Zucchero Fornaciari
Adelmo Fornaciari, known professionally as Zucchero Fornaciari or simply Zucchero, is an Italian singer, musician and songwriter. His stage name is the Italian word for "sugar", as his primary school teacher used to call him. His music is largely inspired by gospel, soul, blues and rock music, and alternates between Italian ballads and more rhythmic R&B-boogie-like pieces. He is credited as the "father of Italian blues", introducing blues to the big stage in Italy. He is one of the few European blues artists who still enjoys great international success.
In his career, spanning four decades, Fornaciari has sold over 60 million records around the world, and internationally his most successful singles are "Diamante", "Il Volo/My Love", "Baila /Baila morena", and the duet "Senza una donna " with Paul Young. He has won numerous awards, including four Festivalbar, nine Wind Music Awards, two World Music Awards, six IFPI Europe Platinum Awards, and a Grammy Award nomination. He has collaborated and performed with many famous artists, including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Brian May, Miles Davis, Ray Charles, Billy Preston, John Lee Hooker, Scorpions, Sheryl Crow, Blues Brothers Band, Elvis Costello, Roland Orzabal, Joe Cocker, Sharon Corr, B. B. King, Sting, Buddy Guy, Bono, Bryan Adams, Mark Knopfler, Iggy Pop, Coldplay, Dolores O'Riordan, Paul Young, Peter Gabriel, Alejandro Sanz, Luciano Pavarotti, and Andrea Bocelli.
Early life
Adelmo Fornaciari was born 25 September 1955 in Roncocesi, a frazione near Reggio Emilia. His father, Giuseppe Fornaciari, and mother, Rina Bondavalli, came from rural families. At a young age, he was the goalkeeper of A.C. Reggiana 1919. He spent much of his childhood in the seaside town of Forte dei Marmi. There, he sang in the choir and played an organ in the local church. At the age of 12 or 13, he discovered American soul and blues music thanks to an African-American friend who was studying in Bologna and lived near his home. The first song he played to Fornaciari was " The Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding, and this immediately inspired his interest in soul music. The friend taught Fornaciari how to play on the guitar songs by Redding, Marvin Gaye, and Sam & Dave. Fornaciari then got together with friends to play rhythm and blues, finding his own way to fuse black music and Mediterranean music. He started writing his own songs when he was 13 or 14 years old, and after learning basic instruments, from 16 he moved on to learning the tenor saxophone. In Forte dei Marmi, he finished his technical high school studies, and moved again, this time to the city of Carrara.Career
1970–1986: early career and first albums
His musical career began in 1970, with several small bands such as I Duca, Le nuove luci, I Decals, Sugar & Daniel, Sugar & Candies. At that time, he was studying veterinary medicine; although he liked animals and the course, he wanted to be different from his parents and withdrew from the course in order to pursue his aspirations. In 1975, he went to San Francisco, and there met the young Corrado Rustici from Naples, his future record producer. They talked about a future collaboration on a project with Afro-American influences which was then unusual for Italy.In 1979, Zucchero wrote "Tutto di te" by Fred Bongusto, and the hit "Te ne vai" by Michele Pecora. He found initial success with a band named Taxi, with whom he won the Castrocaro Music Festival in 1981. He made his first appearance in the famous Sanremo Music Festival in 1982 with the song "Una notte che vola via" but without success. However, he wrote and produced the festival hit song "Lisa" by Stefano Sani. In the 1983 festival, he had a similar success with "Nuvola", and went on to write four other festival songs, including "Volevo dirti", sung by Donatella Milani, which was placed second. His first album, Un po' di Zucchero, was released the same year with moderate success. Although as a young songwriter, he had great success, his solo career did not initially reach the same level of success that he and producers had expected.
Disappointed with his solo career, in 1984 he temporarily moved to San Francisco in California, where he collaborated with his old friend Corrado Rustici. The result of these sessions, with a backing band that included bassist Randy Jackson, was the 1985 album Zucchero & The Randy Jackson Band, and the song "Donne". He again played at the Sanremo festival and, although the song "Donne" ended up in a disappointing penultimate place, it became a hit single and one of the classic Italian songs. After the relative success of Zucchero & The Randy Jackson Band, Fornaciari joined Rustici again in California to work on a follow-up album. Rispetto included several Italian hit singles, including the title track and "Come il sole all'improvviso". It went platinum and sold over 300,000 copies.
