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Mina (singer)
Encyclopedia
Anna Maria Quaini, Grand Officer
( Mazzini; 25 March 1940), known as Mina, is an Italian pop
singer. She was a staple of Italian television variety shows and a dominant figure in Italian pop music from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s known for her three-octave vocal range
, the agility of her soprano
voice, and her image as an emancipated woman
.
In performance, Mina combined several modern styles with traditional Italian melodies and swing music, which made her the most versatile pop singer in Italian music
. Mina dominated the Italian charts for fifteen years and reached an unsurpassed level of popularity in Italy. She has scored 77 albums and 71 singles
on the Italian charts.
Mina's TV appearances in 1959 were the first for a female rock and roll
singer in Italy. Her loud syncopated singing earned her the nickname Queen of Screamers. The public also labeled her the Tiger of Cremona
for her wild gestures and body shakes. When she turned to light pop tunes
, Mina's chart-toppers in West Germany
in 1962 and Japan
in 1964 earned her the title of the best international artist in these countries. Mina's more refined sensual manner was introduced in 1960 with Gino Paoli
's ballad "This World We Love In", which charted on the Billboard Hot 100
in 1961.
Mina was banned from Italian TV and radio in 1963 because her pregnancy and relationship with a married actor did not accord with the dominant Catholic and bourgeois morals. After the ban, the Italian broadcasting service RAI
tried to continue to prohibit her songs, which were forthright in dealing with subjects such as religion, smoking and sex. Mina's cool
act combined sex appeal with public smoking
, dyed
blond hair, and shaved eyebrows to create a "bad girl" image.
Mina's voice has distinctive timbre
and great power. Her main themes are anguished love stories performed in high dramatic tones. The singer combined classic Italian pop with elements of blues
, R&B and soul music
during the late 1960s, especially when she worked in collaboration with composer Lucio Battisti
. Top Italian songwriters created material with large vocal ranges and unusual chord progression
s to showcase her singing skills, particularly "Brava" by Bruno Canfora (1965) and the pseudo-serial
"Se telefonando" by Ennio Morricone
(1966). The latter song was covered by several performers abroad. Shirley Bassey
carried Mina's ballad "Grande grande grande
" to charts in the U.S., U.K., and other English-speaking countries in 1973. Mina's easy listening
duet "Parole parole" was turned into a worldwide hit by Dalida
and Alain Delon
in 1974. Mina gave up public appearances in 1978 and has continued to release popular albums on a yearly basis to the present day.
, Lombardy
. The family moved to work in Cremona
in her childhood. She listened to American rock and roll and jazz records and was a frequent visitor at the Santa Tecla and the Taverna Messicana clubs of Milan
, both known for promoting rock and roll. After finishing high school in 1958, she attended college where she majored in accounting.
on 8 August 1958, Mazzini gave an improvised performance of the song "Un'anima tra le mani" to amuse her family after a concert at the La Bussola night club. During the following nights, Sergio Bernardini, the owner of the club, held her back in her attempts to get back on stage.
In September, she started her solo career with the backing of the band Happy Boys. Her concert in September 1958, before an audience of 2,500 people at the Theatre of Rivarolo del Re
, won enthusiastic approval from local critics. She soon signed with Davide Matalon, owner of the small record company Italdisc. Her first single, "Non partir"/"Malatia", was produced under the stage name Mina for the Italian audience. Simultaneously, "Be Bop A Lula"/"When" was issued under the name Baby Gate for the international audience. Baby was chosen as a contrast to her 178 cm height (5 ft 10 in) — exceptionally tall for an Italian woman — and Gate as a tribute to The Golden Gate Quartet
. In December, her performance at the Sei giorni della canzone festival of Milan
was described by the La Notte newspaper as the "birth of a star". It was Mina's last performance with the Happy Boys, as her family refused to let her skip college for a scheduled tour of Turkey.
Less than a month after the breakup with her previous band, Mina co-founded a new group called Solitari, which consisted of a singer, a saxophonist, a pianist, a contrabassist, and a guitarist. Her first hit with the band featured Mina performed an extra-loud, syncopated version of the popular swing song "Nessuno" ("Nobody"), which she performed at the first rock festival in the Milan Ice Palace in February 1959. Performances of the song on the TV game show
s Lascia o raddoppia?
and Il musichiere on 1 March and 4 April were hailed by Italian critics. The starlet signed with Elio Gigante, an experienced artist manager. In the following years, he organized her performances in the grand ballrooms of Italy. Her first Italian #1 hit was the up-tempo "Tintarella di luna" ("Moon Tan") in September 1959, which was performed in her first musicarello (musical comedy film), Juke box - Urli d'amore. In late 1959, Matalon had her drop the name Baby Gate in favour of Mina.
in Sanremo
with two songs, she turned to slow emotional love songs for the first time. The song "È vero" ("It's True") reached #8 on the Italian charts. Gino Paoli
's song "Il cielo in una stanza" ("The Sky in a Room") marked the beginning of the young singer's transformation from a rock and roll shrieker to a feminine inspiration for cantautori. The idea for the song "Love can grow at any moment at any place" had come to Paoli while lying on a bed and looking at the purple ceiling. The single topped the list of annual sales in Italy and reached the Billboard Hot 100 as "This World We Love In". Video performances of the song were included in the musicarellos Io bacio... tu baci and Appuntamento a Ischia.
At the 1961 Sanremo song festival, Mina performed two songs. "Io amo, tu ami" ("I Love, You Love") finished fourth and "Le mille bolle blu" ("A Thousand Blue Bubbles") placed fifth. Disappointed with these results, Mina declared her intention of never performing at the Sanremo song festival again.
As her songs and movies were already popular abroad, Mina started to tour Spain and Japan, and performed on Venezuelan TV in 1961. Mina performed on Spanish TV and at the Paris Olympia
hall at the beginning of 1962. The presentation of her German single "Heißer Sand" on 12 March 1962 on Peter Kraus
's TV show caused a boom of 40,000 record sales in ten days in Germany. The record went to #1 and spent over half the year on the German charts in 1962. Mina had six more singles on the German chart in the next two years. In a listeners' poll conducted in July 1962 in Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking portion of Switzerland, Mina was voted the most popular singer in the world. In May 1962, she performed in Buenos Aires
. Meanwhile, her version of the mambo rhythm "Moliendo Cafe
" and the surf pop "Renato" peaked at #1 and #4 respectively on the Italian charts. "L'eclisse twist" appeared on the flipside of "Renato", and was used on the soundtrack of Michelangelo Antonioni
's feature film L'eclisse
.
In 1963 Mina's TV and radio career was interrupted by RAI
, the Italian public broadcasting service, as she refused to cover up her relationship (and resulting pregnancy) with the married actor Corrado Pani. Mina's record sales were unaffected and due to public demand, RAI ended the ban. On 10 January 1964 she returned to the TV screen on the program La fiera dei sogni, and performed the song "Città vuota", a cover of Gene McDaniels
' "It's a Lonely Town (Lonely Without You)", which was her first release on the RiFi label. Her next single, "È l'uomo per me", a cover of Jody Miller
's "He Walks Like a Man", became the biggest selling record of the year in Italy. Her new melodic manner was demonstrated again on the 11 December 1964 TV program Il macchiettario, where she performed "Io sono quel che sono" ("I Am What I Am"). A reminder of her previous adolescent image, her single "Suna ni kieta namida" ("Tears Disappear in the Sand"), sung in Japanese, peaked at #1 on the Japanese singles chart and earned Mina the title of Best International Artist in Japan.
The first episode of the Studio Uno live Saturday night series showcased Mina's new blond look with shaved eyebrows. The shows included the brooding songs "Un bacio è troppo poco" ("One Kiss is Not Enough") and "Un anno d'amore" ("A Year of Love"), a cover of Nino Ferrer
's "C'est irreparable". In the same series she performed "Brava" ("Good"), a rhythmic jazz number specially written by Bruno Canfora to demonstrate the Mina's vocal range and performing skills. Her Studio Uno
album topped the Italian album chart that year. Her recordings of 1965 included the scatting
performance of "Spirale Waltz", the theme song for the film The 10th Victim
.
and Ghigo De Chiara wrote the dark Hal David
mode lyrics of "Se telefonando" ("If Over the Phone") as the theme for the TV program Aria condizionata. The serialist
composer Ennio Morricone
was asked to compose the music. Mina and the three songwriters met in a RAI rehearsal room at Via Teulada, Rome. Morricone started to repeat a short musical theme of just three notes (by his term a micro-cell) on an upright piano
. He had copied the snippet of melody from the siren of a police car in Marseilles. After a few bars Mina grabbed the lyrics sheet and started to sing as if she had known the tune before. The resulting recording was a pop song with eight transitions of tonality
that builds tension throughout the chorus. Morricone's arrangement featured a sophisticated combination of melodic trumpet lines, Hal Blaine
-style drumming, a string set, a 1960s Europop
female choir, and intense subsonic-sounding trombones.
"Se telefonando" was presented in May 1966 in a Studio Uno episode and in August the same year at the Aria condizionata. The single peaked at #7 on the Italian chart and was 53rd in the annual list of sales. The album Studio Uno 66
featured the song as one of the standout tracks along with "Ta-ra-ta-ta" and "Una casa in cima al mondo". It was the fifth biggest selling album of the year in Italy.
In 1966, Mina started working with the Swiss Broadcasting Service
and the Orchestra Radiosa in Lugano. She founded the independent record label
PDU in collaboration with her father. The first record issued under the label was Dedicato a mio padre
(Dedicated to My Father). Mina's growing interest in Brazilian music resulted in "La banda" ("The Band"), a Chico Buarque
song, which reached #3 in Italy. Mina continued to perform on Italian TV, and presented "Zum zum zum" on the spring 1967 variety series Sabato sera, accompanied by the NATO naval band. The series also included "La coppia più bella del mondo" ("The Most Beautiful Couple in the World"), a duet with Adriano Celentano
. The title of the song "Sono, come tu mi vuoi" ("I Am, as You Want Me to Be") was taken from Luigi Pirandello
's play Come tu mi vuoi. The lyrics talk about the manic attention of the press on an artist's private life. Another hit from Sabato sera was "L'immensità" ("Immensity"), which was re-scored by Augusto Martelli and released as "La inmensidad" in Spain and Latin American countries.
RAI broadcast the third episode of Senza rete ("Unplugged") live on 18 July 1968 from the Auditorio A of the corporation's regional headquarters in Naples
. The program presented Mina's homage to Luigi Tenco
, who had recently passed away. She turned his song "Se stasera sono qui" ("Should I Stay Here Tonight") into a rigorous piece of soul music
in the score of Pino Calvi
. She celebrated the 10th anniversary of her career with a concert at La Bussola, backed by the Orchestra Augusto Martelli. The concert was recorded and issued as Mina alla Bussola dal vivo
.
Canzonissima 1968 was a Saturday night prime time
variety show
that aired on Rai Uno
from September 1968 to January 1969. It was hosted by Mina, Walter Chiari
and Paolo Panelli
. The orchestrations were scored by the conductors Bruno Canfora and Augusto Martelli. "Sacumdì Sacumdà", Mina's talking and laughing version of Carlos Imperial's bossa nova
"Nem Vem Que Não Tem", narrowly escaped a ban by RAI because of its irreverent lyrics. The song was performed as part of a musical fantasy, back to back with "Quelli che hanno un cuore", her intense version of "Anyone Who Had a Heart". Another interpretation of a Dionne Warwick
song was "La voce del silenzio" ("Silent Voices") by Paolo Limiti and Elio Isola, presented in a live session during the show. "Niente di niente" ("Nothing at All") was her version of the Delfonics
' "Break Your Promise". The series also included the songs "Fantasia", "La musica è finita" ("The Music is Over") and the elegant "Un colpo al cuore" ("Heart Attack"). "Un colpo al cuore" ended up as #68 on the best-selling singles chart for that year in Italy. Each show was closed by Mina singing "Vorrei che fosse amore" ("Wish It Was Love"), a piece of atmospheric music by Bruno Canfora that was #50 on the best-selling singles chart for 1968 in Italy. A selection of songs from the series were issued as the album Canzonissima '68
.
