Show name	Stryx
Writer	Ennio di Majo
Director	Enzo Trapani
Starring	Tony RenisAngelo BranduardiAmanda LearGrace JonesPatty PravoAnna Oxa
Country
Language	Italian, English
Num seasons	1
Num episodes	6
Producer	Alberto Testa, Enzo Trapani, Carla Vistarini
Runtime	70 minutes
Channel	Rai Due
Status	Ended

Stryx was an Italian TV series, aired in 1978 on Rai Due.

Description

Stryx thematically referred to Hell, devils and underworld. The scenography featured elements resembling Middle Ages-like gloomy castles and caves.

The show featured acting as well as musical performances from such artists as Amanda Lear, Grace Jones or Patty Pravo. The musical part was divided into a number of smaller parts, with each part featuring a performance from one specific artist, for example Amanda Lear in Sexy Stryx or Grace Jones in Rumstryx. The show was produced in the disco music era, therefore this genre dominates the musical background of Stryx.

The show caused many controversies in more conservative societies, mainly because of its devilish theme and referring to underworld as well as exposing nudity. Due to numerous protests the show was taken off the broadcast and the production of following episodes was cancelled. Apart from six known episodes there exists also the seventh one, which has never been officially aired in television.

Personnel

Cast

Amanda Lear - Sexy Stryx

Anna Oxa - Stereo Stryx

Asha Puthly - Indian Stryx

Corrado Lojacono

Gal Costa - Stryx do Brasil

Gianni Cajfa

Grace Jones - Rumstryx

Hal Yamanduchi

Mia Martini - Gipsy Stryx

Luis Agudo

Ombretta Colli

Patty Pravo - Subliminal Stryx

Tony Renis

Walter Valdi

Production

Enzo Trapani - director

Ennio di Majo - script

Gianna Sgarbossa - costumes

Tony de Vita - music

Renato Greco - choreography

Enzo Torroni - light

Category:Fantasy television series Category:Italian television programmes Category:Musical television series Category:1978 television series debuts

Name	Patty Pravo
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Nicoletta Strambelli
Born	April 09, 1948Venice, Italy
Genre	Pop
Occupation	Singer
Voice type	Contralto
Years active	1966–present
Label	Sony Music Entertainment
Url	www.coltempo.it

Patty Pravo (born Nicoletta Strambelli, 9 April 1948, Venice, Italy) is an Italian pop singer.

Biography

Strambelli studied at the conservatory institute of Benedetto Marcello and had an acquaintance of the American poet Ezra Pound and Angelo Roncalli (Pope John XXIII). At the age of fifteen, she left home to live in London and then Rome where she began her career singing in the Piper Club. In 1966 she made her first single, "Ragazzo Triste" ("Sad Boy"), the Italian version of the song "But You're Mine" by Sonny & Cher. It was the first pop song broadcast on Vatican Radio.

Pravo followed that by recording numerous songs, the most popular being "Qui e là" ("Here and There"), "Se perdo te" ("If I Lose You", 1967, written by English songwriter Paul Korda), "La bambola" ("The Doll", 1968), "Sentimento" ("Feeling", 1968), "Il paradiso" ("Heaven", written by Lucio Battisti in 1969), "La Solitudine" ("The Loneliness", with Robert Charlebois) "Pazza Idea" ("Crazy idea", 1973) and "Pensiero stupendo" ("Stupendous Thought", 1978). "La bambola" sold over one million copies by the end of 1968, and was awarded a gold disc.

She has been featured on many Italian television programmes. In 1970 Pravo hosted her own programme called Bravo Pravo, broadcasted on French television, and in 1978 appeared in highly controversial Italian TV show, Stryx, where she wore provocative clothing which attracted much attention. She became a symbol for women of the 1960s, exemplifying their evolution from more established conservative roles.

In 1994 she travelled to China to record her album Ideogrammi. In 1995 returned to Italy and re-emerged in 1997 with the #1 hit "E dimmi che non vuoi morire" ("And Tell Me That You Don't Want to Die"), written by Vasco Rossi.

Her last Italian top 10 album has been her 2004 set Nic-Unic (that year Pravo released four albums). In 2007 she released a tribute album for Dalida, entitled Spero che ti piaccia... Pour toi. Pravo has taken part in the Sanremo Music Festival seven times.

Discography

Albums

Singles

References

External links

The official website

Patty Pravo at MySpace

Category:1948 births Category:1960s singers Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:English-language singers Category:French-language singers Category:Italian contraltos Category:Italian female singers Category:Italian-language singers Category:Living people Category:People from Venice (city) Category:Spanish-language singers

Name	Amanda Lear
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Amanda Tapp /Amanda Tap
Alias	Amanda Lear
Born	November 18, 1946British Hong Kong
Genre	Pop, Disco, Eurodisco, Italo Disco, Dance, Dance-pop, Jazz, New Wave, Rock
Occupation	singer, lyricist, composer, painter, model, television presenter, actress, novelist
Instrument	vocals
Years active	1975–present
Label	Ariola Records, Carrere Records, Ricordi International, Chène Music, ZYX Music, Le Marais Prod., Dance Street, Edina Music, Just Good Music For Your Ears, PMG Music, Outsider Music
Associated acts	Salvador Dalí
Url	www.amanda-lear.com

Amanda Lear (née Tapp, born November 18, 1939 or 1946, in British Hong Kong) is a French singer, lyricist, composer, painter, TV presenter, actress and novelist.

Lear began her career as a fashion model in the mid-1960s and was also the muse of Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. She first came to the public attention as the model on the cover of Roxy Music's album For Your Pleasure in 1973. She was a multimillion selling Disco Queen in the mid-1970s to the early 1980s mainly in Continental Europe and Scandinavia with hits such as "Queen of Chinatown", "Follow Me", "Enigma (Give a Bit of Mmh to Me)" and "Fashion Pack". Lear has sold 15 million albums and over 25 million singles worldwide.

In the mid-1980s she positioned herself as one of the leading media personalities in mainland Europe, especially in Italy and in France where she hosted many long-running TV shows. Since the 1990s her time has been divided between music, television, writing and movies as well as pursuing her career as a painter. Currently she lives in Saint-Étienne-du-Grès near Avignon in the south of France.

Career

1965–1975: Modelling, Swinging London and life with Dalí

In early 1965, Lear was spotted by Catherine Harlé, head of a model agency, who offered Lear a contract. As a means to finance her art studies, Lear returned to Paris for her first modelling assignment; to catwalk for rising star Paco Rabanne. Just as Catherine Harlé had predicted, a girl with Lear's looks was very much in demand; soon thereafter, she found herself being photographed by Helmut Newton, Charles Paul Wilp and Antoine Giacomoni for magazines like Elle, Marie France, and Vogue and modelling for fashion designers like Yves Saint Laurent and Coco Chanel in Paris and Mary Quant, Ossie Clark and Antony Price in London. After some time, she dropped out of art school, began modelling full-time and went on to lead a bohemian and flamboyant life in the Swinging London of the Sixties, hobnobbing with people like The Beatles and fellow top models like Twiggy. an exotic name on the nightclub circuit and a regular fixture in the gossip columns, and would later in the 1970s occasionally moonlight as a reporter herself, covering both the London social scene and international celebrities and party animals in David Bailey and David Litchfield's glossy in-crowd magazine Ritz.

