated his 81st birthday last July.
Born in Biancavilla in the province of Catania in 1941, Alfio Cantarella moved to Milan as a boy and joined the Marinos in 1960. The group later became I Gatti after merging with Francesco Guccini and Victor Sogliani’s Snakers. From the union of some elements of this complex and another group from Modena, Le Tigri, a new formation was born in 1963 that Victor Sogliani, Maurizio Vandelli, Franco Ceccarelli and Alfio Cantarella decided to call Equipe 84. The group debuted with the 45 rpm Canarino va”, the anthem of the Modena football team, and debuted in 1964, after signing his first record deal, with two 45 rpm singles (“Papà e mammà” and “Now you can return” ) on the Vedette label a year later, Equipe 84 released the debut album of the same name in addition to five 45s and took part in the 1966 Sanremo Festival with “Un giorno tu mi cercherai”, which bears “L’antisociale” by Francesco Guccini on the back.
After the group’s first real success with “Io ho in mente te” and the album of the same name, followed by the album “Stereoequipe”, in 1970 Alfio Cantarella was found in possession of drugs and forcibly arrested due to his suspension of performances.
With these issues resolved, Cantarella returned fully to the line-up in 1973, releasing the album Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but after 1971’s ID and Casa mia. released as Nuova Equipe 84. After the release of the album “Sacrificio” in 1974, in spring 1981 Vandelli announced the dissolution of the group, which was re-formed three years later by Sogliani and Ceccarelli with Cantarella to perform at the concert in honor of Francesco to perform for Guccini in June 1984 in Bologna, where they presented the “Auschwitz” sung by Sogliani. Alfio Cantarella later left the group to devote himself to managerial activity.
After the musical fame of the sixties and seventies, in the eighties Cantarella was the producer of the works of Zucchero and Sergio Caputo, as well as the tours as general manager of the bookings of artists such as Franco Battiato, Alice, Eugenio Finardi, Puuh, Miguel Bosé, Rockets, Giuni Russo, Anna Oxa, Matia Bazar and Mango. In 1994 he founded “Tutto Musica” based in Villafranca di Verona and continued his activity as a producer and organizer of music events. Some of the artists the company has collaborated with are: Lucio Dalla, Vasco Rossi, Zucchero, Beppe Grillo, Maurizio Vandelli, i Ricchi e Poveri, le Orme, I Deep Purple, i Dik Dik, I New Trolls, I Pooh, Shel Shapiro, Francesco Guccini, The Chameleons, The Nomads, Nino Frassica, Fiorella Mannoia, Bobby Solo, Cesare Cremonini, Amii Stewart, Ron, Enrico Ruggeri, Luca Barbarossa, Banco del Mutuo Soccorso, Francesco De Gregori, Gino Paoli, 883, Patty Pravo, Antonella Ruggiero, PFM, Iron Maiden, Lùnapop, Keith Emerson, Pitura Freska, Elio and le Storie Tese.