 |
| BORN September 25, 1955 in Roncocesi, Italy, Adelmo Fornaciar - dubbed Zucchero (sugar) by an elementary school teacher, has grown to be the man that introduced soul and rhythm & blues to the Italian music scene, as well as the man who imported his own mix of Italian melodies and an American sound to the rest of the world. Now nearing the end of the third decade of his exceptional career Zucchero "sugar" Fornaciari has achieved artistic and commercial successes nobody could have predicted as possible. While beginning his musical career in the 1970's, as a member of such bands as I Nuovi Luci, Sugar & Candies and Sugar & Daniel, Zucchero's solo career took off with victory at the Castrocaro festival, a festival only open to new-comers on the Italian music scene, in 1981. This early success led to the release of Un Po' Di Zucchero, Zucchero's first album, which included the songs "Una Notte Che Vola Via" and "Nuvola," both of which were part of the Sanremo Festival competition in 1981 and 1982, though with little success. Disillusioned by the lack of commercial success, and poor artistic quality, of his first album, Zucchero considered quitting the music business, but. inspired partly by the success of 'white soul' in the form of Paul Young's No Parlez album, decided to give it one more try and flew to San Fransisco to record a handful of songs with Italian-American producer Corrado Rustici, a California resident who as a session guitar player had performed with some of the greatest names in music. With Rustici's help, a band of American session musicians - including bassist Randy Jackson - was formed, and the songs that would become the 1985 album Zucchero & the Randy Jackson Band album were recorded. Participating once more at the Sanremo Festival, this time with the song "Donne" once again brought Zucchero no victory, but the song did become a radio hit and pumped up the sales of the album. Subsequently, Zucchero's next album, Rispetto, released one year after Zucchero & the Randy Jackson Band, sold a quarter of a million albums in Italy, and the title track, as well as the gospel-ballad "Come Il Sole All'Improvviso" (co-written with Gino Paoli), became hit singles. While Zucchero & The Randy Jackson Band and Rispetto were successful, both in sales and in the quality of the music provided, Zucchero's next album would become a classic in Italian music: Blue's, released in 1988, and recorded in Italy with the backing of American musicians such as the Memphis Horns, David Sancious, and E-Street Band saxophone player Clarence Clemons, went on to sell more than one million copies in Italy alone. The album, which included such tracks as "Con le Mani", "Dune Mosse", "Solo una Sana..." and the original Italian version of "Senza una Donna" was a triumph, and led to a highly successful tour, which, for the first time, featured the exceptional Lisa Hunt as a vocalist, and saw Joe Cocker as a guest performer during several shows. After the Blue's tour, and the release of the 1988 soundtrack Snackbar Budapest (a collaboration with David Sancious), work began on the highly expected follow up to Blue's. Recorded in Italy, the United Kingdom, and Memphis, Oro, Incenso e Birra would go on to outperform Blue's, both in sales figures and in the amount of classic songs it provided. Featuring Zucchero's backing band (which aside from Rustici, and Sancious included Luciano Luisi on keyboards, and Polo Jones on bass), together with guest musicians such as Eric Clapton (on "Wonderful World"), Jimmy Smith and Rufus Thomas (on "Overdose (d'amore)"), Ennio Morricone (on "Libera L'Amore") and Clarence Clemons (on "Il Mare"), the album remains an electrifying experience. The subsequent Italian tour saw Zucchero and his band share the stage with Solomon Burke, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Miles Davis, Joe Cocker, Ray Charles (who referred to Zucchero as one of the best blues singers he had ever heard), Clapton, Clemons, and Paul Young. The success of Oro, Incenso e Birra led to an attempt at a European breakthrough with the compilation album Zucchero, released in 1990, which featured songs from Oro, Incenso e Birra and Blue's, some of which adapted into English by songwriter Frank Musker. The 1991 version of this album, which featured the worldwide smash hit "Senza una Donna (Without a Woman)" with Paul Young, became a huge success, and Zucchero subsequently toured Europe, ending with a two-night stand at the Kremlin, in Moscow - shown live on Italian TV and featuring guest performances by Toni Childs (on Jimmy Cliff's "Many Rivers to Cross"), and Randy Crawford (on John Lennon's "Imagine" and "Come Il Sole All'Improvviso"). The recordings of the Kremlin shows were later released as the Live at the Kremlin album and video. 