While clubbing with Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones and her then boyfriend, the Guinness heir Tara Browne, in a Parisian nightspot named Le Castel in late 1965, she was, again according to her official biography, introduced to a man that was to change her life, on many levels according to some. The man was none other than the eccentric Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí, the self-proclaimed enfant terrible in the world of art, at the time some forty years her senior. Dalí was not only struck by Lear's looks but also saw a kindred spirit in her; Lear has since described their close and unconventional relationship as a "spiritual marriage".}}

Although she remained Dalí's confidante, protegée and mistress all through the Sixties and Seventies, Lear was also romantically linked to Brian Jones, which resulted in the ironic Rolling Stones track "Miss Amanda Jones", included on 1967 album Between the Buttons. In 1973 Lear was also briefly engaged to Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music, and was that same year famously depicted posing in a skintight leather dress leading a black panther on a leash on the cover of the band's classic rock album For Your Pleasure, an image that has been described as "as famous as the album itself" and which brought Lear plenty of exposure in the world of rock and roll. with whom she appeared in the live performance of his 1973 hit song "Sorrow" at the 1980 Floor Show stage production which was televised in the United States by NBC for TV series Midnight Special on 16 November 1973, an appearance often referred to as the official launch of Lear's career in music. She also acted as the mistress of ceremonies for the show. The marriage ceremony took place in Las Vegas, Nevada while Lear was promoting her disco album Sweet Revenge in North America, just three weeks after the couple first met in Paris at fashionable discothèque Le Palace, a French equivalent of Studio 54.

1975–1983: The disco period in Ariola Records

I Am a Photograph and Sweet Revenge

In 1975, disillusioned by a shallow but surprisingly conservative fashion industry and encouraged by boyfriend David Bowie, who paid for singing and dancing lessons, Lear decided to launch a career in music.

Her debut single "Trouble", a pop-rock cover of Elvis Presley's 1958 classic from the King Creole soundtrack, was released by minor label Creole Records in the United Kingdom, but without success. Lear however recorded a French language version of the track, "La Bagarre", which was released on Polydor in France and while equally unsuccessful there, it surprisingly became a minor disco hit in West Germany in early 1976, catching the attention of singer, composer and producer Anthony Monn and label Ariola-Eurodisc, who offered her a seven year and six albums recording contract for a sum of money that Lear since has described as "astronomic".}}

The album included Lear's first European hit "Blood and Honey", lyrically paraphrasing Dalí's 1941 painting La Miel Es Más Dulce que la Sangre (Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood), follow-up single "Tomorrow" and a cover of Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" and Leroy Anderson's "Blue Tango", all of which became repertoire standards. I Am a Photograph's mixture of lush disco, schlager, kitsch and camp, topped with Lear's deep half-spoken, half-sung vocals and her characteristic Franglais accent was a winning combination; the album spun off four Top 10 singles in Italy and stayed on the West German albums chart for thirty-three weeks alone. The second edition of I Am a Photograph, which also contained German #2 hit "Queen of Chinatown", sported a free pin-up poster picturing a topless Lear smiling towards the camera, a photo originally featured in her Playboy spread.

In 1978, Lear continued her line of disco hits with Sweet Revenge, an album that opens with a side-long concept medley, a Faustian fairy tale of a girl who sells her soul to the devil for fame and fortune and her eventual revenge over the devil's offer – she finds true love.

The first single to be lifted off Sweet Revenge, the dark and seductive opening track "Follow Me", powered by Lear's characteristic deep and recitative voice and in fact the theme of the devil, was an instant smash hit, reaching Top 3 in the West German singles chart #6 in her native France and was a Top 20 hit in most parts of Europe. The single is estimated to have sold some two million copies worldwide and has served as Lear's signature tune ever since. The 12" mix of the track, mixed by Canadian DJ Wally MacDonald and originally only released in North America, also incorporates the finale of the concept medley, "Follow Me (Reprise)".

}}

The Sweet Revenge album itself was certified gold in West Germany, France, Italy and Belgium and went on to sell in excess of four million copies and charted in forty-one countries, including Chile, South Africa, India and Thailand where it stayed a number one album for sixteen weeks, It is often cited as a landmark in the history of "the sound of Munich", groundbreaking Giorgio Moroder/Donna Summer collaborations included, and it was in fact recorded in Moroder's renowned Musicland Studios with the assistance of keyboardist and composer Harold Faltermeyer and British drummer and arranger Keith Forsey, both later going on to become very successful record producers and hitmakers in their own right in the United States.

The album features a variety of genre exercises like the clever title track ballad "Never Trust a Pretty Face", shuffle rock track "Forget It", the cabaret-esque "Miroir" with both music and French lyrics by Lear, futuristic electro disco like "Black Holes" and "Intellectually", plus the hit single "Fashion Pack (Studio 54)".

The lyrics to this Eurodisco classic actually ridicule the superficial world of fashion and the decadent behaviour of the rich and famous and especially New York's disco glitterati of the era, offering some serious namedropping in the process: Liza (Minnelli), Francesco (Scavullo), Marisa (Berenson), (John) Travolta, Andy (Warhol), Loulou (de la Falaise), Margaux (Hemingway), Bianca (Jagger), (Yves) Saint Laurent, Paloma (Picasso) etc., according to her biography My Life with Dalí all of them if not friends at least acquaintances of Lear's, but at this stage she herself had already left her days of jetsetting behind her, and had instead settled down for a quiet life with her husband in the French country side, near Avignon. and #10 in Norway, December 1980) producing hits like "Fabulous (Lover, Love Me)", "Diamonds", "When", "Japan" and the autoerotic "Ho Fatto l'Amore con Me".

The album abandoned the Munich disco sound with its lush strings and brass arrangements in favour of an electronic New Wave rock style, with the guitar riff driven opening track "Rockin' Rollin' (I Hear You Nagging)" setting the tone, most likely in accordance with Lear's own taste in music and Diamonds for Breakfast was a step in that direction. She declared: "I really wanted to be the new Tina Turner, a rough rock singer, she's still my all-time favourite rockstar".

Lear spent most of 1980 on promotional tours for the album and its many accompanying single releases all over Europe, from Greece in the south to Finland in the north, and she also made her first visit to Japan where both the single "Queen of Chinatown" and the Sweet Revenge album had topped the charts and were awarded with Gold Discs. Ariola did not approve of this and in no uncertain terms made it clear that Lear was to return to Munich and provide the company and the market with another Monn product.

The result of these sessions was Incognito, with material only partly co-written by Lear, and only generating minor European hits: "Nymphomania", "Red Tape" and the French language ballad "Égal", but paradoxally turning out to be her breakthrough album in South America, with three tracks especially recorded in Spanish: "Igual", "Dama de Berlin" and "Ninfomanía".

