The Chameleons tonight on Rai 1: who they are and the most famous songs

May 4 – 7.23pm – MILAN

Great Italian and international music will be the absolute protagonist of today’s prime time on Rai 1 with the last episode of The best yearsthe program created and hosted by Carlo Conti with the aim of making viewers relive the best years of their lives through a selection of the most significant years of the Italian post-war period, strictly to the sound of music. Tonight, for the grand finale of the tenth edition, the host has called together artists of the caliber of Massimo Ranieri, Fiorella Mannoia and one of the longest-lasting groups in the history of Italian music, the Chameleons.

Who are the Chameleons?

—

Already guests of Carlo Conti’s program several times, including the 2011 and 2016 editions, the Chameleons can boast a 61-year career behind, started in 1963 with different names: Mods before and Beatnicks immediately afterwards, in the formation composed of Livio Macchia, Riki Maiocchi, Paolo de Ceglie And Gerry Manzoli.

first covers and success

—

Exponents of the genre right from the start rock beats in Italy, among the first to draw inspiration from the movement that spread in Europe and the United States and bring it to our country, the Camaleonti made themselves known to the general Italian public with their songs Ask Ask, Sha la la la la And Bring me lots of roses in the early 1960s.

The first studio album, The Best Records in the Worldarrived in 1966, when Camaleonti’s career was already underway and the group’s success only consolidated year after year, also thanks to covers of famous songs such as Don’t hope socover by If You Gotta Go, Go Now by Bob Dylan, If you come backcover by Norwegian Wood of the Beatles, and How comecover by Get Off of My Cloud by the Rolling Stones.

From Cantagiro to the Sanremo Festival

—

Consecrated to the success of the Camaleonti are the many participations in the various musical events organized in Italy, from Cantagiro in which they took part five times between 1966 and 1970 Festivalbar and the prestigious Sanremo Festival. The debut in Sanremo came in 1970 with the song Eternity with Ornella Vanoni, but over the years the group returned to the competition in 1973, 1976, 1979 and, after a few years of pause, in 1993 with the song How Time Passes together with Maurizio Vandelli and Dik Dik, but failing to rank among the top 15 positions in the final ranking.

After that participation in Sanremo in 1993, Camaleonti’s musical activity slowed down a bit if we exclude the group’s regular participation in the Canale 5 program in 1997 The cat and the Fox, hosted by Paolo Bonolis. It was in that year that Camaleonti released the album Applause and other successeswith some unreleased songs and their greatest hits re-recorded for the occasion.

A few years later, in 2004, it arrives 40 years of music and applause – Timeless emotionsa celebratory collection of the band’s hits, from Angel face to I’ve loved you for an hourfrom Winter time to You are so Beautiful And Little Venus. In 2016, however, it came out 50 Years of applausea collection with 5 unreleased songs and 5 reinterpretations of the band’s most representative songs.