, in April. The single became the third biggest-selling record of the year in Italy. Mogol and his fellow composer Lucio Battisti
, along with the Premiata Forneria Marconi
on back-up instrumentals, worked with Mina on several songs as a result of the success of "Non credere". The team produced a set of songs including "Io e te da soli" ("You and Me Alone"), "Insieme" ("Together"), "Amor mio" ("Love of Mine"), "Io vivrò senza te" ("I'll Live without You"), "E penso a te" ("And I Think of You"). One of the first introductions of the new repertoire was the Senza rete live televised concert from the Auditorio A in Naples on 20 January 1970. The material provided by Mogol-Battisti was the core for five albums. Among them, ...bugiardo più che mai...più incosciente che mai...
was Mina's first independent album to reach #1 of the weekly Italian charts and was the biggest selling album of 1969 in Italy. ...quando tu mi spiavi in cima a un batticuore...
was seventh on the annual record chart of 1970. Del mio meglio...
(My Best...) was second in 1971. Mina
was the biggest seller of 1972. The latter two albums were recorded during a break from live performances to give birth to her daughter Benedetta.
Mina's comeback took place at RAI's variety series Teatro 10 in spring 1972. One of the highlights of the series was a selection of Battisti's songs performed in duet with the composer. The shows also included "Balada para mi muerte" ("Ode to My Death"), a nuevo tango
duet with Ástor Piazzolla
at the bandoneón
, backed by the Argentinian group Conjunto 9. "Grande grande grande
", arranged by Pino Presti
, was the second biggest-selling single of the year in Italy. Mogol-Battisti's success encouraged Enrico Riccardi to copy Battisti's style in his composition "Fiume azzurro", which earned another place in the Top 100 of annual record sales in Italy.
The final number of the eight Teatro 10 episodes was "Parole parole" ("Words Words"), a duet with Alberto Lupo
. The song was an easy listening
dialogue between Mina's singing and Lupo's declamation. The theme of the song was hollow words. It intertwined the lady's singing lamentation of the end of love and the lies she had to hear with the male protagonist's recitation
. In the dialog she scoffs at the compliments he gave her, calling them parole – just words. The single was released in April 1972 and topped the Italian charts. It was covered by numerous Italian and French duets.
Mina said she would be retiring from public appearances after an exclusive concert at the La Bussola Club on September 16. Thousands of people turned up at the nightclub's doorstep. Gianni Ferrio's Orchestra featured Gianni Basso on tenor saxophone and Oscar Valdambrini on trumpet.
Mina lost her husband Virgilio Crocco in a car accident in 1973. She continued her career with the top Italian chart hits "E poi..." ("And Then...") and "L'importante è finire" ("The Important Thing Is to Finish"). She recorded the theme song "Fa presto, fa piano" ("Works Quickly, Works Quietly") for the film La sculacciata, issued in 1974.
. During the series, she explored different musical styles in the songs "I Don't Know How to Love Him
", "Mack the Knife
", "Night and Day
", and "Someday (You'll Want Me to Want You)
". After "Non gioco più" ("The Game Is Over"), a blues duet with the harmonica
player Toots Thielemans
, Mina announced her withdrawal from public performances. Her last appearance on TV was her performance of "Ancora ancora ancora". The video was the final number of the "Mille e una luce" show on 1 July 1978. Her last concert appearances, a series of thirteen fully booked concerts at La Bussola in 1978, were cut short due to her illness. Mina gave her last public performance on 23 August 1978 at the Bussoladomani theatre backed by the Orchestra Pino Presti. It was recorded and issued as Mina Live '78
.
Mina continued to release albums on a yearly basis with her son Massimiliano Pani as the producer. Between 1972 and 1995, she published a double album each year. From 1973, her LPs and CDs have been characterized by artistic motifs of the designers Luciano Tallarini, Gianni Ronco and the photographer Mauro Balletti. From the mid-1980s, the design of the album covers was trusted to Balletti alone. All of Mina's records under the PDU label have reached the Italian Top 100. A large part of her work has consisted of covering well-known songs; she has dedicated tribute albums to The Beatles
, Frank Sinatra
, Renato Zero
, Domenico Modugno
, the Neapolitan song
, and religious music
. After leaving the stage, her greatest chart successes have been duets. In 1985, "Questione di feeling", a duet with Riccardo Cocciante
, was the 13th biggest-selling single of the year in Italy and became an evergreen (as a hit song is called in Europe). The duet album Mina Celentano
, recorded with Adriano Celentano
, was the biggest-selling album of 1998 in Italy. Starting in 1989, all of her records included the jazzy piano playing of Danilo Rea
.
The break in Mina's TV appearances lasted until 2001, when she released footage of her recording sessions. The videos were broadcasted over the Wind
internet site on 30 March. This resulted in millions of visits to the site on that night, and additional millions on following days. The footage was released as the DVD Mina in Studio. After the event, Mina's singles started to chart in Italy again. The track "Succhiando l'uva" (2002), written for her by Zucchero
, peaked at #3 on the chart. Mina's cover of "Don't call me baby (Can't take my eyes off you)
" (2003) reached #4 in Italy. The single "Alibi" (2007) reached #6 in Italy. The triple CD The Platinum Collection
reached #1 on the Italian charts. So did Olio
(1999), Veleno
(2002), Bula Bula
(2005) and Todavía
. Mina's later releases have included duets with Mick Hucknall
, Fabrizio De André
, Piero Pelù
, Adriano Celentano
, Lucio Dalla
, Joan Manuel Serrat
, Chico Buarque
, Tiziano Ferro
, Giorgia
and Seal. In recent years, Mina has been writing a weekly column on the front page of La Stampa
and a page in the Italian edition of the magazine Vanity Fair
where she answers fan letters.
sweeping across Italy in 1958, Mina listened to American records and was a frequent visitor at the Derby Club, the Santa Tecla, and the Taverna Messicana clubs of Milan
, which promoted rock and roll music. Mina's repertoire at the beginning of her career included clumsy imitations of British and American rock and jazz songs, while her extra-loud and syncopated version of the song "Nessuno" showcased her excellent sense of rhythm. Earlier in 1958, Domenico Modugno
had caused astonishment by raising his hands in the air during his performance of Nel blu dipinto di blu ("Volare"). In Mina's first TV appearances she also broke with tradition by shaking her head, hands, and hips to the rhythm. The writer Edoardo Sanguineti
recalled the Italian public's first encounter with the enthusiastic singer as: TV host Mario Riva named her one of the urlatori (screamers), for her distinctive timbre
and power. Later, the public called Mina the Queen of the Screamers. Her extravagant gestures earned her another nickname – Tiger of Cremona.
was illegal and single motherhood was considered shameful. Thus, her non-conformist choices represented the emancipation of women in Italy, which did not accord with the dominant Catholic and bourgeois virtues prevalent at the time. The subsequent ban from performing on Italian TV and radio channels further developed Mina's image as an independent "bad girl", which she emphasized with her choice of song themes. An example was her performance of "Sacumdì Sacumdà" on air after RAI had expressed their displeasure with the song's lyrics about a girl's encounter with the Devil
. Other songs that RAI initially banned as immoral were "Ta-ra-ta-ta" (dealing forthrightly with smoking), "La canzone di Marinella", and "L'importante è finire" (alluding to sex without love). Mina's cool act featured sex appeal, public smoking, dyed blonde hair, shaved eyebrows, and heavy use of eye make-up.
The main themes of Mina's songs were distressing love stories. Her style was to interpret them in a highly dramatic way by using gestures and body language to bring the story alive. Mina's performance was typically characterised by expressive intensity, subtle variations, and original phrasing. The music critic Gherardo Gentili has noted her interpretive skills as:
To demonstrate Mina's vocal range, the composer Bruno Canfora penned the song "Brava", and Ennio Morricone
wrote "Se telefonando" with numerous transitions of tonality. More songs were composed exclusively for Mina and arranged for RAI's all-star orchestras for performance on the TV variety series Studio uno, Sabato sera, Canzonissima and Teatro 10. Mina (alongside Carmen Villani
) pioneered by combining classic Italian pop and swing music with features of blues
, R&B and soul music
, particularly in the songs "Se stasera sono qui" and "Deborah". She helped to incorporate new styles into Italian pop music, including nuevo tango
, as seen in her duet "Balada para mi muerte" with Ástor Piazzolla
.
skills. Around the time of their collaboration, Mina turned towards middle-of-the-road pop. Battisti's melodies were sophisticated and had a complex chord sequence.
The songs were characterized by frequent changes of rhythm, pauses, and dialogues between the voice and the orchestra. Another characterizing feature was an instrumental introduction without a rhythmic base.
, Mina recorded in Spanish and Portuguese from the start of her career and currently enjoys a fan base in Spain and Latin America. The Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar
has used Mina's songs in his movie soundtracks. In 2001, Mina published the compilation album Colección Latina. It includes standards in Spanish, as well as Spanish covers of her originals. In 2003, the musical Mina... che cosa sei? was staged in Argentina
, based on Mina's songs. It was nominated for four Premios ACE in 2003 and 2004, among them Best Musical, and won the Premio Clarín for Best Musical. In 2007, Mina published Todavía
, an album in Spanish and Portuguese, which reached #36 on the Spanish charts and #1 on the Italian charts. It included duets with Joan Manuel Serrat
, Miguel Bosé
, Diego Torres
, Chico Buarque
, and Diego El Cigala
.
on the Italian charts. She is the only artist to land an album at the top of the Italian charts in each of the five decades from the start of record keeping in 1965. President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
presented her with the Second Class of the Italian Order of Merit on 1 June 2001.
British
singer Dusty Springfield
referenced Mina in performance. A number of Mina's songs were turned into hits by singers in other languages. The first of these was "Piano", scored by Matt Monro
as "Softly, as I Leave You
", which reached #10 in the UK Top 40. In 1964, the song reached #27 of the Billboard Hot 100 in the version by Frank Sinatra
. "Se telefonando" was covered by several performers in Italy and abroad, most notably by Françoise Hardy
and Iva Zanicchi
(1966), Delta V (2005), Vanessa and the O's
(2007), and Neil Hannon
(2008). "Grande grande grande
", recorded by Shirley Bassey
as "Never Never Never" in 1973, reached the Billboard Hot 100, UK Top 10, #1 of the Australian charts, #2 in South Africa
and #3 in Singapore
. A year later, Dalida
and Alain Delon
recorded the French version of "Parole parole" and made it an international hit. Mexican icon José José
recorded the Spanish version of the hit "Sono, come tu mi vuoi", entitled "Soy como quieras tú". English musician Elvis Costello
used a sample from Mina's "Un bacio è troppo poco" on his album When I Was Cruel
. Tanita Tikaram
covered Mina's "And I Think of You - E penso a te
" in English as a track on the album The Best of Tanita Tikaram
. In 2010, Chicago
band La Scala released a rock cover of her hit "Tu Farai" with Gretta Rochelle on vocals.
Spanish artist Mónica Naranjo
enregistered an entirely album with covers translated to Spanish of the discography from Mina, the album was published Mars, 20 1999 and entiteled Minage. The covered songs included "Ancora, ancora, ancora", "Io é te da soli", "Fiume azzurro" and "L'immensità". Mina collaborated with the album recording the duet "Él se encuentra entre tú y yo" ("He is between you and me").
To celebrate Mina's 70th anniversary, the la Repubblica
newspaper held a reader's poll to pick Mina's best song of all time. In a vote of 30,000 participants, "Se telefonando" emerged at the top of the list.
football club, at the swimming pool at her age of 16.
Mina fell in love with actor Corrado Pani in 1962. Their relationship shocked Italian audiences as he was already married although separated from his wife. Their son, Massimiliano Pani, was born on 18 April 1963. Due to Mina's refusal to hide the relationship, the singer was banned from performing on public Italian television or radio channels. As her record sales were unaffected and audiences demanded to see Mina on the air, RAI was forced to end the ban and let Mina return to television on 10 January 1964. Within a year, her affair with Corrado ended.
Mina's brother Alfredo Mazzini died in a car accident in 1965. A year later she and her father moved to Lugano
, Switzerland
. Mina's intimate relationships, however, remained in Italy, as she had a brief affair with the actor Walter Chiari
. A later relationship with actor Gian Maria Volonté
ended after she found out about Volontè's affair with an actress. Mina's great love of the late 1960s, with whom she had a relationship that lasted three years and almost led to marriage, was the composer Augusto Martelli. Her second spouse was Virgilio Crocco, a journalist for Il Messaggero
, in 1970. As a result of their marriage, her legal name was changed for Anna Maria Mazzini Crocco. Their daughter Benedetta Mazzini was born on 11 November 1971. Crocco died in a car accident in 1973.
Mina became engaged to her current husband, Swiss
cardiologist Eugenio Quaini, in 1981. They were married on 10 January 2006 in Lugano. She obtained Swiss citizenship in 1989. As required in that country, she took on her husband's last name and her legal name became Anna Maria Quaini. To her public, however, she still addresses herself as Mina Mazzini, also seen in her website's domain name.