Another non-album single followed in early 1982, a synthpop take on Peggy Lee's 1958 pop classic "Fever", Lear's final collaboration with producer Anthony Monn. Shortly thereafter she took legal action against the Ariola-Eurodisc label in order to be released from her recording contract on the grounds of artistic differences. The lawsuit was unsuccessful. In 1982 an Italian single "Incredibilmente Donna" was released, from the compilation "Ieri, Oggi".

Tam-Tam and television career in Italy

Double A-side single "Love Your Body"/"Darkness and Light", released in the spring of 1983, was produced by Monn's sound engineer Peter Lüdermann, instead of Monn himself. It became Lear's final Munich recordings for Ariola and also marked her final promotional appearance on West Germany's most important music TV show at the time, Musikladen, in June 1983.

Lear's international career momentum was however slowing and effectively came to an end in December 1983 as she delivered her sixth and final album to the Ariola label, under contractual obligation. Tam-Tam was a collaboration with Italian composers and producers. While both "Incredibilmente Donna" and the B-side "Buon Viaggio" were mainstream Italian pop ballads, Tam-Tam was a production wise up-to-date and minimalistic early 1980s synthpop album, with a soundscape dominated by TR-808 drum machines and sequencer programmed synthesizers and again with all English lyrics penned by Lear.

Although she performed some of the songs from the album on the Italian TV show Premiatissima, she didn't promote Tam-Tam in West Germany or any other parts of Europe and as a consequence neither did the record company. The only regular, commercially available single from the album was "No Regrets", released only in Italy. Tam-Tam subsequently passed unnoticed by both the European and the international record buying public, which may very well have been a blessing in disguise for Lear, considering her frosty relationship with Ariola at the time and her changing music style. At this stage Lear publicly began denouncing her earlier musical output, and then in her characteristically undiplomatic manner: "The music was crap, but at least I tried to write some clever lyrics".

Instead she went on to launch a very successful and lucrative career as a TV presenter with future prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, soon becoming something of household name in what has since turned out to be her second homeland, Italy. She hosted many successful TV shows there, including Premiatissima or W le Donne (aired in France as Cherchez la Femme). In the latter Lear promoted her minialbum with four covers of classic songs, including Marilyn Monroe's "Bye Bye Baby" or "As Time Goes By from the film Casablanca. The EP, entitled A L, was recorded for Five Records. At that time Lear recorded also several single-only songs for various European labels, including "Assassino" or "No Credit Card".

1987–1998: Music comeback attempts and television career

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After having worked four years as a TV entertainer for Italian Canale 5 and French La Cinq Lear returned to music. Secret Passion was an album made in Los Angeles and Rome for major French label Carrere Records, a post-disco Hi-NRG - New Wave affair produced by Christian De Walden, ready to be launched in January 1987. It wasn't only intended to be her comeback in Continental Europe, Scandinavia, South America, the Eastern Bloc and Japan, this time on her own terms, but also hopefully her breakthrough in anglophone territories like the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, Canada and Australasia, which were more or less the only markets that she had not conquered during the Ariola years.

However tragedy struck, just as Lear was getting ready to start promoting the album she was seriously injured in a near fatal car accident and had to spend months in convalescence. Secret Passion's commercial success was consequently less than hoped for, and lead single "Wild Thing" was ultimately only released in a few countries like France, Italy and Greece, but this incident became the starting point of another phase in her career, this time as a writer.

While in hospital, Lear began writing her first novel L'Immortelle, a slightly surrealistic tale describing the torments of a woman doomed to eternal youth and beauty, watching everyone else growing older and eventually losing all her loved ones, still as beautiful, but unable to stop the merciless passage of time.

Lear sporadically returned to recording in the late eighties and nineties and released a series of singles and albums of new material in Italy, France and Germany, like mainstream pop albums Uomini Più Uomini in Italy and Tant Qu'il Y Aura Des Hommes in France, both released in 1989. Also in 1989, on RAI 3, she hosted Ars Amanda (The Art of Loving), an Italian chat show conducted in bed, where she interviewing both Italian and international celebrities and politicians. She also tried to return to a more dancefloor-friendly repertoire on Eurodance albums Cadavrexquis in 1993 and Alter Ego in 1995, none of them however producing that elusive international comeback hit and though popular with her fanbase all also with varying degrees of commercial success in Europe itself. Instead she focussed on her career in television and movies, hosting popular TV show Peep! in Germany, with her own song "Peep!" as the opening music theme.

1998 saw the release of Back in Your Arms, an album consisting of re-recorded 1970s disco hits and chosen tracks from the 1995 album Alter Ego. However, the album didn't catch much attention and turn out a failure.

2000–2007: Heart, TV career and arts exhibition

In December 2000 Amanda's husband Alain-Philippe Malagnac d'Argens de Villèle died in a tragic accident, after an explosive fire at their home, which was left in ruins. However, in 2001, Lear threw herself back into work and released the aptly titled album Heart, dedicated to the late Alain-Philippe Malagnac. As many music critics commented, Heart was a serious effort with Lear's own heart and soul involved and both time and money invested in the project by French record company Le Marais Productions.

The album offered club-friendly tracks like "I Just Wanna Dance Again" and cult Seventies TV theme The Love Boat, both issued as singles and featuring remixes by prominent names in the world of dance music like French electro-house music DJ Laurent Wolf, Spanish production team Pumpin' Dolls and Junior Vasquez. As a contrast, Heart also featured intimate and gently orchestrated interpretations of Charles Aznavour/Dusty Springfield's ballad "Hier Encore (Yesterday When I Was Young)" as well as Springfield/Burt Bacharach's 1967 classic "The Look of Love", along with a political reading of "Lili Marleen", provided with updated lyrics in German by original composer Norbert Schultze, written especially for Lear. Heart was greeted as a long overdue return to form and turned out to be Lear's best-selling album since the late 1970s in both France and Germany.

Amanda featured in Blanca Li's 2002 Le Défi (international title: Dance Challenge), about an eighteen year old boy who drops out of school, dreaming of becoming a star in break dancing, and the ensuing conflicts with his conservative mother, and with Lear co-starring as the mother's understanding and encouraging best friend – and fashion victim, giving her an opportunity to demonstrate her comedic talent.

}}

An exhibition in 2001 was entitled Not a. Lear, a reference to René Magritte's painting Ceci n'est pas un pipe (This Is Not a Pipe), and a collaboration with unestablished young artists in 2006 Never Mind the Bollocks: Here's Amanda Lear!, a paraphrase of the Sex Pistols' classic punk album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, but naturally also a self-ironic comment on Lear's own "ambiguous" mythology, which was the theme for the exhibition and in 2008 Sogni, Miti, Colori (Dreams, Myths, Colours).

