Shampoo (parody band)

The band were originally formed in 1978 by radio DJ Giorgio Verdelli for a radio show on a Neapolitan radio station, immediately after Corrado Ferlaino, then chairman of S.S.C. Napoli, had announced a Beatles reunion to celebrate the team’s victory over Liverpool F.C. in a UEFA Cup match. It was very obviously a joke, as the band who performed on the radio were actually 'Shampoo', four local musicians who took their name from their first song, “Si ‘e llave tu” (“If you wash it”), a parody of “She Loves You” with a Neapolitan lyric about an ugly-looking girl who would improve her appearance by washing her hair regularly. The band’s arrangements, sounds and vocals were remarkably similar to the originals: indeed, unlike their contemporary British "colleagues" The Rutles, whose repertoire consisted in Beatles-sounding original songs (the four Neapolitans were not only aware but highly respectful of the Rutles, thanks to bassist Costantino Iaccarino being an early fan of Monty Python when the troupe was virtually unknown in Italy), Shampoo had an attitude more like a tribute band, in that the music was left untouched; however, the song lyrics were all rewritten in strict Neapolitan and verged on incomprehensibility for non-Neapolitans because of their abundant use of local slang expressions, which made the band sound to outsiders like they were singing in garbled English. Because of this, the “joke” was highly successful, as no less than 150,000 people tuned in to listen to the supposed “Beatles” reunion.[2]

After a handful of live shows in and around Naples, noted Italian pop arranger and conductor Vince Tempera took notice of the band and secured them a one-album deal with the Italian branch of EMI. In 1981, they recorded their first and so far only official album release, In Naples 1980/81, a multi-leveled Beatles parody. The rewritten lyrics are mainly about the suburban world of Naples and feature many colourful, ironical portraits of picturesque local characters; the only exceptions are “Si fosse 'o re” (“If I were the king”), a rewrite of “Because”, where a boy imagines himself as a fairy-tale king in a sentimental plea to his girlfriend, and “So' fesso” (“I'm stupid”), a partial parody of “No Reply", where a heartbroken lover blames himself for driving his loved one away from him. The album title and its cover are direct parodies of The Beatles 1962-1966, also known as the “Red Album”; the cover photo of In Naples features the four Shampoo looking down the stairwell of the EMI Italy offices, in a similar pose as the Beatles on the stairwell of the EMI London headquarters, while the label on the record features a red tomato, a parody of the Beatles’ Apple Records label. The album was a moderate hit in Italy, with the band’s popularity increasing in 1981 after a number of TV appearances.[3]

After 1981, the band formally dissolved. They reunited in 2001 for a series of shows throughout central and southern Italy.[4] Two more reunions followed: one for the 2003 “Beatles Day” in Brescia and one for the forty-fifth anniversary of “Love Me Do” in 2006, performing the song live in Rome along with several other Italian acts. In 2009, a new act called Shampoo Plus or SH+ emerged from two members of the original Shampoo—"Lennon" guitarist/vocalist Massimo D'Alessio and "McCartney" bassist/guitarist/vocalist Costantino Iaccarino, joined by Iaccarino's younger brother Mario on lead guitar—and an official website was created, announcing a new album with 12 new parodies and rewrites. The site has since gone offline and the album itself has never materialized, although SH+ produced two videos for two new tracks (respectively parodies of "Hey Jude" and "The Long and Winding Road, still rewritten in Neapolitan but in a slightly more serious vein than previous Shammpoo material) and performed all 12 of them during their 2008–2009 live shows; the videos and the tracks were subsequently hosted on the band's MySpace blog, active until April 2012. In Naples 1980/81 is still popular among Italian Beatles fans and collectors.

• Gino Castaldo, ed. (1990). "Shampoo". Il dizionario della canzone italiana. Rome: Armando Curcio.

• Shampoo performing their version of "She Loves You" on Italy's Rai Uno in 1981