Omri
Omri was a king of Israel, successful military campaigner and first in the line of Omride kings that included Ahab, Ahaziah and Joram.He was "commander of the army" of king Elah when Zimri murdered Elah and made himself king. Instead, the troops at Gibbethon chose Omri as king, and he led them to...
( Mazzini; 25 March 1940), known as Mina, is an Italian pop
Italian popular music
The expression Italian Popular Music refers to the musical output which is not usually considered Academic or Classical Music but rather have its roots in the popular traditions, and it may be defined in two ways: it can either be defined in terms of the current geographical location of the Italian...
singer. She was a staple of Italian television variety shows and a dominant figure in Italian pop music from the mid-1960s to mid-1970s known for her three-octave vocal range
Vocal range
Vocal range is the measure of the breadth of pitches that a human voice can phonate. Although the study of vocal range has little practical application in terms of speech, it is a topic of study within linguistics, phonetics, and speech and language pathology, particularly in relation to the study...
, the agility of her soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
voice, and her image as an emancipated woman
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
.
In performance, Mina combined several modern styles with traditional Italian melodies and swing music, which made her the most versatile pop singer in Italian music
Music of Italy
The music of Italy ranges across a broad spectrum of opera and instrumental classical music and a body of popular music drawn from both native and imported sources. Music has traditionally been one of the cultural markers of Italian national and ethnic identity and holds an important position in...
. Mina dominated the Italian charts for fifteen years and reached an unsurpassed level of popularity in Italy. She has scored 77 albums and 71 singles
Mina discography
-Albums in Italian charts:Data from the HitParadeItalia site - Singles in Italian charts :Data from the HitParadeItalia site...
on the Italian charts.
Mina's TV appearances in 1959 were the first for a female rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
singer in Italy. Her loud syncopated singing earned her the nickname Queen of Screamers. The public also labeled her the Tiger of Cremona
Cremona
Cremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
for her wild gestures and body shakes. When she turned to light pop tunes
Traditional pop music
Traditional pop or classic pop or standards music denotes, in general, Western popular music that either wholly predates the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s, or to any popular music which exists concurrently to rock and roll but originated in a time before the appearance of rock and roll,...
, Mina's chart-toppers in West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
in 1962 and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
in 1964 earned her the title of the best international artist in these countries. Mina's more refined sensual manner was introduced in 1960 with Gino Paoli
Gino Paoli
Gino Paoli is an Italian singer-songwriter. He wrote four masterpieces of Italian popular music: "Il cielo in una stanza", "Che cosa c'è", "Senza fine" and "Sapore di sale".- Biography :...
's ballad "This World We Love In", which charted on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
in 1961.
Mina was banned from Italian TV and radio in 1963 because her pregnancy and relationship with a married actor did not accord with the dominant Catholic and bourgeois morals. After the ban, the Italian broadcasting service RAI
RAI
RAI — Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. Rai is the biggest television company in Italy...
tried to continue to prohibit her songs, which were forthright in dealing with subjects such as religion, smoking and sex. Mina's cool
Cool (aesthetic)
Something regarded as cool is an admired aesthetic of attitude, behavior, comportment, appearance and style, influenced by and a product of the Zeitgeist. Because of the varied and changing connotations of cool, as well its subjective nature, the word has no single meaning. It has associations of...
act combined sex appeal with public smoking
Smoking in Italy
Smoking in Italy has been banned in public places including bars, restaurants, discotheques and offices since 2005. A majority of Italians supported the ban at the time it was first implemented, but there was a lack of support from smokers and some bar owners, and only 5% of bar and restaurant...
, dyed
Hair coloring
Hair coloring is the practice of changing the color of hair. Common reasons are to cover gray hair, to change to a color regarded as more fashionable or desirable, and to restore the original hair color after it has been discolored by hairdressing processes or sun bleaching...
blond hair, and shaved eyebrows to create a "bad girl" image.
Mina's voice has distinctive timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
and great power. Her main themes are anguished love stories performed in high dramatic tones. The singer combined classic Italian pop with elements of blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, R&B and soul music
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
during the late 1960s, especially when she worked in collaboration with composer Lucio Battisti
Lucio Battisti
Lucio Battisti was an Italian singer-songwriter . He is considered to be one of the best-known and most influential musicians and authors in Italian pop/rock music history....
. Top Italian songwriters created material with large vocal ranges and unusual chord progression
Chord progression
A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...
s to showcase her singing skills, particularly "Brava" by Bruno Canfora (1965) and the pseudo-serial
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
"Se telefonando" by Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...
(1966). The latter song was covered by several performers abroad. Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
carried Mina's ballad "Grande grande grande
Grande grande grande
"Grande grande grande" is a 1972 Italian song, written by Alberto Testa and Tony Renis. It was a No. 1 hit for Mina in Italy and for Shirley Bassey released as "Never Never Never" in the U.K., U.S. and Australia.-Mina version:...
" to charts in the U.S., U.K., and other English-speaking countries in 1973. Mina's easy listening
Easy listening
Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...
duet "Parole parole" was turned into a worldwide hit by Dalida
Dalida
Dalida , born with Italian name of Iolanda Cristina Gigliotti, was a world-famous singer and actress born in Egypt with Italian origins but naturalised French with the name Yolanda Gigliotti. She spent her early years in Egypt amongst the Italian Egyptian community, but she lived most of her adult...
and Alain Delon
Alain Delon
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon is a French actor. He rose quickly to stardom, and by the age of 23 was already being compared to French actors such as Gérard Philipe and Jean Marais, as well as American actor James Dean. He was even called the male Brigitte Bardot...
in 1974. Mina gave up public appearances in 1978 and has continued to release popular albums on a yearly basis to the present day.
Early life
Anna Maria Mazzini was born into a working class family in Busto ArsizioBusto Arsizio
Busto Arsizio is a city and comune in the region of Lombardy, in northern Italy, 25 km north of Milan in the province of Varese.The economy of Busto Arsizio is mainly based on industry and commerce.-History:...
, Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
. The family moved to work in Cremona
Cremona
Cremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
in her childhood. She listened to American rock and roll and jazz records and was a frequent visitor at the Santa Tecla and the Taverna Messicana clubs of Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, both known for promoting rock and roll. After finishing high school in 1958, she attended college where she majored in accounting.
Queen of Screamers (1958–1961)
While on summer holiday in VersiliaVersilia
The Versilia is a part of Tuscany in the north-western province of Lucca, and is named after the Versilia river.Known for fashionable Riviera resorts, it consists of numerous clubs that are frequented by local celebrities....
on 8 August 1958, Mazzini gave an improvised performance of the song "Un'anima tra le mani" to amuse her family after a concert at the La Bussola night club. During the following nights, Sergio Bernardini, the owner of the club, held her back in her attempts to get back on stage.
In September, she started her solo career with the backing of the band Happy Boys. Her concert in September 1958, before an audience of 2,500 people at the Theatre of Rivarolo del Re
Rivarolo del Re ed Uniti
Rivarolo del Re ed Uniti is a comune in the Province of Cremona in the Italian region Lombardy, located about 110 km southeast of Milan and about 35 km southeast of Cremona....
, won enthusiastic approval from local critics. She soon signed with Davide Matalon, owner of the small record company Italdisc. Her first single, "Non partir"/"Malatia", was produced under the stage name Mina for the Italian audience. Simultaneously, "Be Bop A Lula"/"When" was issued under the name Baby Gate for the international audience. Baby was chosen as a contrast to her 178 cm height (5 ft 10 in) — exceptionally tall for an Italian woman — and Gate as a tribute to The Golden Gate Quartet
The Golden Gate Quartet
The Golden Gate Quartet is an American vocal group. It was formed in 1934 and, with changes in membership, remains active. It is the most successful of all of the African-American gospel music groups who sang in the jubilee quartet style...
. In December, her performance at the Sei giorni della canzone festival of Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
was described by the La Notte newspaper as the "birth of a star". It was Mina's last performance with the Happy Boys, as her family refused to let her skip college for a scheduled tour of Turkey.
Less than a month after the breakup with her previous band, Mina co-founded a new group called Solitari, which consisted of a singer, a saxophonist, a pianist, a contrabassist, and a guitarist. Her first hit with the band featured Mina performed an extra-loud, syncopated version of the popular swing song "Nessuno" ("Nobody"), which she performed at the first rock festival in the Milan Ice Palace in February 1959. Performances of the song on the TV game show
Game show
A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...
s Lascia o raddoppia?
Lascia o raddoppia?
Lascia o raddoppia? was a game show that aired on Italian television from 1955-1959. It was considered the Italian version of The $64,000 Question....
and Il musichiere on 1 March and 4 April were hailed by Italian critics. The starlet signed with Elio Gigante, an experienced artist manager. In the following years, he organized her performances in the grand ballrooms of Italy. Her first Italian #1 hit was the up-tempo "Tintarella di luna" ("Moon Tan") in September 1959, which was performed in her first musicarello (musical comedy film), Juke box - Urli d'amore. In late 1959, Matalon had her drop the name Baby Gate in favour of Mina.
Growing up (1960–1965)
The next year, when Mina took part in the Festival della canzone italianaFestival della canzone italiana
The Festival della canzone italiana di Sanremo is a popular Italian song contest, held annually in the city of Sanremo, in Italy, and consisting of a competition amongst previously unreleased songs...
in Sanremo
Sanremo
Sanremo or San Remo is a city with about 57,000 inhabitants on the Mediterranean coast of western Liguria in north-western Italy. Founded in Roman times, the city is best known as a tourist destination on the Italian Riviera. It hosts numerous cultural events, such as the Sanremo Music Festival...
with two songs, she turned to slow emotional love songs for the first time. The song "È vero" ("It's True") reached #8 on the Italian charts. Gino Paoli
Gino Paoli
Gino Paoli is an Italian singer-songwriter. He wrote four masterpieces of Italian popular music: "Il cielo in una stanza", "Che cosa c'è", "Senza fine" and "Sapore di sale".- Biography :...
's song "Il cielo in una stanza" ("The Sky in a Room") marked the beginning of the young singer's transformation from a rock and roll shrieker to a feminine inspiration for cantautori. The idea for the song "Love can grow at any moment at any place" had come to Paoli while lying on a bed and looking at the purple ceiling. The single topped the list of annual sales in Italy and reached the Billboard Hot 100 as "This World We Love In". Video performances of the song were included in the musicarellos Io bacio... tu baci and Appuntamento a Ischia.
At the 1961 Sanremo song festival, Mina performed two songs. "Io amo, tu ami" ("I Love, You Love") finished fourth and "Le mille bolle blu" ("A Thousand Blue Bubbles") placed fifth. Disappointed with these results, Mina declared her intention of never performing at the Sanremo song festival again.
As her songs and movies were already popular abroad, Mina started to tour Spain and Japan, and performed on Venezuelan TV in 1961. Mina performed on Spanish TV and at the Paris Olympia
Paris Olympia
The Olympia is a music hall in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. Located at No. 28, Boulevard des Capucines, its closest métro/RER stations are Madeleine, Opéra, Havre – Caumartin and Auber....
hall at the beginning of 1962. The presentation of her German single "Heißer Sand" on 12 March 1962 on Peter Kraus
Peter Kraus
Peter Kraus is a German singer and actor.Born Peter Siegfried Krausenecker in Munich, Kraus was popular especially in the 1950s, notably in those musical comedy films where he played opposite Cornelia Froboess.- Youth :...
's TV show caused a boom of 40,000 record sales in ten days in Germany. The record went to #1 and spent over half the year on the German charts in 1962. Mina had six more singles on the German chart in the next two years. In a listeners' poll conducted in July 1962 in Germany, Austria, and the German-speaking portion of Switzerland, Mina was voted the most popular singer in the world. In May 1962, she performed in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
. Meanwhile, her version of the mambo rhythm "Moliendo Cafe
Moliendo Café
"Moliendo Café" is a song by Venezuelan composer Hugo Blanco. It was composed in 1958, when Blanco was 18 years old. Blanco's version hit #1 in Argentina and Japan in 1961.The story goes that Blanco's uncle, Jose Manzo Perroni, helped him compose it...
" and the surf pop "Renato" peaked at #1 and #4 respectively on the Italian charts. "L'eclisse twist" appeared on the flipside of "Renato", and was used on the soundtrack of Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian modernist film director, screenwriter, editor and short story writer.- Personal life :...