In 2002, on the set of her Italia 1 TV series Il Brutto Anatroccolo a makeover show that ran for a couple of years from 1999 onwards, Lear met Manuel Casella, thirty-nine years her junior. He has been her longtime companion ever since and the couple have been featured prominently in the pages of the tabloid press in both France and Italy. The theme of the show was a cover version of Melina Mercouri's 1960s recording "Never on Sunday" from the movie of the same name, called "Nuda", again performed by Lear but never commercially released.

In 2003 the Heart album was rereleased as Tendance, taking its title from a televised fashion and trends magazine hosted by Lear on Paris Match TV. The new edition also included the theme tune to her Italian TV series Cocktail d'Amore, a top-rated nostalgic show celebrating music of the 1970s and early 1980s on which Lear interviewed some of Italy's most famous stars like Patty Pravo, Anna Oxa, Giuni Russo, Loredana Bertè and Ricchi e Poveri. The track "Cocktail d'Amore" was originally written and recorded by Italian singer-songwriter Cristiano Malgioglio, who also composed Lear's hit single "Ho Fatto l'Amore con Me" from her 1980 Ariola album Diamonds for Breakfast.

2004 saw Lear's vocals used for an entirely different purpose; this time as a voice artist joining the international cast of Disney/Pixar's latest blockbuster of the time, The Incredibles. She played the role of fashion designer Edna Mode, originally voiced by Brad Bird, in both the French and Italian dubbings.

In 2004, Amanda's popular 1970s recording, "Enigma (Give a Bit of Mmh to Me)" from 1978 Sweet Revenge, was featured in TV ads for chocolate bar Kinder Bueno in Central Europe which resulted in it becoming something of a cult hit again and appearing on a number of European singles chart compilations, nearly three decades after its original release. Shortly thereafter, Spanish actor and singer Pedro Marín had a hit with a rock version of Lear's 1978 single "Run Baby Run", also originally from Sweet Revenge, which became the inspiration for a full-length tribute album entitled Diamonds - Pedro Marín canta Amanda Lear. Since 2004 Lear has also been a regular member of the judging panel on popular TV show Ballando con le Stelle, the Italian version of Dancing with the Stars, broadcast on Rai Uno.

In Bastian Schweitzer's drama Gigolo (2005) she played a has-been star having an affair with the young Karim (Salim Kéchiouche), a gigolo trying to get his life back on track, trapped in a spiral of self-destruction in the artificial jet-set world of Paris. Lear has also appeared in several character roles in independent movies.

With the disco revival obviously still going strong and Lear celebrating thirty years in the music business, November 2005 saw the release of the first CD compilation to be both authorised and promoted by Lear; Forever Glam!. It contained the greatest hits from the 70s combined with selected tracks from the 80s, 90s and 2000s, plus some new recordings, including the cover of Barry Manilow's "Copacabana". The album included also a few rare tracks, like "As Time Goes By", and single only songs, for example "Assassino".

}}

In 2006 "Queen of Chinatown" was remixed and re-issued as a single, then credited to DJEnetix feat. Amanda Lear. In September of the same year, the German subsidiary of Sony BMG followed suit with their comprehensive three disc box set The Sphinx - Das beste aus den Jahren 1976-1983. This digitally remastered forty-two track collection was eagerly awaited by many fans since none of the six original Ariola albums, with the exception of the aforementioned Sweet Revenge, was released officially in CD format.

In July 2006, Lear was decorated with the award Chevalier dans l'Ordre National des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministre Of Culture Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres in recognition of her contributions to French arts and sciences, or more specifically for having "significantly contributed to the enrichment of the French cultural inheritance", as the motivation reads. The occasion was slightly marred by the fact that the name appearing on the honour's list was 'Mme Amanda TAPP dite Amanda LEAR', marking the first time that the French authorities publicly confirmed that Lear's birth name indeed was Tapp, something she herself up until that point had denied. The double-disc Brief Encounters was finally given an Italian release on October 16, 2009; the lead single "Someone Else's Eyes", a duet with Italian singer/producer Deadstar, in 2010 was remixed by Boy George. The album has been made available in three versions: standard and "acoustique" (both released in 2009), and also as Brief Encounters Reloaded, containing remixes and released digtally in 2010.

On October 14, Edina Music announced the release of another album entitled Brand New Love Affair, which has been described by the label as "8 new songs to bring back Amanda Lear to the dancefloor". The album was released in France on November 30, 2009 and was produced by Peter Wilson & Chris Richards in Australia, the same team behind new recordings for Haywoode and Nicki French. The title track and "C'est la Vie" were also written by Wilson/Richards. Two singles was issued from the album: "Brand New Love Affair (In the Mix)" and "I'm Coming Up". The second one was available also in EP format from June 29, 2010 and has been produced by Richard Morel and included remixes by Richard Morel, Tommie Sunshine and Sammy Jo and Babydaddy from Scissor Sisters.

From March 2009 throughout spring 2011 she's been touring France with the very successful play Panique au Ministère.

Trivia

With her status as one of Europe's leading gay icons Lear has been a strong advocate of LGBT rights in mainland Europe ever since the 1980s, she has regularly performed at Gay Pride festivals held in France, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands and Greece and has appeared on TV shows like Follement Gay and Pink TV. In 1996 Lear was one of the French celebrities to have a cameo role in the drama-comedy movie L'@mour est à réinventer: Dix Histories d'Amour au Temps du SIDA (translated: Love Reinvented: Ten Love Stories in the Age of AIDS), produced to promote awareness about HIV and AIDS and she has taken part in several charity projects to raise funds for AIDS research, such as the annual Life Ball fashion gala in Vienna, where in the '90s she made a temporary comeback on the catwalk to model for her longtime friend Paco Rabanne, some thirty years after their very first collaboration, and then in fact wearing the very same famous metal dress she first modelled in 1965.

In 2002, Lear told New York's Night magazine about a run-in she had with German supermodel Claudia Schiffer a few years before. A Hollywood movie producer had optioned Lear's book My Life with Dalí and wanted Schiffer to play Lear. The singer recalled: "I ran into Claudia at a restaurant. She said, 'I love your book! Who wrote it for you?' I said, 'I did, darling. Who read it to you?' So that was the end of that. They never made the movie."

Discography

Albums

1977: I Am a Photograph

1978: Sweet Revenge

1979: Never Trust a Pretty Face

1980: Diamonds for Breakfast

1981: Incognito

1982: Ieri, Oggi

1983: Tam-Tam

1985: A L

1987: Secret Passion

1989: Super 20

1989: Uomini Più Uomini

1990: Tant Qu'il Y Aura Des Hommes

1993: Cadavrexquis

1995: Alter Ego

1998: Back in Your Arms

2001: Heart

2003: Tendance

2005: Paris by Night - Greatest Hits

2005: Forever Glam!

