When Naples sings

Ah, Naples, the city of song! With its mandolins and tarantellas, its pathos and humour, its bel canto melodies and its exclamations (jamme jà!), Neapolitan song is an icon of Italian culture all over the world. You’re probably familiar with ‘O Sole Mio and other classics from the late 1800s or early 1900s, but if you’re not as familiar with Neapolitan songs from the 1960s — a time when the genre had its second flourishing — this playlist will come in handy.

Our selection brings together tunes from the decade when Gloria Christian, Mirna Doris and Maria Paris were the most popular female Neapolitan singers in Italy, and the Festival della Canzone Napoletana was the biggest song contest in the country.  As you will hear, these songs continue traditional motifs and topoi, but also integrate foreign influences, especially jazz, which was brought by American troops at the end of WWII.

To top it all, we’ve thrown in a few bonuses from the 70s:  Neapolitan-style tunes written for films or as library music by the likes of Piero Umiliani, Alessandro Alessandroni, Fabio Fabor and Franco Micalizzi, none of whom was a native of Naples — but, you know, by that time Neapolitan song had already become an Italian national treasure.