's feature film L'eclisse
L'eclisse
L'eclisse is a 1962 film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. It is considered the last part of a trilogy which was preceded by L'avventura and La Notte....
.
In 1963 Mina's TV and radio career was interrupted by RAI
RAI
RAI — Radiotelevisione italiana S.p.A. known until 1954 as Radio Audizioni Italiane, is the Italian state owned public service broadcaster controlled by the Ministry of Economic Development. Rai is the biggest television company in Italy...
, the Italian public broadcasting service, as she refused to cover up her relationship (and resulting pregnancy) with the married actor Corrado Pani. Mina's record sales were unaffected and due to public demand, RAI ended the ban. On 10 January 1964 she returned to the TV screen on the program La fiera dei sogni, and performed the song "Città vuota", a cover of Gene McDaniels
Gene McDaniels
Gene McDaniels was an American singer and songwriter, who had his greatest recording success in the early 1960s.-Biography:...
' "It's a Lonely Town (Lonely Without You)", which was her first release on the RiFi label. Her next single, "È l'uomo per me", a cover of Jody Miller
Jody Miller
Jody Brooks is an American country music singer. Born as Myrna Joy Miller, she was born in Phoenix, Arizona and raised in Oklahoma.-Career:...
's "He Walks Like a Man", became the biggest selling record of the year in Italy. Her new melodic manner was demonstrated again on the 11 December 1964 TV program Il macchiettario, where she performed "Io sono quel che sono" ("I Am What I Am"). A reminder of her previous adolescent image, her single "Suna ni kieta namida" ("Tears Disappear in the Sand"), sung in Japanese, peaked at #1 on the Japanese singles chart and earned Mina the title of Best International Artist in Japan.
The first episode of the Studio Uno live Saturday night series showcased Mina's new blond look with shaved eyebrows. The shows included the brooding songs "Un bacio è troppo poco" ("One Kiss is Not Enough") and "Un anno d'amore" ("A Year of Love"), a cover of Nino Ferrer
Nino Ferrer
Nino Ferrer was a famous French – Italian singer, actor and jazz musician.- From prehistory to jazz :...
's "C'est irreparable". In the same series she performed "Brava" ("Good"), a rhythmic jazz number specially written by Bruno Canfora to demonstrate the Mina's vocal range and performing skills. Her Studio Uno
Studio Uno
Studio Uno is an album by Italian singer Mina. Reissued on CD by BMG in 1997.- Track listing :# L'ultima occasione - 2:43# Un anno d'amore - 3:11# Se piangi se ridi - 2:39# Più di te - 2:52# È l'uomo per me - 2:24...
album topped the Italian album chart that year. Her recordings of 1965 included the scatting
Scat singing
In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. Scat singing gives singers the ability to sing improvised melodies and rhythms, to create the equivalent of an instrumental solo using their voice.- Structure and syllable choice...
performance of "Spirale Waltz", the theme song for the film The 10th Victim
The 10th Victim
The 10th Victim is a 1965 Italian/French international co-production science fiction film directed by Elio Petri. It is based on Robert Sheckley's 1953 short story "Seventh Victim". Sheckley later published a novelization of the film in 1966.-Plot:...
.
Independence (1966–1968)
In spring 1966, Maurizio CostanzoMaurizio Costanzo
Maurizio Costanzo is an Italian television host and journalist. He is married to Maria De Filippi, an Italian television host.-Biography:Costanzo was born in Rome....
and Ghigo De Chiara wrote the dark Hal David
Hal David
Harold Lane "Hal" David is an American lyricist. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York. David is best known for his collaborations with composer Burt Bacharach.-Career:...
mode lyrics of "Se telefonando" ("If Over the Phone") as the theme for the TV program Aria condizionata. The serialist
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
composer Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...
was asked to compose the music. Mina and the three songwriters met in a RAI rehearsal room at Via Teulada, Rome. Morricone started to repeat a short musical theme of just three notes (by his term a micro-cell) on an upright piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
. He had copied the snippet of melody from the siren of a police car in Marseilles. After a few bars Mina grabbed the lyrics sheet and started to sing as if she had known the tune before. The resulting recording was a pop song with eight transitions of tonality
Tonality
Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...
that builds tension throughout the chorus. Morricone's arrangement featured a sophisticated combination of melodic trumpet lines, Hal Blaine
Hal Blaine
Hal Blaine is an American drummer and session musician. He is most known for his work with the Wrecking Crew in California. Blaine played on numerous hits by popular groups, including Elvis Presley, John Denver, the Ronettes, Simon & Garfunkel, the Carpenters, the Beach Boys, Nancy Sinatra, and...
-style drumming, a string set, a 1960s Europop
Europop
Europop refers to a style of pop music that first developed in today's form in Europe, throughout the late 1970s. Europop topped the charts throughout the 1980s and ’90s...
female choir, and intense subsonic-sounding trombones.
"Se telefonando" was presented in May 1966 in a Studio Uno episode and in August the same year at the Aria condizionata. The single peaked at #7 on the Italian chart and was 53rd in the annual list of sales. The album Studio Uno 66
Studio Uno 66
Studio Uno 66 is an album by Italian singer Mina.The album was released in the spring of 1966, topping the charts and yielding three top ten singles - "Ta-ra-ta-ta", "Una casa al cima al mondo" and "Se telefonando"....
featured the song as one of the standout tracks along with "Ta-ra-ta-ta" and "Una casa in cima al mondo". It was the fifth biggest selling album of the year in Italy.
In 1966, Mina started working with the Swiss Broadcasting Service
Radiotelevisione svizzera di lingua italiana
Radiotelevisione svizzera di lingua italiana is a Swiss public broadcasting organisation, part of SRG SSR. RSI handles production and broadcasting of radio and television programs in Italian for Switzerland...
and the Orchestra Radiosa in Lugano. She founded the independent record label
Independent record label
An independent record label is a record label operating without the funding of or outside the organizations of the major record labels. A great number of bands and musical acts begin on independent labels.-Overview:...
PDU in collaboration with her father. The first record issued under the label was Dedicato a mio padre
Dedicato a mio padre
Dedicato a mio padre is the first independently produced album by Italian singer Mina.-Track listing:# Lazy River - 2:49# I Should Care - 3:15# I discorsi - 3:06# Somos - 2:29# La canzone di Marinella - 3:15# The Man That Got Away - 2:44...
(Dedicated to My Father). Mina's growing interest in Brazilian music resulted in "La banda" ("The Band"), a Chico Buarque
Chico Buarque
Francisco Buarque de Hollanda , popularly known as Chico Buarque , is a singer, guitarist, composer, dramatist, writer and poet...
song, which reached #3 in Italy. Mina continued to perform on Italian TV, and presented "Zum zum zum" on the spring 1967 variety series Sabato sera, accompanied by the NATO naval band. The series also included "La coppia più bella del mondo" ("The Most Beautiful Couple in the World"), a duet with Adriano Celentano
Adriano Celentano
Adriano Celentano is an Italian singer, songwriter, comedian, actor, film director and TV host.-Biography:Celentano was born in Milan at 14 Via Gluck, about which he later wrote the famous song "Il ragazzo della via Gluck"...
. The title of the song "Sono, come tu mi vuoi" ("I Am, as You Want Me to Be") was taken from Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist, and short story writer awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1934, for his "bold and brilliant renovation of the drama and the stage." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, and about 40 plays, some of which are written...
's play Come tu mi vuoi. The lyrics talk about the manic attention of the press on an artist's private life. Another hit from Sabato sera was "L'immensità" ("Immensity"), which was re-scored by Augusto Martelli and released as "La inmensidad" in Spain and Latin American countries.
RAI broadcast the third episode of Senza rete ("Unplugged") live on 18 July 1968 from the Auditorio A of the corporation's regional headquarters in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
. The program presented Mina's homage to Luigi Tenco
Luigi Tenco
Luigi Tenco was an Italian singer, songwriter and actor.-Biography:Tenco was born in Cassine in 1938, the son of Teresa Zoccola and Giuseppe Tenco. He never knew his father, who died in unclear circumstances...
, who had recently passed away. She turned his song "Se stasera sono qui" ("Should I Stay Here Tonight") into a rigorous piece of soul music
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
in the score of Pino Calvi
Pino Calvi
Pino Calvi was an Italian pianist, arranger, conductor and soundtrack composer for films and TV series....
. She celebrated the 10th anniversary of her career with a concert at La Bussola, backed by the Orchestra Augusto Martelli. The concert was recorded and issued as Mina alla Bussola dal vivo
Mina alla Bussola dal vivo
Mina alla Bussola dal vivo is Italian singer Mina's first live album.Mina was the first italian woman to record an live album during her performance at the Bussola, a popular night club in Marina di Pietrasanta, Versilia, Tuscany, Italy...
.
Canzonissima 1968 was a Saturday night prime time
Prime time
Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast programming during the middle of the evening for television programing.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period—for example, from 19:00 to 22:00 or 20:00 to 23:00 Prime time or primetime is the block of broadcast...
variety show
Variety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...
that aired on Rai Uno
Rai Uno
Rai 1 is the primary television station of RAI, the national public service broadcaster, and the most watched television channel in Italy. It was born as Rai Tv from 1954 to 1961, called Programma Nazionale from 1961 to 1979, after called Rete 1 from 1979 to 1982, then called Rai Uno from 1982 to...
from September 1968 to January 1969. It was hosted by Mina, Walter Chiari
Walter Chiari
Walter Chiari, stage name of Walter Annichiarico , was a hugely successful Italian stage and screen actor, mostly in comedy roles....
and Paolo Panelli
Paolo Panelli
Paolo Panelli was an Italian film actor. He appeared in 55 films between 1948 and 1996. He was married to Bice Valori.-Selected filmography:* Hearts at Sea * Against the Law...
. The orchestrations were scored by the conductors Bruno Canfora and Augusto Martelli. "Sacumdì Sacumdà", Mina's talking and laughing version of Carlos Imperial's bossa nova
Bossa nova
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music. Bossa nova acquired a large following in the 1960s, initially consisting of young musicians and college students...
"Nem Vem Que Não Tem", narrowly escaped a ban by RAI because of its irreverent lyrics. The song was performed as part of a musical fantasy, back to back with "Quelli che hanno un cuore", her intense version of "Anyone Who Had a Heart". Another interpretation of a Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....
song was "La voce del silenzio" ("Silent Voices") by Paolo Limiti and Elio Isola, presented in a live session during the show. "Niente di niente" ("Nothing at All") was her version of the Delfonics
The Delfonics
The Delfonics are a pioneering Philadelphia soul singing group, most popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Their most notable hits include "La-La ", "Didn't I ", "Break Your Promise," "I'm Sorry," and "Ready or Not Here I Come "...
' "Break Your Promise". The series also included the songs "Fantasia", "La musica è finita" ("The Music is Over") and the elegant "Un colpo al cuore" ("Heart Attack"). "Un colpo al cuore" ended up as #68 on the best-selling singles chart for that year in Italy. Each show was closed by Mina singing "Vorrei che fosse amore" ("Wish It Was Love"), a piece of atmospheric music by Bruno Canfora that was #50 on the best-selling singles chart for 1968 in Italy. A selection of songs from the series were issued as the album Canzonissima '68
Canzonissima '68
- Track listing :Side A# Zum zum zum - 2:41# Io innamorata - 2:59# Sacumdì, sacumdà - 2:37# Né come né perché - 4:17# Un colpo al cuore - 3:19# La voce del silenzio - 3:23Side B# Vorrei che fosse amore - 2:31...
.
Mogol-Battisti (1969–1973)
After a break of three months, Mina returned and recorded the song "Non credere" ("Disbelieve"), composed by Luigi Clausetti and Pietro Soffici, with lyrics by MogolMogol (lyricist)
Giulio Rapetti , in art Mogol, is an Italian music lyricist. He is best known for his collaborations with Lucio Battisti.-Career:...
, in April. The single became the third biggest-selling record of the year in Italy. Mogol and his fellow composer Lucio Battisti
Lucio Battisti
Lucio Battisti was an Italian singer-songwriter . He is considered to be one of the best-known and most influential musicians and authors in Italian pop/rock music history....
, along with the Premiata Forneria Marconi
Premiata Forneria Marconi
Premiata Forneria Marconi is an Italian progressive rock band. They were the first Italian group to have success abroad, entering both the British and American charts. Between 1973 and 1977 they released five albums with English lyrics...
on back-up instrumentals, worked with Mina on several songs as a result of the success of "Non credere". The team produced a set of songs including "Io e te da soli" ("You and Me Alone"), "Insieme" ("Together"), "Amor mio" ("Love of Mine"), "Io vivrò senza te" ("I'll Live without You"), "E penso a te" ("And I Think of You"). One of the first introductions of the new repertoire was the Senza rete live televised concert from the Auditorio A in Naples on 20 January 1970. The material provided by Mogol-Battisti was the core for five albums. Among them, ...bugiardo più che mai...più incosciente che mai...