2005: Sings Evergreens

2006: The Sphinx - Das beste aus den Jahren 1976-1983

2006: With Love

2009: Brief Encounters

2009: Brand New Love Affair

Most popular singles

1976: "Blood and Honey"

1977: "Tomorrow"

1977: "Blue Tango"

1977: "Queen of Chinatown"

1978: "Follow Me"

1978: "Run Baby Run"

1978: "Enigma (Give a Bit of Mmh to Me)"

1978: "Gold"

1978: "The Sphinx"

1979: "Fashion Pack"

1979: "Fabulous (Lover, Love Me)"

1980: "Diamonds"

1981: "Egal"

1982: "Incredibilmente Donna"

1984: "Assassino"

1986: "Les Femmes"

1992: "Fantasy"

1995: "Peep!"

2001: "Love Boat"

2002: "I Just Wanna Dance Again"

2005: "Copacabana"

2006: "Paris By Night"

2009: "Someone Else's Eyes

2010: "I'm Coming Up

Filmography

1968: Ne jouez pas avec les Martiens

1978: Follie di Notte

1978: Stryx

1982-83: Premiatissima

1984-86: W le Donne

1989: Ars Amanda

1993: Une Femme pour Moi

1995: Peep! (Beware of the Blondes)

1999: Il Brutto Anatroccolo

2001-03: Cocktail d'Amore

2002: Le Défi (Dance Challenge)

2004: The Incredibles

2005: Sous le soleil

2005-09: Ballando con le Stelle

2008: Chasseurs de Dragons

2008: Bloody Flowers

Bibliography

References

Notes

General

Amanda Lear at Discogs

External links

Amanda Lear Official Website

Amanda Lear Official Page at Facebook

Amanda Lear Official Page at Twitter

Amanda Lear Official Page at MySpace

Amanda Lear Official Page at Last.fm

Amanda Lear Official Channel at YouTube

Amanda Lear Official Channel at Dailymotion

Amanda Lear at Discogs

Amanda Lear Official Page at Official.fm

Category:1939 births Category:Disco musicians Category:Eurodance musicians Category:French actors Category:French artists Category:French dance musicians Category:French female singers Category:French novelists Category:French painters Category:French pop singers Category:French television personalities Category:French women artists Category:Italian television personalities Category:LGBT rights activists from France Category:Living people

Name	Grace Jones
Landscape	yes
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Grace Mendoza
Born	May 19, 1948
Origin	Spanish Town, Jamaica
Occupation	actress, singer/songwriter, model, artist
Genre	Pop, R&B;, dance-pop, synthpop, rock, New Wave, reggae, electronic, disco
Years active	1976–present
Label	Island Records, Manhattan Records, Capitol Records, Wall of Sound, PIAS Recordings
Instrument	Vocals

Grace Jones (born May 19, 1948) is a Jamaican-American singer, model and actress.

Jones secured a record deal with Island Records in 1977, which resulted in a string of dance-club hits. In the late 1970s, she adapted the emerging New Wave music style and adopted a severe, androgynous look with square-cut hair and angular, padded clothes. In 1981, her "Pull Up to the Bumper" spent seven weeks at #2 on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart, and became a Top 5 single on the U.S. R&B; chart. Although she has yet to become a truly mainstream recording artist in the United States, much of Jones's musical output is very popular in American clubs as many of the singles were hits on Billboard's Hot Dance Club Play and Hot Dance Airplay charts. Jones was able to find mainstream success in Europe, particularly the United Kingdom, scoring a number of Top 40 entries on the UK Singles Chart. Jones's most notable albums are Warm Leatherette, Nightclubbing and Slave to the Rhythm, while her biggest hits (other than "Pull Up to the Bumper") are "I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)", "Private Life", "Slave to the Rhythm" and "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect for You)". During the 1970s, she also became a muse to Andy Warhol, who photographed her extensively. During this era she regularly went to the New York City nightclub Studio 54.

Jones' acting occasionally overshadowed her musical output except in Europe where her profile as a recording artist was much higher. Her work as an actress in mainstream film began in the 1984 fantasy-action film Conan the Destroyer alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and the 1985 James Bond movie A View to a Kill. In 1986 she played a vampire in Vamp and both acted in and sang a song in the 1992 Eddie Murphy film Boomerang. In 2001, she appeared alongside Tim Curry in Wolf Girl.

Life and career

Background and early career

Grace Jones was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, the daughter of Marjorie and Robert W. Jones, who was a politician and Apostolic clergyman. Her parents took Grace and her brother Chris and relocated to Syracuse, New York in 1965. Before becoming a successful model in New York City and Paris, Jones studied theatre at Onondaga Community College. In the 1973 film Gordon's War, Jones played the role of Mary, a Harlem drug courier.

Jones secured a record deal with Island Records in 1977, which resulted in a string of dance-club hits and a large gay following. The three disco-oriented albums she recorded - Portfolio (1977), Fame (1978), and Muse (1979) - generated considerable success in that market. These albums consisted of pop melodies set to a disco beat, such as "On Your Knees" or "Do or Die" and standards such as "What I Did for Love" from musical A Chorus Line, Jacques Prévert's "Autumn Leaves", "Send in the Clowns" from Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music and Édith Piaf's signature tune "La Vie en rose". During this period, she also became a muse to Andy Warhol, who photographed her extensively. In 1978, she appeared with French model and singer Amanda Lear in the controversial six-episode Italian TV series Stryx.

Early 1980s: Compass Point Studios period

At the beginning of the 1980s, Jones adapted the emerging New Wave music to create a different style for herself. Still with Island, and now working with producers Chris Blackwell, Alex Sadkin and the Compass Point All Stars, and recording at Blackwell's Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, she released the acclaimed album Warm Leatherette in 1980. This included re-imaginings of songs by The Pretenders ("Private Life"), Roxy Music ("Love Is the Drug"), Tom Petty ("Breakdown"), The Normal ("Warm Leatherette") and Smokey Robinson ("The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game"). The record met with even greater success than her previous disco albums and the song "Private Life" was her first to enter UK Singles Chart, still remaining one of her highest-charting single in that country. Parallel to her musical shift was an equally dramatic visual makeover, created in partnership with stylist Jean-Paul Goude. Jones adopted a severe, androgynous look, with square-cut hair and angular, padded clothes. The cover photographs of Warm Leatherette and Nightclubbing exemplified this new identity.

1981 saw the release of Nightclubbing, a rapid follow-up to Warm Leatherette. Jones chose a number of well-known hits to reinterpret, including The Police's "Demolition Man", Iggy Pop's and David Bowie's "Nightclubbing" and Ástor Piazzolla's "I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)". The latter would become one of the Jones's most recognizable tunes and the self-penned, post-disco dance track "Pull Up to the Bumper", which spent seven weeks at #2 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart, and became a Top 5 single on the U.S. R&B; chart when released as a single in the fall of 1981. However, both Warm Leatherette and Nightclubbing albums also included a few tracks co-written by Jones herself, such as "A Rolling Stone" and "Feel Up". In the UK, Nightclubbing claimed the number one slot on music magazine New Musical Express' Album of the Year listing. In 1981, Jones, appearing alongside noted psychotherapist Sonja Vetter, caused a controversy slapping chat show host Russell Harty across the face live on air after he turned to interview other guests and she felt she was being ignored. This topped a 2006 BBC poll of the most-shocking British TV chat show moments.