1992 saw the release of Miserere, Zucchero's first new studio album in three years. Darker than it's predecessors, Miserere saw Zucchero working once again with Rustici, as well as Santana drummer Michael Shrieve, and Michael Kamen, who directed the orchestra for the title track, while Elvis Costello and Bono shared song-writing credits with Zucchero (respectively on "Miss Mary" and "Miserere"). The biggest guest on the album, however, was Luciano Pavarotti, who performed the operatic part of the title track, after hearing a demo of the song - which featured a certain Andrea Bocelli, at that point still a completely unknown blind bar singer from Pisa. During the tour to promote Miserere, Bocelli performed Pavarotti's parts. In 1994, an attempt was made to recreate the success of the Zucchero album in South-America with the compilation album Diamante, which included several songs in Spanish adaptions, written by Fito Paez. After a short tour to promote the album, Zucchero and his band were among the handful of European acts to play the Woodstock '94 festival, and subsequently flew to L.A. and New Orleans to begin recordings for the follow up to Miserere. Spirito DiVino, released in 1995, became one of Zucchero's most successful albums, remaining in the Italian album charts for more than a year, and selling more than three million copies throughout Europe, helped by the smash hit single "Il Volo". The album, produced once again by Rustici, featured standard Zucchero hands as Luisi, Sancious, Jones, and Hunt, as well as guest performers such as Johnnie Johnson (on "Voodoo Voodoo"), Clarence Clemons (on "O.L.S.M.M."), Sheila E. (on "Alleluja") and Jeff Beck (on "Papa Perche"). After the world tour that followed the release of Spirito DiVino, The Best of Zucchero "sugar" Fornaciari was released in 1996, including thirteen classic Zucchero tracks and three new cuts (among them the European hit single "Menta E Rosmarino"). During the Best of tour that followed, Zucchero and his band played Europe, and North- and South-America, and performed with Buddy Guy, and with Eric Clapton. For the 1997 release of the benefit album Carnival, a project of Zucchero's close friend Sting, Zucchero recorded an adaption of Guisseppe Verdi's "Va, Pensiero". In 1998, work began on Capri for what would become Bluesugar, an album strikingly different from Zucchero's previous work. Focusing more on a British rock sound, as well as being inspired by the techno sounds of the late 1990s, Bluesugar saw performances by Santana bassist Benny Rietveld, bluesharpist Mark Feltham, and Steve Winwood (on "Arcord" and "Eccetera Eccetera"). The first single, Blu, was also released in an English adaption with lyrics by U2's Bono. During the Bluesugar tour, which lasted all of 1999 and made it's way through Europe, and North-America, the compilation album Overdose (D'Amore) was released for the American market, including two new tracks ("Mi Muoio Per Te", Zucchero's Italian adaption of "Mad About You" in duet with Sting, and "Blue" in duet with Sheryl Crow). The last month of 1999, Zucchero performed during the Night of the Proms tour in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, and ended the millennium with a free concert in Milan. In the year and a half that followed Zucchero largely remained outside the limelight, though he did perform during a tribute concert for Fabrizio De Andre (performing "Ho Visto Nina Volare"), and during a summer concert in his honor in his childhood hometown of Forte Dei Marmi. In early 2001, singers Elisa and Giorgia become the winner and runner-up of the Sanremo Festival, both performing songs co-written by Zucchero. In the meantime, Zucchero was in the midst of recording his next album, Shake, in California. With Rustici producing for the last time, and regulars like Sancious, Jones, Luisi, and James Thompson, Shake featured the smash hit "Baila (sexy thing)", as well as "Ali D'Oro" - a duet with blues legend John Lee Hooker and the last recording Hooker did before his death in June 2001. Following the sold-out European Shake tour of 2002, Zucchero and Luciano Luisi began work on a long awaited project: a duet album. Released in the spring of 2004, ZU & Co featured eighteen song with twenty guest performers spanning the musical world: from Miles Davis (on a 1988 recording of "Dune Mosse"), to B.B. King (on "Hey Man"), from Eric Clapton (on a new version of "Wonderful World") to Queen's Brian May (on "Il Mare"), from Macy Gray and Jeff Beck (on "Come Il Sole All'Improvviso") to Dolores O'Riordan (on "Puro Amore"), and from Solomon Burke (on "Diavolo In Me") to Cheb Mami (on "Cosi Celeste"). The album was presented to the public with a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London and the, now legendary, night was released as a dvd in the winter of 2004 as ZU Co Live at the Royal Albert Hall. In 2005, ZU & Co was released in the United States as part of Starbuck's Hear Music label and became the number one World Music album for several weeks. In 2006, Zucchero began work on his next studio album. With Rustici bowing out as producer after Shake, legendary producer Don Was stepped up for what would become Fly. The album, which features a large group of American session musicians backing Zucchero, included the hits "Bacco Perbacco" and "Occhi", and saw Zucchero tour extensively in 2007, backed by old hands as David Sancious, Polo Jones, Mario Schiliro (with Zucchero since 1995), and Adriano Molinari (since 2002), as well as the new inclusion of guitarist and vocalist Kat Dyson. Late 2007 saw the release of All The Best, a 2 cd compilation of Zucchero's greatest hits, with several new songs (including "Wonderful Life", "Tutti I Colori Della Mia Vita", and "Amen"). 2008 saw Zucchero on the road once more, playing across the world. That same year, Live in Italy, a recording of concerts in Verona in 2007 and Milan in 2008, was released. |