Bugiardo più che mai...più incosciente che mai...
Bugiardo più che mai...più incosciente che mai... is an album by Italian singer Mina.- Track list :# Un'ombra - 3:22# Un giorno come un altro - 2:45# Una mezza dozzina di rose - 3:57# Emmanuelle - 3:09# Com açucar, com afeto - 4:15...
was Mina's first independent album to reach #1 of the weekly Italian charts and was the biggest selling album of 1969 in Italy. ...quando tu mi spiavi in cima a un batticuore...
Quando tu mi spiavi in cima a un batticuore
... quando tu mi spiavi in cima a un batticuore is an album by Italian singer Mina.- Track listing :# Nessuno al mondo# Dominga# Io tra di voi# L'uomo della sabbia# Ero io, eri tu, era ieri# Adagio# Il mio nemico è ieri...
was seventh on the annual record chart of 1970. Del mio meglio...
Del mio meglio
Del mio meglio is a compilation album by Italian singer Mina released in 1971. The first in a series of compilation albums released under the "Del mio meglio" title.- Track listing :# Io vivrò senza te - 4:13# Se stasera sono qui - 3:39...
(My Best...) was second in 1971. Mina
Mina (1971 album)
Mina is an album by Italian singer Mina released in 1971.The album is one of the singer's most successful, yiedlding the hit singles "Amor Mio" and "Grande grande grande" and outselling every other album release in 1972.- Track listing :...
was the biggest seller of 1972. The latter two albums were recorded during a break from live performances to give birth to her daughter Benedetta.
Mina's comeback took place at RAI's variety series Teatro 10 in spring 1972. One of the highlights of the series was a selection of Battisti's songs performed in duet with the composer. The shows also included "Balada para mi muerte" ("Ode to My Death"), a nuevo tango
Nuevo tango
Tango Nuevo - either a form of music in which new elements are incorporated into traditional Argentine tango, or an evolution of tango dance that began to develop in the 1980s...
duet with Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music...
at the bandoneón
Bandoneón
The bandoneón is a type of concertina particularly popular in Argentina and Uruguay. It plays an essential role in the orquesta típica, the tango orchestra...
, backed by the Argentinian group Conjunto 9. "Grande grande grande
Grande grande grande
"Grande grande grande" is a 1972 Italian song, written by Alberto Testa and Tony Renis. It was a No. 1 hit for Mina in Italy and for Shirley Bassey released as "Never Never Never" in the U.K., U.S. and Australia.-Mina version:...
", arranged by Pino Presti
Pino Presti
Pino Presti is an Italian bassist, arranger, composer, conductor, record producer, born in Milan....
, was the second biggest-selling single of the year in Italy. Mogol-Battisti's success encouraged Enrico Riccardi to copy Battisti's style in his composition "Fiume azzurro", which earned another place in the Top 100 of annual record sales in Italy.
The final number of the eight Teatro 10 episodes was "Parole parole" ("Words Words"), a duet with Alberto Lupo
Alberto Lupo
Alberto Lupo was an Italian film and television actor best known for his roles in swash-buckling and actions films of the 1960s....
. The song was an easy listening
Easy listening
Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...
dialogue between Mina's singing and Lupo's declamation. The theme of the song was hollow words. It intertwined the lady's singing lamentation of the end of love and the lies she had to hear with the male protagonist's recitation
Recitation
A recitation is a presentation made by a student to demonstrate knowledge of a subject or to provide instruction to others. In some academic institutions the term is used for a presentation by a teaching assistant or instructor, under the guidance of a senior faculty member, that supplements...
. In the dialog she scoffs at the compliments he gave her, calling them parole – just words. The single was released in April 1972 and topped the Italian charts. It was covered by numerous Italian and French duets.
Mina said she would be retiring from public appearances after an exclusive concert at the La Bussola Club on September 16. Thousands of people turned up at the nightclub's doorstep. Gianni Ferrio's Orchestra featured Gianni Basso on tenor saxophone and Oscar Valdambrini on trumpet.
Mina lost her husband Virgilio Crocco in a car accident in 1973. She continued her career with the top Italian chart hits "E poi..." ("And Then...") and "L'importante è finire" ("The Important Thing Is to Finish"). She recorded the theme song "Fa presto, fa piano" ("Works Quickly, Works Quietly") for the film La sculacciata, issued in 1974.
Since 1974
Mina's last live TV appearance was the final episode of the Milleluci series on 16 March 1974. Mina was the hostess of the series alongside Raffaella CarràRaffaella Carrà
Raffaella Carrà , in Italy often simply known as la Carrà and in some Latin American countries sometimes simply as Raffaella, is an Italian singer, dancer, television presenter, and actress...
. During the series, she explored different musical styles in the songs "I Don't Know How to Love Him
I Don't Know How to Love Him
"I Don't Know How to Love Him" is a song from the 1970 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice , a torch ballad sung by the character of Mary Magdalene who in Jesus Christ Superstar is presented as bearing an unrequited love for the title character...
", "Mack the Knife
Mack the Knife
"Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife", originally "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer", is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English, The Threepenny Opera. It premiered in Berlin in 1928 at the...
", "Night and Day
Night and Day (song)
"Night and Day" is a popular song by Cole Porter. It was written for the 1932 musical play Gay Divorce. It is perhaps Porter's most popular contribution to the Great American Songbook and has been recorded by dozens of artists....
", and "Someday (You'll Want Me to Want You)
Someday (You'll Want Me to Want You)
"Someday " is a popular song. It was written by Jimmie Hodges and was published in 1944.The song has become a standard, recorded by many pop and country music singers.-Charting versions:...
". After "Non gioco più" ("The Game Is Over"), a blues duet with the harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
player Toots Thielemans
Toots Thielemans
Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron Thielemans , known as Toots Thielemans, is a Belgian jazz musician well known for his guitar and harmonica playing as well as his whistling. Thielemans is credited as one of the greatest harmonica players of the 20th century...
, Mina announced her withdrawal from public performances. Her last appearance on TV was her performance of "Ancora ancora ancora". The video was the final number of the "Mille e una luce" show on 1 July 1978. Her last concert appearances, a series of thirteen fully booked concerts at La Bussola in 1978, were cut short due to her illness. Mina gave her last public performance on 23 August 1978 at the Bussoladomani theatre backed by the Orchestra Pino Presti. It was recorded and issued as Mina Live '78
Mina Live '78
Mina Live '78 is an album by Italian singer Mina, released in 1978.Recorded at the Bussola night club on August 23, 1978, it captured the last public appearance made by the singer....
.
Mina continued to release albums on a yearly basis with her son Massimiliano Pani as the producer. Between 1972 and 1995, she published a double album each year. From 1973, her LPs and CDs have been characterized by artistic motifs of the designers Luciano Tallarini, Gianni Ronco and the photographer Mauro Balletti. From the mid-1980s, the design of the album covers was trusted to Balletti alone. All of Mina's records under the PDU label have reached the Italian Top 100. A large part of her work has consisted of covering well-known songs; she has dedicated tribute albums to The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Renato Zero
Renato Zero
Renato Zero is the stage name of Renato Fiacchini , an Italian singer-songwriter and showman whose career spans a full 6 decades, from the 1960s to the 2010s....
, Domenico Modugno
Domenico Modugno
Domenico Modugno was an Italian singer, songwriter, actor, and later in life, a member of the Italian Parliament. He is known for his 1958 international hit song "Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu "...
, the Neapolitan song
Napoli (album)
- Track listing :#Aggio perduto o suonno - 5:27#Amaro è 'o bene - 3:12#Quanno chiove - 3:33#Passione - 3:28#Je sto vicino a te - 5:58#Nun è peccato - 4:55#Voce 'e notte - 6:17#Maruzzella - 3:29#Core 'ngrato - 2:17...
, and religious music
Religious music
Religious music is music performed or composed for religious use or through religious influence.A lot of music has been composed to complement religion, and many composers have derived inspiration from their own religion. Many forms of traditional music have been adapted to fit religions'...
. After leaving the stage, her greatest chart successes have been duets. In 1985, "Questione di feeling", a duet with Riccardo Cocciante
Riccardo Cocciante
Riccardo Cocciante, also known in French-speaking countries as Richard Cocciante , is an Italian singer-songwriter and actor. His oeuvre includes recordings in Italian, French, and Spanish; he has recorded some of his songs in all three languages.He was born in Saigon, French Indochina, now Ho Chi...
, was the 13th biggest-selling single of the year in Italy and became an evergreen (as a hit song is called in Europe). The duet album Mina Celentano
Mina Celentano
Mina Celentano is an album by Italian singers Mina and Adriano Celentano, issued in 1998.An immediate success upon release, Mina Celentano became the best selling album of the year in Italy .- Track listing :...
, recorded with Adriano Celentano
Adriano Celentano
Adriano Celentano is an Italian singer, songwriter, comedian, actor, film director and TV host.-Biography:Celentano was born in Milan at 14 Via Gluck, about which he later wrote the famous song "Il ragazzo della via Gluck"...
, was the biggest-selling album of 1998 in Italy. Starting in 1989, all of her records included the jazzy piano playing of Danilo Rea
Danilo Rea
Danilo Rea is an Italian jazz pianist. Born in Vicenza, Italy in 1957. He is a graduate of the Santa Cecilia music conservatory in Rome. He made his debut with Rome Trio in 1975....
.
The break in Mina's TV appearances lasted until 2001, when she released footage of her recording sessions. The videos were broadcasted over the Wind
WIND (Italy)
Wind Telecomunicazioni SpA is an Italian telecom operator which offers integrated mobile, fixed and IPTV and Internet services and has also a sister network in Greece: WIND Hellas...
internet site on 30 March. This resulted in millions of visits to the site on that night, and additional millions on following days. The footage was released as the DVD Mina in Studio. After the event, Mina's singles started to chart in Italy again. The track "Succhiando l'uva" (2002), written for her by Zucchero
Zucchero
Adelmo Fornaciari, Commander , more commonly known by his stage name Zucchero Fornaciari or simply Zucchero /ˈtsukkero/, is an Italian rock singer. His music is largely inspired by gospel, blues and rock music, and alternates between ballads and more rhythmic boogie-like pieces.Zucchero is the...
, peaked at #3 on the chart. Mina's cover of "Don't call me baby (Can't take my eyes off you)
Can't Take My Eyes off You
"Can't Take My Eyes Off You" is a 1967 single by Frankie Valli. The song was among Valli's biggest hits, reaching #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earning a gold record. It was Valli's biggest "solo" hit until he hit #1 in 1975 with "My Eyes Adored You"...
" (2003) reached #4 in Italy. The single "Alibi" (2007) reached #6 in Italy. The triple CD The Platinum Collection
The Platinum Collection (Mina album)
The Platinum Collection is a compilation album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 2004.The 52-track, three-disc box set details Mina's recording career at PDU starting in 1968...
reached #1 on the Italian charts. So did Olio
Olio (album)
Olio is an album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 1999.The album includes a bilingual version of the Shakespears Sister song "Stay" sung as a duet with Piero Pelù....
(1999), Veleno
Veleno
Veleno is an album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 2002.- Arrangement :* Massimiliano Pani, Nicolò Fragile* Gianni Ferrio - tracks 3, 5, 6, 7, 11* Bruno Zucchetti, Alfredo Golino, Giulia Fasolino - tracks 9, 10, 12- Other musicians :...
(2002), Bula Bula
Bula Bula
- Arrangement :* Nicolò Fragile, Massimiliano Pani* Ugo Bongianni - track 11* Tullio Pizzorno - track 12- Other musicians :* Maurizio Dei Lazzaretti - percussion* Faso - bass...
(2005) and Todavía
Todavía (album)
Todavìa is an album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 2007.The album features 13 songs in Spanish and one in Portuguese, and includes seven duets with Latin-American, Spanish and Italian stars.- Tracks listing :# Grande amor - 4:38...
. Mina's later releases have included duets with Mick Hucknall
Mick Hucknall
Michael "Mick" Hucknall is a British singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer of the British band Simply Red, and is recognisable for his smooth, distinctive voice and wide vocal range, as well as his red curly hair.-Early life:...