In 1981 and 1982, Jones toured the UK, Continental Europe, Scandinavia and the US with her One Man Show, a performance art/pop theatre presentation devised by Jean-Paul Goude and Jones herself, in which she performed tracks from the albums Portfolio, Warm Leatherette and Nightclubbing dressed in elaborate costumes and masks - in the opening sequence as a gorilla - and alongside a series of Grace Jones lookalikes. A video version, filmed live in London and New York City and completed with some studio footage, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Long-Form Music Video next year. Her collaboration with Blackwell, Sadkin and the Compass Point All Stars continued with the dub reggae-influenced album Living My Life (1982), which featured the self-penned "My Jamaican Guy", sung in patois and a cover of "The Apple Stretching" by Melvin Van Peebles. In 1984, Jones's work as an actress in mainstream film began, with the role of Zula, the Amazon, in Conan the Destroyer alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and former NBA player Wilt Chamberlain. She next landed the role of May Day in the fourteenth James Bond movie A View to a Kill.

Late 1980s and 1990s

In the mid-1980s, she worked with Trevor Horn and Bruce Woolley for the conceptual musical collage Slave to the Rhythm, which was released in the fall of 1985. The well-received album consisted of several re-workings of the title track, which is arguably the most popular song ever delivered by Grace Jones. Although never charted in the USA, the single did well in the UK, peaking at number 12. Slave to the Rhythm, together with Warm Leatherette and Nightclubbing albums, is now recognized as one of Grace Jones's best works. In December, her first retrospective album was released. Island Life collected most of the singles from her 1977 debut up to recent 1985 hits. It included new versions of "Love Is the Drug" and "Pull Up to the Bumper," which were re-issued and charted again. Her next studio release, the first album after leaving the Island Records label, was Inside Story (1986), on which she worked with Nile Rodgers. It produced her last Billboard Hot 100 hit to date, "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect for You)", one of several songs she co-wrote with Bruce Woolley. The same year Grace appeared in a vampire film Vamp where she played a queen vampire.

Her ninth studio album, Bulletproof Heart (1989), spawned the Number 1 U.S. Hot Dance Club Play hit "Love on Top of Love (Killer Kiss)", produced by C+C Music Factory's David Cole and Robert Clivillés. The second and the final single, "Amado Mio", was a cover version of the song used in 1946 film Gilda and originally performed by Rita Hayworth. Bulletproof Heart met with lukewarm reception. In 1992 Jones appeared in Eddie Murphy film Boomerang, for which she also contributed the song "7 Day Weekend" to its soundtrack, and released two more singles in 1993: "Evilmainya", recorded for the film Freddie as F.R.O.7, and "Sexdrive". She recorded two albums during the 1990s, but they remain unreleased thus far. In 1994, she was due to release an electro album titled Black Marilyn with artwork featuring the singer as Marilyn Monroe; in 1998, she was scheduled to release an album entitled Force of Nature, on which she worked with trip hop musician Tricky. The release of Force of Nature was cancelled due to a disagreement between them and only a white label 12" single featuring two dance mixes of "Hurricane (Cradle to the Grave)" was issued; a slowed-down version of this song became the title track of her comeback album released ten years later. In 1999 she appeared in an episode of the Beastmaster television series as the Umpatra Warrior.

Recent career

In 2000, Jones cut "The Perfect Crime", an up-tempo song for Danish TV written by the composer duo Floppy M. A year later, she appeared alongside Tim Curry in Wolf Girl (also known as Blood Moon), as a transvestite circus performer named Christoph/Christine. On May 28, 2002, she performed onstage in Modena, Italy with Italian opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti during his annual Pavarotti and Friends concert to support the United Nations refugee agency's programs for Angolan refugees in Zambia. Together they performed the aria "Pourquoi me réveiller?" from Jules Massenet's opera Werther. In November 2004, Jones sang her hit "Slave to the Rhythm" at a tribute concert for record producer Trevor Horn at London's Wembley Arena. In April 2005 Jones raised a controversy, when she was accused of verbally abusing a Eurostar train manager in a quarrel over a ticket upgrade, and she either was escorted off the train or left of her own accord, later saying that she had been mistreated. In February 2006, Jones was the celebrity runway model for Diesel's show in New York.

Producer Ivor Guest confirmed that Jones had completed recording of her new album in 2007. Other participants on the album included the original Compass Point All Stars lineup, including Sly and Robbie, Mikey Chung or Wally Badarou, joined by Brian Eno, Bruce Woolley, Tricky and Tony Allen. The Hurricane album (initially to be titled Corporate Canibal) was released on October 27, 2008, on Wall of Sound/PIAS Records, meeting with positive reviews. Jones embarked a concert tour on the turn of 2008 and 2009, and appeared at Secret Garden Party and Latitude Festival to promote the new album. The video for the second single, "Williams' Blood", used live footage from the Hurricane Tour. Grace Jones also collaborated with the avant-garde poet Brigitte Fontaine in a duet named " Soufi" from Fontaine's latest album 'Prohibition' released in the fall 2009, and produced by Ivor Guest. On April 26, 2010 Grace Jones performed at Royal Albert Hall, receiving rave reviews. A One Man Show was finally released on DVD, as Grace Jones - Live in Concert, in 2010 with 3 bonus videoclips ("Slave to the Rhythm", "Love Is the Drug" and "Crush"). "Love You to Life", the third single off Hurricane, was released on May 2, 2010.

Ivor Guest announced that he had completed producing Hurricane in Dub which features a dub version of every track from the Hurricane album. Jones may release the "lost" album Black Marilyn independently, along with a compilation of tracks recorded between Bulletproof Heart and "Hurricane". Also on the way is a 2 CD Deluxe Edition of Nightclubbing from Island Records to coincide with the record labels 50th Anniversary. Originally scheduled for release in 2009, Universal Music Group, the company that currently holds the rights to the Island Records back catalogue, have now delayed the release indefinitely.

Style, image and voice

In the late 1970s, Jones adapted the emerging New Wave music style and adopted a severe, androgynous look, with square-cut hair and angular, padded clothes, created in partnership with stylist Jean-Paul Goude. The muralist also painted her body for the video to "I'm Not Perfect (But I'm Perfect for You)" and the 1986 vampire film Vamp. Grace Jones's striking appearance, height (5'10½" or 1.79 m), and manner influenced the cross-dressing movement of the 1980s. To this day, she is known for her unique look at least as much as she is for her music and Lady Gaga. She is also recognized as one of the greatest gay icons.

Jones is a contralto. Although her image became equally as notable as her voice, she is a highly stylized vocalist. She sings in two modes: in her monotone speak-sing as in songs such as "Private Life", "Walking in the Rain" and "The Apple Stretching" and in an almost-soprano mode in songs such as "La Vie en rose" and "Slave to the Rhythm". Her voice spans two and a half octaves.

