Eros Ramazzotti story for Julia W

1992 and his first American album, Tutte storie, came out and I think it was also his first US tour. Rizzoli Bookstore, being the Italian-owned bookstore that it was and being one of the few places at the time to sell international pop CDs, of course scheduled a signing to coincide.

At the time I was customer service manager and was pretty much planted on the first floor. I was standing in front of the registers when Eros came in with his entourage. His arm brushed my boobs as he walked past me. There was a line of girls waiting for him that stretched from the middle of 57th Street all the way around Fifth Avenue. HUGE crowd. Lorenzo, one of the managers, was a young Milanese and he didn't like female atention when it wasn't aimed at him. He said in a fit of pique, "I don't know why they are making such a fuss over some stupid Roman." Jealous Lorenzo? Anyway, the signing was on the second floor and after Eros got settled in, the flood gates opened.

I eventually got the opportunity to go upstairs and cut the line to get my CD signed. I never got Tutte storie because I had the Italian verion, In ogni senso. I waited for a while then it was my turn. He signed it, "A cara Sara, Eros Ramazzotti." I was all aquiver.

After a few hours, the signing had to come to an end. There were still droves of girls waiting. They were eventually turned away, poor things. I was standing in the same spot on the first floor when he left. Again, he brushed my boobs with is arm. I knew then that both times were done intentionally. Made me feel good, lol. He had a thigh-high cast on his leg having broken it in a motorcycle accident. During the concert, he ran aroumd the stage even with the cast hindering his movement. It was a really fun concert even though he never even took his jacket off. He completely sweated through it too.

His visit was not without controversy, however. In an interview (I believe it was in the Italian-language American newspaper America Oggi), he stated that he wanted "real Italians" at his concerts, not "pizza fattori", or in other words, American-Italians who are mostly from the South. Rose, my friend Angela's sister, wrote a scathing letter renouncing him, sayng that it was such people who made him popular in the US, etc. She was then interviewed in Corriere della sera and other papers. I think he ended up apologizing but it didn't stop our enjoyment of his music, just disillusioned us a bit.

When I left Rizzoli in 1994, I stopped following his career and those of all of those pop musicians.