, Fabrizio De André
Fabrizio De André
Fabrizio De André was an Italian singer-songwriter.Known for his sympathies towards anarchism, libertarianism, and pacifism, he also was a convicted atheist , and his songs often featured marginalized and rebellious people, prostitutes and knaves, and attacked the Catholic Church...
, Piero Pelù
Piero Pelù
Piero Pelù is an Italian rock singer and songwriter, best known for his work with the famous Italian rock band Litfiba...
, Adriano Celentano
Adriano Celentano
Adriano Celentano is an Italian singer, songwriter, comedian, actor, film director and TV host.-Biography:Celentano was born in Milan at 14 Via Gluck, about which he later wrote the famous song "Il ragazzo della via Gluck"...
, Lucio Dalla
Lucio Dalla
Lucio Dalla is a popular Italian singer-songwriter and musician. He also plays clarinet and keyboards.He is the composer of Caruso , which has been covered by numerous international artists...
, Joan Manuel Serrat
Joan Manuel Serrat
Joan Manuel Serrat i Teresa is a Catalan Spanish singer-songwriter.Serrat is considered one of the most important figures of modern, popular music in both the Spanish and Catalan languages...
, Chico Buarque
Chico Buarque
Francisco Buarque de Hollanda , popularly known as Chico Buarque , is a singer, guitarist, composer, dramatist, writer and poet...
, Tiziano Ferro
Tiziano Ferro
Tiziano Ferro is an Italian pop singer. He reached notoriety in 2001 and during his career he has also sung in Spanish, English, French and Portuguese.-Childhood and early beginnings:...
, Giorgia
Giorgia Todrani
Giorgia Todrani, best known as Giorgia is an Italian female singer and song-writer, known for her soulful voice, which is aided by a wide vocal range, high belting register and great vocal abilities. She is one of the most iconic and famous Italian singers. She has released ten studio albums,...
and Seal. In recent years, Mina has been writing a weekly column on the front page of La Stampa
La Stampa
La Stampa is one of the best-known, most influential and most widely sold Italian daily newspapers. Published in Turin, it is distributed in Italy and other European nations. The current owner is the Fiat Group.-History:...
and a page in the Italian edition of the magazine Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
where she answers fan letters.
Voice
Mina is a soprano with great agility and a range of three octaves. Swingy and anti-melodic in her early years ("Tintarella di luna", 1959), her singing later acquired high dramatic tones.Queen of Screamers
Caught up in the wave of rock and rollRock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
sweeping across Italy in 1958, Mina listened to American records and was a frequent visitor at the Derby Club, the Santa Tecla, and the Taverna Messicana clubs of Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, which promoted rock and roll music. Mina's repertoire at the beginning of her career included clumsy imitations of British and American rock and jazz songs, while her extra-loud and syncopated version of the song "Nessuno" showcased her excellent sense of rhythm. Earlier in 1958, Domenico Modugno
Domenico Modugno
Domenico Modugno was an Italian singer, songwriter, actor, and later in life, a member of the Italian Parliament. He is known for his 1958 international hit song "Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu "...
had caused astonishment by raising his hands in the air during his performance of Nel blu dipinto di blu ("Volare"). In Mina's first TV appearances she also broke with tradition by shaking her head, hands, and hips to the rhythm. The writer Edoardo Sanguineti
Edoardo Sanguineti
Edoardo Sanguineti was an Italian writer who was born in Genoa.-Biography:During the 1960s he was a leader of the neo avant-garde Gruppo 63 movement, founded in 1963 at Solunto....
recalled the Italian public's first encounter with the enthusiastic singer as: TV host Mario Riva named her one of the urlatori (screamers), for her distinctive timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
and power. Later, the public called Mina the Queen of the Screamers. Her extravagant gestures earned her another nickname – Tiger of Cremona.
Grown up
Mina's new sensual manner was introduced in her presentation of the ballad "Il cielo in una stanza" in 1960. Three years later, her love affair with Corrado Pani challenged the moral foundations of Italy, a country where divorceDivorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
was illegal and single motherhood was considered shameful. Thus, her non-conformist choices represented the emancipation of women in Italy, which did not accord with the dominant Catholic and bourgeois virtues prevalent at the time. The subsequent ban from performing on Italian TV and radio channels further developed Mina's image as an independent "bad girl", which she emphasized with her choice of song themes. An example was her performance of "Sacumdì Sacumdà" on air after RAI had expressed their displeasure with the song's lyrics about a girl's encounter with the Devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
. Other songs that RAI initially banned as immoral were "Ta-ra-ta-ta" (dealing forthrightly with smoking), "La canzone di Marinella", and "L'importante è finire" (alluding to sex without love). Mina's cool act featured sex appeal, public smoking, dyed blonde hair, shaved eyebrows, and heavy use of eye make-up.
The main themes of Mina's songs were distressing love stories. Her style was to interpret them in a highly dramatic way by using gestures and body language to bring the story alive. Mina's performance was typically characterised by expressive intensity, subtle variations, and original phrasing. The music critic Gherardo Gentili has noted her interpretive skills as:
To demonstrate Mina's vocal range, the composer Bruno Canfora penned the song "Brava", and Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...
wrote "Se telefonando" with numerous transitions of tonality. More songs were composed exclusively for Mina and arranged for RAI's all-star orchestras for performance on the TV variety series Studio uno, Sabato sera, Canzonissima and Teatro 10. Mina (alongside Carmen Villani
Carmen Villani
Carmen Villani is a former Italian pop singer and actress. She had a recognisable voice and an outstanding musical sense. Villani was a versatile performer, featuring elements of gospel and blues. She is considered among the finest examples of the early beat music in Italy. She also collaborated...
) pioneered by combining classic Italian pop and swing music with features of blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, R&B and soul music
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
, particularly in the songs "Se stasera sono qui" and "Deborah". She helped to incorporate new styles into Italian pop music, including nuevo tango
Nuevo tango
Tango Nuevo - either a form of music in which new elements are incorporated into traditional Argentine tango, or an evolution of tango dance that began to develop in the 1980s...
, as seen in her duet "Balada para mi muerte" with Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music...
.
Mogol-Battisti
When she altered her musical style in 1969, Mina her hairdo from short and straight to long blonde curls, and started to wear a black minidress. Mogol's and Lucio Battisti's first songs, particularly "Insieme" and "Io e te da soli", showcased Mina's blues and soulSoul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
skills. Around the time of their collaboration, Mina turned towards middle-of-the-road pop. Battisti's melodies were sophisticated and had a complex chord sequence.
The songs were characterized by frequent changes of rhythm, pauses, and dialogues between the voice and the orchestra. Another characterizing feature was an instrumental introduction without a rhythmic base.
Mina Latina
A fan of bossa novaBossa nova
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music. Bossa nova acquired a large following in the 1960s, initially consisting of young musicians and college students...
, Mina recorded in Spanish and Portuguese from the start of her career and currently enjoys a fan base in Spain and Latin America. The Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar
Pedro Almodóvar Caballero is a Spanish film director, screenwriter and producer.Almodóvar is arguably the most successful and internationally known Spanish filmmaker of his generation. His films, marked by complex narratives, employ the codes of melodrama and use elements of pop culture, popular...
has used Mina's songs in his movie soundtracks. In 2001, Mina published the compilation album Colección Latina. It includes standards in Spanish, as well as Spanish covers of her originals. In 2003, the musical Mina... che cosa sei? was staged in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, based on Mina's songs. It was nominated for four Premios ACE in 2003 and 2004, among them Best Musical, and won the Premio Clarín for Best Musical. In 2007, Mina published Todavía
Todavía (album)
Todavìa is an album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 2007.The album features 13 songs in Spanish and one in Portuguese, and includes seven duets with Latin-American, Spanish and Italian stars.- Tracks listing :# Grande amor - 4:38...
, an album in Spanish and Portuguese, which reached #36 on the Spanish charts and #1 on the Italian charts. It included duets with Joan Manuel Serrat
Joan Manuel Serrat
Joan Manuel Serrat i Teresa is a Catalan Spanish singer-songwriter.Serrat is considered one of the most important figures of modern, popular music in both the Spanish and Catalan languages...
, Miguel Bosé
Miguel Bosé
Miguel Dominguín Bosé is a Latin Grammy-winning Spanish/Italian musician and actor.-Early life:Bosé was born in San Fernando Hospital in Panama City, Panama, the son of the famous Italian actress Lucia Bosé and the legendary bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín. He is also a cousin of Carmen...
, Diego Torres
Diego Torres
Diego Antonio Caccia Torres , is an Argentine Grammy Award-nominated pop singer and composer.-Biography:Diego Torres was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the son of Argentine singer Lolita Torres...
, Chico Buarque
Chico Buarque
Francisco Buarque de Hollanda , popularly known as Chico Buarque , is a singer, guitarist, composer, dramatist, writer and poet...
, and Diego El Cigala
Diego El Cigala
Diego Ramón Jiménez Salazar, known as El Cigala , is a famous Spanish Romani Flamenco singer...
.
Collaborations with arrangers
- Tony De Vita ("Tintarella di luna", "Piano", "Il cielo in una stanza")
- Ennio MorriconeEnnio MorriconeEnnio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...
("Se telefonando") - Bruno Canfora ("Vorrei che fosse amore", "Brava", "Sono come tu mi vuoi")
- Augusto Martelli ("E se domani", "Un anno d'amore", "Non credere")
- Gianpiero Reverberi ("Insieme", "Amor mio")
- Gianni Ferrio ("Parole parole")
- Pino PrestiPino PrestiPino Presti is an Italian bassist, arranger, composer, conductor, record producer, born in Milan....
("Grande grande grande", "E poi", "L'importante è finire") - Alberto Nicorelli ("Ancora ancora ancora")
- Paul BuckmasterPaul BuckmasterPaul John Buckmaster is a Grammy Award-winning English artist, arranger and composer.He began learning the cello at the age of 4 and graduated from the Royal College of Music at age 16....
("Questione di feeling") - Massimiliano Pani ("Sensazioni", "Acqua e sale", "Brivido Felino")
Legacy
Mina has scored 77 albums and 71 singlesMina discography
-Albums in Italian charts:Data from the HitParadeItalia site - Singles in Italian charts :Data from the HitParadeItalia site...
on the Italian charts. She is the only artist to land an album at the top of the Italian charts in each of the five decades from the start of record keeping in 1965. President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
Carlo Azeglio Ciampi
dr. Carlo Azeglio Ciampi is an Italian politician and banker. He was the 73rd Prime Minister of Italy from 1993 to 1994 and was the tenth President of the Italian Republic from 1999 to 2006...
presented her with the Second Class of the Italian Order of Merit on 1 June 2001.
British
British pop music
While various forms of commercially produced popular music had existed in Great Britain for several centuries, what is now understood as British pop music emerged in the mid-to late 1950s as a softer alternative to rock 'n' roll and later to rock music...
singer Dusty Springfield
Dusty Springfield
Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'BrienSources use both Isabel and Isobel as the spelling of her second name. OBE , known professionally as Dusty Springfield and dubbed The White Queen of Soul, was a British pop singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
referenced Mina in performance. A number of Mina's songs were turned into hits by singers in other languages. The first of these was "Piano", scored by Matt Monro
Matt Monro
Matt Monro was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s...
as "Softly, as I Leave You
Softly, as I Leave You (song)
"Softly, as I Leave You" is a popular song composed by Hal Shaper, Antonio De Vita , with original Italian lyrics by Giorgio Calabrese....
", which reached #10 in the UK Top 40. In 1964, the song reached #27 of the Billboard Hot 100 in the version by Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
. "Se telefonando" was covered by several performers in Italy and abroad, most notably by Françoise Hardy
Françoise Hardy
Françoise Madeleine Hardy is a French singer, actress and astrologer. Hardy is an iconic figure in fashion, music and style. She is married to the singer and movie actor Jacques Dutronc.-Biography:...
and Iva Zanicchi
Iva Zanicchi
Iva Zanicchi is an Italian pop singer.Iva Zanicchi's career began in 1962 at the Castrocaro Festival of New Voices, where she gained third place. She won the Sanremo song festival in 1967 with Non pensare a me, in 1969 with Zingara and again in 1974 with Ciao cara, come stai?...
(1966), Delta V (2005), Vanessa and the O's
Vanessa and the O's
Vanessa and the O's formed in 2003/2004 when Vanessa Contenay-Quinones got together with Swedes Andreas Mattson and Niclas Frisk later joining up with James Iha in New York.They recorded the album La Ballade d'O over the next 18 months...