Discography

Portfolio (1977)

Fame (1978)

Muse (1979)

Warm Leatherette (1980)

Nightclubbing (1981)

Living My Life (1982)

Slave to the Rhythm (1985)

Island Life (1985)

Inside Story (1986)

Bulletproof Heart (1989)

Hurricane (2008)

Filmography

Movies

1973: Gordon's War

1976: Let's Make a Dirty Movie

1976: Colt 38 Special Squad

1979: Army of Lovers or Revolution of the Perverts (documentary)

1981: Deadly Vengeance

1984: Made in France (documentary)

1984: Conan the Destroyer

1985: A View to a Kill

1986: Vamp

1987: Straight to Hell

1987: Siesta

1990: Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol (documentary)

1992: Boomerang

1995: Cyber Bandits

1998: McCinsey's Island

1999: Palmer's Pick Up

2006: No Place Like Home

2008: Falco – Verdammt, Wir Leben Noch!

2008: Chelsea on the Rocks

Television work

1978: Stryx

1982: A One Man Show

1988: Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special

1999: Beastmaster

2001: Wolf Girl

2001: Shaka Zulu: The Citadel

Awards and nominations

Jones is a three-time Saturn Award nominee, a Grammy nominee, an MTV Video Music Awards nominee, a Razzie Award nominee and a Q Awards winner. She has also ranked 82nd on VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll.

Saturn Awards

1985: Best Supporting Actress for Conan the Destroyer (Nomination)

1986: Best Supporting Actress for A View to a Kill (Nomination)

1987: Best Supporting Actress for Vamp (Nomination)

Grammy Awards

1983: Best Long Form Music Video for her A One Man Show (Nomination)

MTV Video Music Award

1986: Best Female Video for "Slave to the Rhythm" (Nomination)

Razzie Awards

1987: Worst Supporting Actress for Siesta (Nomination)

Q Music Award

2008: Q Idol (Winner)

References

External links

Grace Jones official website

Official Grace Jones page at MySpace

Category:1948 births Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Living people Category:American contraltos Category:American disco musicians Category:American female models Category:American female singers Category:American house musicians Category:American pop singers Category:American singer-songwriters Category:Disco musicians Category:English-language singers Category:Female New Wave singers Category:French-language singers Category:American people of Jamaican descent Category:Jamaican female models Category:Jamaican female singers Category:Jamaican immigrants to the United States Category:People from Saint Catherine Parish Category:People from Syracuse, New York Category:ZTT Records artists

Mia Martini (born Domenica Bertè; 20 September 1947 - 12 May 1995) was an Italian singer.

Biography

Born Domenica Bertè in 1947 in Bagnara Calabra (province of Reggio Calabria, southern Italy), she moved to Rome with her sister (Loredana Bertè) and her friend Renato Zero.

She recorded her first records as Mimì Bertè, but she soon decided to change her name to Mia Martini.

Her biggest hits were "Piccolo Uomo", which was recorded in several languages, "Almeno tu nell'universo" written by Bruno Lauzi, which has been covered by several Italian singers including Mina and Elisa, and "Minuetto" .

She represented Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest twice: in 1977 with "Libera" (13th out of 18), and in 1992 with "Rapsodia" (4th out of 23).

Death

In 1995 Martini was found dead in her apartment at Cardano al Campo, near Milan by a painkillers overdose.

Discography

As Mimì Bertè

Singles

"I miei baci non puoi scordare" / "Lontani dal resto del mondo" (1963)

"Insieme" / "Let me tell you" (1963)

"Il magone" / "Se mi gira l'elica" (1964)

"Ed ora che abbiamo litigato" / "Non pentirti dopo" (1964)

"Non sarà tardi" / "Quattro settimane" (1966)

"Coriandoli spenti" / "L'argomento dell'amore" (1969; Withdrawn single, released in 2000 as part of compilation "Mia...Mimì")

As Mia Martini

Singles

"Padre davvero..." / "Amore...amore...un corno!" (1971)

"Gesù è mio fratello" / "Lacrime di marzo" (1971)

"Credo" / "Ossessioni" (1972)

"Piccolo uomo" / "Madre" (1972)

"Donna sola" / "Questo amore vero" (1972)

"Minuetto" / "Tu sei così" (1973)

"Il guerriero" / "Bolero" (1973, Release cancelled)

"Inno" / "...e stelle stan piovendo" (1974)

"Al mondo" / "Principessa di turno" (1975)

"Donna con te" / "Tutti uguali" (1975)

"L'amore è il mio orizzonte" / "Sabato" (1976)

"Che vuoi che sia...se t'ho aspettato tanto" / "Io donna, io persona" (1976)

"Libera" / "Sognare è vita" (1977)

"Per amarti" / "Se finisse qui" (1977)

"Vola" / "Dimmi" (1978)

"Danza" / "Canto alla luna" (1979)

"Ti regalo un sorriso" / "Ancora grande" (1981)

"E ancora canto" / "Stai con me" (1981)

"E non finisce mica il cielo" / "Voglio te" (1982)

"Quante volte" / "Solo noi" (1982, two editions)

"Bambolina" / "Guarirò guarirò" (1982)

"Spaccami il cuore" / "Lucy" (1985)

"Almeno tu nell'universo" / "Spegni la testa" (1989)

"La nevicata del '56" / "Danza pagana" (1990)

"Chica chica bum (remix)" / "Chica chica bum (instrumental)" (1990, Release cancelled)

"Stiamo come stiamo" (with Loredana Bertè) / "Dormitorio pubblico" (L.Bertè) (1993)

Albums

Oltre la collina (1971)

Nel mondo,una cosa (1972)

Il giorno dopo (1973)

È proprio come vivere (1974)

Sensi e controsensi (1975)

Un altro giorno con me (1975)

Che vuoi che sia... se t' ho aspettato tanto (1976)

Per amarti (1977)

Danza (1978)

Mimì (1981)

Quante volte... ho contato le stelle (1982)

Miei compagni di viaggio (1983)

Martini Mia (1989)

La mia razza (1990)

Mi basta solo che sia un amore (1991)

Mia Martini in concerto (da un'idea di Maurizio Giammarco) (1991)

Lacrime (1992)

Rapsodia Il meglio di Mia Martini (1992)

La musica che mi gira intorno (1994)

Compilations

Mia (1976)

Il meglio di Mia Martini (1984)

Ti regalo un sorriso (1985)

Mia Martini 1996 (1996)

Mia Martini - Le origini (1996)

Mimì Bertè (1996, including previously unreleased tracks)

Indimenticabile Mia (1996, including previously unreleased tracks)

Mi canto español (1997, including previously unreleased tracks)

Gli anni '70 (1998)

Semplicemente Mimì (1998, including previously unreleased tracks)

Sorelle (1999, including previously unreleased tracks)

I Miti Musica - Mia Martini (1999)

Mia... Mimì (2000, including previously unreleased tracks)

Mimì Sarà (2000, including previously unreleased tracks)

Dolce amare (2000)

Canzoni segrete (2003, including previously unreleased tracks and alternate versions)

Per sempre (2003)

