Franco Gatti, how did he die? The memory of the Rich and the Poor: “We always carry it in our hearts”
Franco Gatti of Ricchi e Poveri is dead but it is as if he were still among us: it often happens, when a person is particularly loved, that he still remains alive in people’s memories, in people’s gestures. Even today, when Ricchi e Poveri are performed, it seems like you can see Franco Gatti, discreet, alongside Angela and Angelo, with his sly smile and that natural sympathy that was released in his movements. The great friendship, human even before artistic, between Franco, Brambati and Sotgiu is striking, a sign of an exciting story, of a personal journey in which the three kept each other company and shared beautiful moments, personal pain and disappointments. We understand each other, for Brambati and Sotgiu, in fact, Franco Gatti was like a brother and when he died from complications from coronavirus something died within them. It wasn’t like before: the two, especially Angela, tried to show their usual energy and cheerfulness, but looking into their eyes you read an unbridgeable void, a sadness that resurfaces in the absence of their friend. Before his death, Franco Gatti he had resumed collaborating with Ricchi e Poveri for a short period, taking part in a reunion, only to then move away from the scene, until his death in 2022 due to the illness that had struck him.
But there is an interesting detail that perhaps not everyone knows: Angela Brambati and Angelo Sotgiu don’t want to give up because they made a deal with Franco Gatti before he died. “He told us: ‘I’m retiring, but you carry on with the music, because I know that you love it, as I love it’”, the last request that Gatti would have addressed to the two friend-colleagues, as if to ask them to not to also let that great thing that they had built together, the Ricchi e Poveri group, die, and to have it reborn together with them on stage. This final wish of Franco Gatti was revealed by Ricchi e Poveri on the eve of Sanremo 2024 before their successful performance: “He would have wanted this, we always carry it in our hearts”, said Angela Brambati and Angelo Sotgiu. “He won too, because for us Sanremo this year was still a win. We received so much love from everyone, from the young, from the less young, for us it was a great victory, the credit also goes to him.”
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