(2007), and Neil Hannon
Neil Hannon
Neil Hannon is a Northern Irish singer and songwriter, best known as the creator and frontman of the chamber pop group The Divine Comedy. The band's official website even goes so far as to say, "The Divine Comedy is Neil Hannon," and Hannon is quoted in an interview as saying, "The Divine Comedy...
(2008). "Grande grande grande
Grande grande grande
"Grande grande grande" is a 1972 Italian song, written by Alberto Testa and Tony Renis. It was a No. 1 hit for Mina in Italy and for Shirley Bassey released as "Never Never Never" in the U.K., U.S. and Australia.-Mina version:...
", recorded by Shirley Bassey
Shirley Bassey
Dame Shirley Bassey, DBE , is a Welsh singer. She found fame in the late 1950s and was "one of the most popular female vocalists in Britain during the last half of the 20th century"...
as "Never Never Never" in 1973, reached the Billboard Hot 100, UK Top 10, #1 of the Australian charts, #2 in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
and #3 in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. A year later, Dalida
Dalida
Dalida , born with Italian name of Iolanda Cristina Gigliotti, was a world-famous singer and actress born in Egypt with Italian origins but naturalised French with the name Yolanda Gigliotti. She spent her early years in Egypt amongst the Italian Egyptian community, but she lived most of her adult...
and Alain Delon
Alain Delon
Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon is a French actor. He rose quickly to stardom, and by the age of 23 was already being compared to French actors such as Gérard Philipe and Jean Marais, as well as American actor James Dean. He was even called the male Brigitte Bardot...
recorded the French version of "Parole parole" and made it an international hit. Mexican icon José José
José José
José Rómulo Sosa Ortiz , known by his artistic name José José, is a Mexican singer.Referred in the entertainment world as "El Príncipe de la Canción" , José José is best known for his romantic ballads and renowned for his vocals...
recorded the Spanish version of the hit "Sono, come tu mi vuoi", entitled "Soy como quieras tú". English musician Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
used a sample from Mina's "Un bacio è troppo poco" on his album When I Was Cruel
When I Was Cruel
When I Was Cruel is Elvis Costello's 20th album, recorded in 2001 and 2002 and released in the US by Island Records on 23 April 2002. Although officially a solo Costello album, this was the first album to feature his new band, The Imposters, whose only difference from his previous band, The...
. Tanita Tikaram
Tanita Tikaram
Tanita Tikaram is a British pop/folk singer-songwriter, best known for the hits "Twist in My Sobriety" and "Good Tradition" from her 1988 debut album, Ancient Heart...
covered Mina's "And I Think of You - E penso a te
And I Think of You - E penso a te
"And I Think Of You " is a song recorded by Tanita Tikaram. It's the English version of the Italian "E penso a te" by Lucio Battisti previously recorded by the composer and Mina. The song is the only previously unreleased track on the compilation "The Best of Tanita Tikaram". Promotional singles of...
" in English as a track on the album The Best of Tanita Tikaram
The Best of Tanita Tikaram
The Best of Tanita Tikaram is the first compilation by pop singer Tanita Tikaram, released in 1996 by East West Records. Containing fifteen songs from 1988 to 1995, it also included one new track "And I Think of You - E penso a te" which was released as a promotional single and a special remix of...
. In 2010, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
band La Scala released a rock cover of her hit "Tu Farai" with Gretta Rochelle on vocals.
Spanish artist Mónica Naranjo
Monica Naranjo
Mónica Naranjo Carrasco is a Spanish singer born in Figueras, a village in Spain to Andalusian parents. She has sold over 8 million albums worldwide.- Biography :...
enregistered an entirely album with covers translated to Spanish of the discography from Mina, the album was published Mars, 20 1999 and entiteled Minage. The covered songs included "Ancora, ancora, ancora", "Io é te da soli", "Fiume azzurro" and "L'immensità". Mina collaborated with the album recording the duet "Él se encuentra entre tú y yo" ("He is between you and me").
To celebrate Mina's 70th anniversary, the la Repubblica
La Repubblica
la Repubblica is an Italian daily general-interest newspaper. Founded in 1976 in Rome by the journalist Eugenio Scalfari, as of 2008 is the second largest circulation newspaper, behind the Corriere della Sera.-Foundation:...
newspaper held a reader's poll to pick Mina's best song of all time. In a vote of 30,000 participants, "Se telefonando" emerged at the top of the list.
Personal life
In her early teens, Mina was a competitive swimmer for the Canottieri Baldesio sports club in Cremona, attended by the elite of the Cremonese bourgeoisie at the time. She met her first boyfriend, a fullback for the U.S. CremoneseU.S. Cremonese
Unione Sportiva Cremonese is an Italian football club, based in Cremona. The club was founded in 1903. Cremonese played the 2005/2006 season in Serie B, having won Serie C1/A the previous season. However, in the 2005/2006 Serie B campaign, Cremonese came out twenty-first, being therefore relegated...
football club, at the swimming pool at her age of 16.
Mina fell in love with actor Corrado Pani in 1962. Their relationship shocked Italian audiences as he was already married although separated from his wife. Their son, Massimiliano Pani, was born on 18 April 1963. Due to Mina's refusal to hide the relationship, the singer was banned from performing on public Italian television or radio channels. As her record sales were unaffected and audiences demanded to see Mina on the air, RAI was forced to end the ban and let Mina return to television on 10 January 1964. Within a year, her affair with Corrado ended.
Mina's brother Alfredo Mazzini died in a car accident in 1965. A year later she and her father moved to Lugano
Lugano
Lugano is a city of inhabitants in the city proper and a total of over 145,000 people in the agglomeration/city region, in the south of Switzerland, in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
. Mina's intimate relationships, however, remained in Italy, as she had a brief affair with the actor Walter Chiari
Walter Chiari
Walter Chiari, stage name of Walter Annichiarico , was a hugely successful Italian stage and screen actor, mostly in comedy roles....
. A later relationship with actor Gian Maria Volonté
Gian Maria Volontè
Gian Maria Volonté was an Italian actor. He is perhaps most famous outside of Italy for his roles as the main villain in Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More.-Early life:Volonté was born in Milan, and graduated in Rome in 1957...
ended after she found out about Volontè's affair with an actress. Mina's great love of the late 1960s, with whom she had a relationship that lasted three years and almost led to marriage, was the composer Augusto Martelli. Her second spouse was Virgilio Crocco, a journalist for Il Messaggero
Il Messaggero
Il Messaggero is an Italian newspaper based in Rome, Italy, founded in 1878.It is owned by the Italian publishing company Caltagirone Editore, and its leaders include Azzurra Caltagirone, the partner of the political leader Pierferdinando Casini, on its board...
, in 1970. As a result of their marriage, her legal name was changed for Anna Maria Mazzini Crocco. Their daughter Benedetta Mazzini was born on 11 November 1971. Crocco died in a car accident in 1973.
Mina became engaged to her current husband, Swiss
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
cardiologist Eugenio Quaini, in 1981. They were married on 10 January 2006 in Lugano. She obtained Swiss citizenship in 1989. As required in that country, she took on her husband's last name and her legal name became Anna Maria Quaini. To her public, however, she still addresses herself as Mina Mazzini, also seen in her website's domain name.
Discography
- Tintarella di luna (1960)
- Il cielo in una stanza (1960)
- Due note (1961)
- Moliendo café (1962)
- Renato (1962)
- Stessa spiaggia, stesso mare (1963)
- 20 sucessi di Mina (1964)
- Mina (1964)
- Mina N°7 (1964)
- Studio UnoStudio UnoStudio Uno is an album by Italian singer Mina. Reissued on CD by BMG in 1997.- Track listing :# L'ultima occasione - 2:43# Un anno d'amore - 3:11# Se piangi se ridi - 2:39# Più di te - 2:52# È l'uomo per me - 2:24...
(1965) - Mina interpretata da Mina (1965)
- Mina & Gaber: un'ora con loroMina & Gaber: un'ora con loroMina & Gaber: un'ora con loro is an album by Italian singer Mina at A side and Italian artist Giorgio Gaber at B side.- Track listing :Side A# L'ultima occasione# Ora o mai più# Era vivere# E...# Brava# Più di te...
(1965) - Mina canta Napoli (1966)
- Studio Uno 66Studio Uno 66Studio Uno 66 is an album by Italian singer Mina.The album was released in the spring of 1966, topping the charts and yielding three top ten singles - "Ta-ra-ta-ta", "Una casa al cima al mondo" and "Se telefonando"....
(1966) - Mina 2 (1966)
- Sabato sera - Studio Uno '67Sabato sera - Studio Uno '67Sabato sera - Studio Uno '67 is an album by Italian singer Mina. Re-issued on CD by BMG in 1997.- Track listing :# "La banda" - 2:35# "Tu non credi più" - 3:07# "Se c'è una cosa che mi fa impazzire" - 2:38# "Se tornasse caso mai" - 3:01...
(1967) - 4 anni di successi4 anni di successi4 anni di successi is an album by Italian singer Mina, released in 1967.It is the last album by Mina released through the Ri-Fi Record Company.- Track listing :...
(1967) - Dedicato a mio padreDedicato a mio padreDedicato a mio padre is the first independently produced album by Italian singer Mina.-Track listing:# Lazy River - 2:49# I Should Care - 3:15# I discorsi - 3:06# Somos - 2:29# La canzone di Marinella - 3:15# The Man That Got Away - 2:44...
(1967) - Mina alla Bussola dal vivoMina alla Bussola dal vivoMina alla Bussola dal vivo is Italian singer Mina's first live album.Mina was the first italian woman to record an live album during her performance at the Bussola, a popular night club in Marina di Pietrasanta, Versilia, Tuscany, Italy...
(1968) - Le più belle canzoni italiane interpretate da Mina (1968)
- Canzonissima '68Canzonissima '68- Track listing :Side A# Zum zum zum - 2:41# Io innamorata - 2:59# Sacumdì, sacumdà - 2:37# Né come né perché - 4:17# Un colpo al cuore - 3:19# La voce del silenzio - 3:23Side B# Vorrei che fosse amore - 2:31...
(1968) - I discorsiI discorsi- Track listing :Side A# I discorsi# Se stasera sono qui# Silenzioso slow# Non ti scordar di me# Canzone per te# Io che amo solo teSide B# La canzone di Marinella# Roma, nun fa la stupida stasera...
(1969) - Mina for YouMina for YouMina for you is an album by Italian singer Mina. It was recorded by Mina entirely in English.- Track listing :Side A# I Won't Cry Anymore - 0:00# No Arms Can Ever Hold You - 0:00# I Should Care - 0:00# Lazy River - 0:00...
(1969) - Incontro con Mina (1969)
- ...bugiardo più che mai...più incosciente che mai...Bugiardo più che mai...più incosciente che mai...Bugiardo più che mai...più incosciente che mai... is an album by Italian singer Mina.- Track list :# Un'ombra - 3:22# Un giorno come un altro - 2:45# Una mezza dozzina di rose - 3:57# Emmanuelle - 3:09# Com açucar, com afeto - 4:15...
(1969) - Mina canta o Brasil (1970)
- ...quando tu mi spiavi in cima a un batticuore...Quando tu mi spiavi in cima a un batticuore... quando tu mi spiavi in cima a un batticuore is an album by Italian singer Mina.- Track listing :# Nessuno al mondo# Dominga# Io tra di voi# L'uomo della sabbia# Ero io, eri tu, era ieri# Adagio# Il mio nemico è ieri...
(1970) - Del mio meglioDel mio meglioDel mio meglio is a compilation album by Italian singer Mina released in 1971. The first in a series of compilation albums released under the "Del mio meglio" title.- Track listing :# Io vivrò senza te - 4:13# Se stasera sono qui - 3:39...
(1971) - MinaMina (1971 album)Mina is an album by Italian singer Mina released in 1971.The album is one of the singer's most successful, yiedlding the hit singles "Amor Mio" and "Grande grande grande" and outselling every other album release in 1972.- Track listing :...
(1971) - CinquemilaquarantatreCinquemilaquarantatre- Track listing :Side A# Fiume azzurro - 4:01 # Vorrei averti nonostante tutto - 4:38 # Io ti amavo quando - 4:22...
(1972) - Dalla BussolaDalla BussolaDalla Bussola is an album by Italian singer Mina, including a concert on September 16, 1972 at Bussola nightclub, Tuscany. The album was distributed back to back with album Altro.- Track listing :#"The Groove Merchant"#"Fly Me to the Moon"...