E parlo ancora di te (2004, including previously unreleased tracks and alternate versions)

La neve, il cielo, l'immenso (3 CD box set, 2005; including previously unreleased tracks, alternative versions and songs previously unavailable on CD)

Liberamente Mia (2007)

DVD

In Concerto (in concert 1982, recorded for Italian language Swiss television; also released on VHS)

E ancora canto

Per aspera ad astra (also released on VHS)

References

External links

RAI biography

Category:1947 births Category:1995 deaths Category:1960s singers Category:1970s singers Category:1980s singers Category:1990s singers Category:People from the Province of Reggio Calabria Category:Italian pop singers Category:Italian female singers Category:Italian Eurovision Song Contest entrants Category:Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 1977 Category:Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 1992

Name	Gal Costa
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Maria da Graça Costa Penna Burgos
Born	September 26, 1945Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Genre	Música Popular Brasileira, Tropicália, Pop
Occupation	Solo singer, guitar player
Years active	1965–present
Url	http://www.galcosta.com.br

Gal Costa (born Maria da Graça Costa Penna Burgos on September 26, 1945 in Salvador, Bahia) is a Brazilian singer of popular music.

Early life

Gal Costa was born on September 26, 1945 on Barra, one of the most traditional neighbourhoods of Salvador, to Mariah Costa Penna (d. 1993) and Arnaldo Burgos (d. 1960). During her pregnancy, Mariah spent hours concentrated listening to classical music, as in a ritual, with the intention that her child would become interested in music. Gal never met her father, who died when she was 15 years old.

When she was 10, Gal befriended sisters Sandra and Andréia Gadelha, future wives of singer-songwriters Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, respectively. At 14, she first listened to João Gilberto's "Chega de Saudade" on the radio and became interested in Bossa Nova. She then went on to work as a clerk on Salvador's main record store to get closer to music. At 18, she was introduced to Caetano Veloso by Andréa Gadelha, engaging with him in a deep friendship that still lasts.

Career

Costa debuted her professional career on the night of August 22, 1964 on the concert Nós, por exemplo, where she performed alongside Veloso, Gil, Maria Bethânia and Tom Zé, among others. The concert inaugurated the Vila Velha Theatre in her hometown. During the same year, she also performed in Nova Bossa Velha, Velha Bossa Nova, at the same place and with the same singing partners. She then left Salvador to live in the house of her cousin Nívea in Rio de Janeiro, following the footsteps of Bethânia, whose concert, Opinião, had become a huge hit on the town.

Costa's first professional recording happened on Bethânia's debut album, released in 1965. It was the duet "Sol Negro", written by Bethânia's brother, Caetano Veloso. She then released her first singles through RCA Records, "Eu vim da Bahia", written by Gil, and "Sim, foi você", written by Veloso. On the following year, Costa met Gilberto personally and participated on TV Rio's 1st International Music Festival performing "Minha Senhora", written by Gil and Torquato Neto. It failed to captivate the Festival's audience.

Costa's first album Domingo was released on 1967 through Philips Records. It was also Veloso's debut. Costa stayed on the label, which later became Polygram, until 1983. One song released from this album, "Coração Vagabundo", became a huge hit. On the same year, Costa also performed two songs on the 2nd International Music Festival, which was then hosted by Rede Globo. They were "Bom Dia", written by Gil and Nana Caymmi and "Dadá Maria", written by Renato Teixeira. The latter was performed with Sílvio César on the Festival and with Teixeira on the recording.

In 1968, Costa became a part of the Tropicalismo movement. She recorded four songs on . They were "Mamãe coragem", written by Veoloso and Torquato Neto, "Parque industrial", by Tom Zé, "Enquanto seu lobo não vem", by Veloso, and "Baby", also by Veloso. The latter became Costa's first nationwide solo hit, becoming a classic of Brazilian popular music. On the same year, she participated on the 3rd International Music Festival, performing "Gabriela Mais Bela", written by Roberto and Erasmo Carlos. In November, she participated on Rede Record's 4th Music Festival, performing the song "Divino Maravilhoso", by Gil and Veloso. The song also became a nationwide hit and a classic song of popular music.

On 1969, Costa released her eponymous solo debut album, which included "Baby" and "Divino Maravilhoso". The album is considered a Tropicalismo classic, balanced between Brazilian stylizations and North American psychedelic influences. It also featured Costa's third and fourth solo hits, Jorge Ben Jor's "Que pena (Ele já não gosta mais de mim)" and Veloso's "Não identificado", respectively. On the same year, she recorded her second solo album, titled Gal, and featuring the hits "Meu nome é Gal", by Roberto and Erasmo Carlos, and "Cinema Olympia", by Veloso. The album served as the basis for the repertoire of the concert Gal!.

Her next album, Legal, was not as far from the mainstream as its predecessor, and a live album the following year again balanced smooth Brazilian sounds with heavy rock. In 1973, the cover of Costa's album Índia was censored due to her wearing a risqué red bikini. Costa has recorded songs composed by a number of Brazil's most popular songwriters such as Tom Jobim, Ben, and Erasmo Carlos. In 1982 the single "Festa Do Interior" from the double album Fantasia became her biggest ever hit, going multi-platinum by the end of the year. Costa appeared in the 1995 film The Mandarin (O Mandarim) as the singer Carmen Miranda. She has recorded songs in Portuguese, Spanish and English.

Discography

Studio albums

1965: Maria da Graça (EP)

1967: Domingo

1969: Gal Costa

1969: Gal

1970: Legal

1971: Fa-Tal - Gal a Todo Vapor (live)

1973: Índia

1974: Cantar

1975: Gal Canta Caymmi

1977: Caras e Bocas

1978: Água Viva

1979: Gal Tropical

1980: Aquarela do Brasil

1981: Fantasia

1982: Minha Voz

1983: Baby Gal

1983: Trilha Sonora do Filme 'Gabriela'

1984: Profana

1985: Bem Bom

1987: Lua de Mel Como o Diabo Gosta

1990: Plural

1992: Gal

1994: O Sorriso do Gato de Alice

1995: Mina D'Água do Meu Canto

1998: Aquele Frevo Axé

2001: Gal de Tantos Amores

2002: Gal Bossa Tropical

2004: Todas as Coisas e Eu

2005: Hoje

Live albums

1976: Doces Bárbaros (with Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Maria Bethânia)

1986: Jazzvisions: Rio Revisited (with Antonio Carlos Jobim)

1997: Acústico MTV

1999: Gal Costa Canta Tom Jobim Ao Vivo

2006: Gal Costa Live at the Blue Note

2006: Gal Costa Ao Vivo

Filmography

1995: O Mandarim as Carmen Miranda

References

External links

Official website

Gal Costa-Site Argentine- Spanish/Portuguese Argentine-website

Slipcue.com - English-language discography with reviews

Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:Brazilian female singers Category:Brazilian people of Spanish descent Category:Música Popular Brasileira singers Category:People from Salvador, Bahia Category:Brazilian mezzo-sopranos Category:Wrasse Records artists Category:Tropicália