1987–1994: breakthrough in Italy and first international successes
Although Zucchero & The Randy Jackson Band and Rispetto were commercially successful, it was the 1987 album Blue's that went on to become the highest selling album in Italian history, selling 1.5 million copies in 1987 alone; it made Fornaciari a household name in Italy, and neighbouring countries. The album, again produced by Rustici and featuring musical performances by Clarence Clemons, The Memphis Horns and David Sancious, included the Italian hit singles "Con Le Mani", with lyrics by Gino Paoli, the controversial "Solo una sana...", and the original version of "Senza una donna" which later became an international hit in a duet version with Paul Young. During the following Blue's Tour Fornaciari shared the stage with Joe Cocker, Ray Charles and Dee Dee Bridgewater. In the same year, he also composed the soundtrack for the film Snack Bar Budapest, written and directed by Tinto Brass.In 1989, Fornaciari and his band recorded the album Oro Incenso & Birra in Memphis. The album, which was greatly influenced by American soul music, included guest appearances by Ennio Morricone, Eric Clapton, and blues singer Rufus Thomas; Fornaciari's band by that time included former E-Street Band member David Sancious. The album still stands as not only one of Fornaciari's, but also Italian most successful albums, outselling even Blue's and includes the Italian hit singles "Diamante", "Overdose ", "Il Mare" and "Wonderful World". The single "Diamante" included new version of the song "Dune Mosse" recorded along Miles Davis. Davis himself insisted to re-record the song with Zucchero, describing it "interesting Mediterranean type of blues". As of 2015 are reported sales of over 8 million copies. By the Rolling Stone Italia it was included among the most beautiful Italian music albums of all time.
After the million selling success of Blue's and Oro Incenso & Birra in Italy, and his live collaborations with Joe Cocker, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton and Miles Davis, Fornaciari from 1990 on attempted to conquer the rest of Europe. The album Blue's was released the following year in the United Kingdom, and in 1990 Zucchero Sings His Hits in English, an album that featured songs from the Blue's and Oro Incenso & Birra albums, some of which translated to English by Frank Musker, was released worldwide.
Fornaciari's best known hit "Senza una donna", in a duet with Paul Young, is from this album. The first pressing of the album didn't feature the duet: the song was performed by Fornaciari only. The duet was a great success worldwide, it topped the European Hot 100, Italian, Belgian, Norwegian, and Swedish charts, and reached the top 3–5 in other international charts in 1991 including UK and US. Other European singles from the Hits album include English versions of "Diamante", and "Wonderful World". Diamante was later released as a duet with Randy Crawford, a variant not available on any album until the special edition of Zu & Co.. Although advised to record in English to achieve international popularity he expressed doubt; "unfortunately, the only songs you can translate easily into English are the ballads, the love songs. That is a shame".
Between 1991 and 1993 Fornaciari continued duetting with some of the world's most famous artists, such as Sting, Luciano Pavarotti, a young Andrea Bocelli, Peter Maffay, Elton John, Brian May and Eric Clapton. Many of these duets would later be included in the compilation Zu & Co.. The 1991 was released Fornaciari's first live album Live at the Kremlin, recorded in Moscow Kremlin 1990 and featuring guest appearances by Randy Crawford and Toni Childs. In 1992 was invited by Brian May to perform at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, with the remaining three members of Queen - Brian May, John Deacon and Roger Taylor, singing "Las Palabras de Amor". He admitted having been 'terrified' before hitting the Wembley Stadium stage, as this was his first time performing live at a worldwide broadcast event. In 1993 was invited by Dan Aykroyd to perform at House of Blues in celebration of 46th birthday of John Belushi, playing "Diavolo in me" and "You are so beautiful" supported by The Blues Brothers Band.
File:Vincenzo Mollica, Pavarotti, Lucio Dalla e Zucchero al Pavarotti e friends 1992.jpg|thumb|left|From left: journalist Vincenzo Mollica, Luciano Pavarotti, Lucio Dalla and Zucchero on the first edition of Pavarotti & Friends, 1992
Between 1992 and 2003 was the regular cast of the charity concerts Pavarotti & Friends organized by Luciano Pavarotti, where also performed along Pavarotti and B.B. King, for the children in Bosnia, Liberia, Guatemala, Kosovo, Cambodia, Tibet, Angola and Iraq.
In 1992 Fornaciari released the million selling album Miserere. Again produced by Corrado Rustici, it was a much darker album than Fornaciari's previous works, which was made clear by the title track "Miserere", a duet with Luciano Pavarotti. The "darkness" reflects his intimate personal life from the time when lived in solitude and depression after the divorce. Elvis Costello co-wrote the track "Miss Mary", U2's Bono was responsible for the English version of the "Miserere", and Paul Buchanan of The Blue Nile co-wrote two tracks. On the album and during the tour, Fornaciari was accompanied by former Santana drummer Michael Shrieve. The English version of the title track "Miserere" peaked at number 15 in UK. The compilation album Diamante was released in Mexico and other Latin American countries in 1994, and was an attempt to use the same method of Zucchero sings his hits in English for the Spanish and Latin American market. In 1994 Zucchero was the only Italian artist to perform at the 25th anniversary edition of the Woodstock festival.