(1972) - Altro (1972)
- Del mio meglio n. 2Del mio meglio n. 2- Track listing :Side A#Ballata d'autunno 5:40 #Parole parole 3:55 #Uomo 3:55 #Fate piano 3:50...
(1973) - Frutta e verduraFrutta e verduraFrutta e verdura is an album by Italian singer Mina, distributed back to back with the album Amanti di valore.Arranged by Pino Presti except: Non tornare più arranged by Dario Baldan Bembo, Devo tornare a casa mia arranged by Natale Massara. Soundengineer: Nuccio Rinaldis.- Track listing :#Fa...
(1973) - Amanti di valoreAmanti di valoreAmanti di valore is an album by Italian singer Mina. All songs written by Carlo Pes, lyrics by Franco Califano.Arranged by Pino Presti and Carlo Pes.Sound engineer: Nuccio Rinaldis.- Track listing :Side A#Amanti di valore - 4:22...
(1973) - evergreens (1974)
- Mina®Mina®Mina® is an album by Italian singer Mina, distributed back to back with album Baby Gate.- Track list :# Due o forse tre - 4:12 - # Tutto passerà vedrai - 3:50 -...
(1974) - Baby GateBaby Gate (album)Baby Gate is an album by Italian singer Mina, including re-takes of her jazz songs from late fifties under the pseudonyme Baby Gate.Arranged by Pino Presti. Sound engineer Nuccio Rinaldis.The album was distributed back to back with album Mina®....
(1974) - Del mio meglio n. 3Del mio meglio n. 3Del mio meglio n.3 is a compilation album by Italian singer Mina released in 1975.- Track listing :#E poi... - 4:53 - #La pioggia di marzo - 3:44 -...
(1975) - La MinaLa MinaLa Mina is an album by Italian singer Mina, distributed back to back with album Minacantalucio.- Track listing :#Uappa - 3:23 - #Ti accetto come sei - 3:56 -...
(1975) - MinacantalucioMinacantalucioMinacantalucio is an album by Italian singer Mina, distributed back to back with album La Mina. The title translates as Mina Sings Lucio, referring to the fact that the album consists of songs originally recorded by Lucio Battisti....
(1975) - SingolareSingolareSingolare is an album by Italian singer Mina, distributed back to back with album Plurale.- Track listing :# Sognando - Arranged by Pino Presti# Devo dirti addio - Arranged by Gianni Ferrio...
(1976) - PluralePluralePlurale is an album by Italian singer Mina, distributed back to back with album Singolare.- Track listing :# Intro# Moonlight serenade# C'è un uomo in mezzo al mare# My love# Il testamento del capitano# El porompompero# Michelle...
(1976) - Del mio meglio n. 4 (1977)
- Mina quasi Jannacci (1977)
- Mina con Bignè (1977)
- di tanto in tanto (1978)
- Mina Live '78Mina Live '78Mina Live '78 is an album by Italian singer Mina, released in 1978.Recorded at the Bussola night club on August 23, 1978, it captured the last public appearance made by the singer....
(1978) - Del mio meglio n. 5 (1979)
- AttilaAttila (album)For the only album by the band Attila, see Attila .Attila is an album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 1979.Released as a double album in the winter of 1979, Attila was an immediate success and is one of the top 3 best selling albums of the singer's career.-Vol...
(1979) - KyrieKyrie (album)Kyrie is a double album by Italian singer Mina, released in 1980.Released as "Vol. 1" and "Vol. 2", Kyrie is at ease experimenting and divulging Mina's music into other genres, especially rock.-Vol. 1:# Musica - 5:52...
(1980) - Del mio meglio n. 6 Live (1981)
- Salomè (1981)
- Italiana (1982)
- Del mio meglio n. 7 (1983)
- Mina 25 (1983)
- CateneCatene (album)-Vol 1:Side A# Brigitte Bardot - 4:02# Strangers in the Night - 3:40# La verità - 4:15# Hey Jude - 6:15# Estate - 3:32Side B# Banana Boat - 3:46# E la chiamano estate - 3:28# Gimme a Little Sign - 3:20...
(1984) - Del mio meglio n. 8 (1985)
- Finalmente ho conosciuto il conte Dracula... (1985)
- Si, buanaSi, buana-Vol. 1:# Bella senz'anima - 4:40# Che male fa - 4:20# Ancora - 4:22# Questo piccolo grande amore - 5:20# Grease - 3:20# E tu come stai ? - 5:09# Venus - 3:49# Buonasera dottore - 4:30# Io, domani - 4:40...
(1986) - Del mio meglio n. 9 (1987)
- Rane supremeRane supreme-Vol. 1:# Careless Whispers - 6:06# Nessun dolore - 4:16# Gloria - 2:55# Luna lunera - 4:00# Scrivimi - 4:47# My cherie amour - 3:14# Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word - 3:51# You Make Me Feel Brand New - 5:17-Vol...
(1987) - Oggi ti amo di piùOggi ti amo di piùOggi ti amo di più is an album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 1988.The album includes new recordings of the classic "Il cielo in una stanza" and "E se domani".- Track list :#Grande grande grande - 4'00 -...
(1988) - Ridi pagliaccioRidi pagliaccio vol. 1-2-CD 1:# Il portiere di notte - 5:37# Moody's Mood - 2:27# Canzoni stonate - 3:53# This Masquerade - 4:23# Into the Groove - 5:02# It's Impossible - 2:57# Un'ora - 3:27# You'll Never Never Know - 2:53# La compagnia - 5:02...
(1988) - Uiallalla (1989)
- Ti conosco mascherina (1990)
- Caterpillar (1991)
- Sorelle Lumière (1992)
- Mina canta i Beatles (1993)
- LochnessLochness vol. 1-2- Track listing :# Everything Happens to Me - 5:35# Joana Francesa - 3:48# Body and Soul / Non so dir / Nuages - 5:58# Nostalgias - 4:06# Parlami d'amore Mariù - 2:01# Love Me - 3:23# Adoro - 4:35...
(1993) - Mazzini canta Battisti (1994)
- Canarino mannaroCanarino mannaro-CD 1:# Che mi importa del mondo - 3:55# Va bene, va bene così - 5:30# Wave - 5:07# Oro / La canzone del sole - 6:03# Il posto mio - 5:29# Je so pazzo - 3:43# Na voce 'na chitarra - 4:37# Crazy - 5:46...
(1994) - Pappa di latte (1995)
- Canzoni d'autore (1996)
- CremonaCremona (album)Cremona is an album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 1996.The album title is an gift to her city of origin: Cremona- Track listing :# Meglio così—5:17# Dottore—5:29# Succede—5:37# Musica per lui—3:48...
(1996) - NapoliNapoli (album)- Track listing :#Aggio perduto o suonno - 5:27#Amaro è 'o bene - 3:12#Quanno chiove - 3:33#Passione - 3:28#Je sto vicino a te - 5:58#Nun è peccato - 4:55#Voce 'e notte - 6:17#Maruzzella - 3:29#Core 'ngrato - 2:17...
(1996) - Minantologia (1997)
- LeggeraLeggera- Track listing :#Johnny - 4:53#Someday in my life - 4:02#Suona ancora - 4:24#Con te sarà diverso - 4:32#Resta lì - 4:45#Clark Kent - 4:38#Non si può morire in eterno - 3:41#Noi soli insieme - 4:38...
(1997) - Mina Gold (1998)
- Mina Sanremo (1998)
- Mina CelentanoMina CelentanoMina Celentano is an album by Italian singers Mina and Adriano Celentano, issued in 1998.An immediate success upon release, Mina Celentano became the best selling album of the year in Italy .- Track listing :...
(1998) - Mina Studio Collection (1998)
- Mina Gold 2 (1999)
- OlioOlio (album)Olio is an album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 1999.The album includes a bilingual version of the Shakespears Sister song "Stay" sung as a duet with Piero Pelù....
(1999) - Mina n° 0Mina n° 0Mina n° 0 is an album by Italian singer Mina, released in 1999.Nine of the ten songs found in the albums were penned by Renato Zero, who also sings with the Italian diva on the song "Neri"....
(1999) - Mina per Wind (2000)
- Mina Love Collection (2000)
- Dalla terraDalla terraDalla terra is an album by Italian singer Mina, released in 2000. This is the only album in Mina's discography that consist entirely of non-secular music.- Track listing :# Magnificat - 4:34# Voi ch'amate lo criatore - 3:40# Memorare - 4:32...
(2000) - Colección latina (2001)
- SconcertoSconcertoSconcerto is an album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 2001.The album is an homage to the songs of Grammy Award-winning Italian singer, songwriter, and composer Domenico Modugno....
(2001) - VelenoVelenoVeleno is an album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 2002.- Arrangement :* Massimiliano Pani, Nicolò Fragile* Gianni Ferrio - tracks 3, 5, 6, 7, 11* Bruno Zucchetti, Alfredo Golino, Giulia Fasolino - tracks 9, 10, 12- Other musicians :...
(2002) - In duo (2003)
- Napoli secondo estrattoNapoli secondo estrattoNapoli secondo estratto is an album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 2003.- Track listing :# Tu ca nun chiagne! - 3:34# O cielo c'e manna sti 'ccose - 5:42# Te voglio bene assaje - 4:16# Carmela - 2:12# Napule e - 5:09...
(2003) - Napoli primo, secondo e terzo estratto (2003)
- The Platinum CollectionThe Platinum Collection (Mina album)The Platinum Collection is a compilation album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 2004.The 52-track, three-disc box set details Mina's recording career at PDU starting in 1968...
(2004) - Una Mina d'amore (2004)
- Bula BulaBula Bula- Arrangement :* Nicolò Fragile, Massimiliano Pani* Ugo Bongianni - track 11* Tullio Pizzorno - track 12- Other musicians :* Maurizio Dei Lazzaretti - percussion* Faso - bass...
(2005) - L'allievaL'allievaL'allieva is an album by Italian singer Mina, released in 2005.The albums pays homage to the songs of Frank Sinatra, by whom Mina has been greatly influenced.- Track listing :# These Foolish Things - 5:32# The Nearness of You - 3:28...
(2005) - Platinum Collection 2 (2006)
- Ti amo... (2006)
- BauBau (album)- Arrangements :* Ugo Bongianni - tracks 3, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13* Nicolò Fragile - tracks 1* Massimiliano Pani - tracks 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9- Other musicians :* Ugo Bongianni - keyboards* Danilo Rea - piano* Faso, Lorenzo Poli - bass...
(2006) - TodavíaTodavía (album)Todavìa is an album by Italian singer Mina, issued in 2007.The album features 13 songs in Spanish and one in Portuguese, and includes seven duets with Latin-American, Spanish and Italian stars.- Tracks listing :# Grande amor - 4:38...
(2007) - Sulla tua bocca lo dirò (2009)
- Riassunti d'amore - Mina straniera (2009)
- Riassunti d'amore - Mina con archi (2009)
- Riassunti d'amore - La calma (2009)
- Riassunti d'amore - Per quando ti amo (2009)
- Riassunti d'amore - Mina Cover (2009)
- Facile (2009)
- Caramella (2010)
- Piccola streenna (2010)
- Piccolino (2011)
Filmography
- Juke box - Urli d'amore (1959)
- Teddy Boys della canzone (1960)
- Urlatori alla sbarra (1960)
- Madri pericolose (1960)
- Io bacio... tu baci (1961)
- Mina... fuori la guardia (1961)
- Das haben die Mädchen gern (1962)
- Appuntamento in Riviera (1962)
- Silvester Show (1964)
- Per amore... per magia... (1967)
DVD
Mina signed a contract with the Barilla food label in 1965 and starred in ten pasta commercials by 1971, directed by Piero GherardiPiero Gherardi
Piero Gherardi was the Costume and Set Designer of Federico Fellini's La dolce vita and 8½ for which he won two Oscars....
and Valerio Zurlini
Valerio Zurlini
Valerio Zurlini was an Italian film director, stage director and screenwriter.-Biography:During his law studies in Rome, he started working in the theatre. In 1943, he joined the Italian resistance. Zurlini became a member of the Italian Communist Party...
among others. In 2005, Mina's performances in ads for Barilla were published on VHS and DVD as Nei caroselli Barilla. The exclusive concert at the La Bussola Club on September 16, 1972 was released by the PDU record company as Mina alla Bussola Live '72. Recorded by Polivideo TV company, the event was aired on Sky Italia
Sky Italia
Sky Italia S.r.l. is an Italian digital satellite television platform owned by News Corporation launched on 1 August 2003, when the former platforms TELE+ and Stream TV merged together...
as a series from 1–21 January 1973.