John Valenti (born John LiVigni) is an American singer-songwriter from Chicago, Illinois.

Background

He began his career as John LiVigni with a cover of Stevie Winwood's " Gimme Some Lovin'," released on Raintree Records in 1971. He then became lead singer and writer for the pop band Puzzle. Puzzle released two albums on

Motown Records Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy, Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmant ...

in 1973 (''Puzzle I'') and 1974 (''Puzzle II''). They were one of the rare white groups on Motown, with a sound often reminiscent of the early Chicago Transit Authority. They were a

horn Horn most often refers to: *Horn (acoustic), a conical or bell shaped aperture used to guide sound ** Horn (instrument), collective name for tube-shaped wind musical instruments *Horn (anatomy), a pointed, bony projection on the head of various ...

pop soul Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describes a ...

band with John's vocals recalling

Stevie Wonder Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, Pop musi ...

. They owed a lot to Chicago, one of their inspirations. They never made the Hot 100 singles or Top 200 album charts. John eventually went solo. He released one album in 1976, entitled ''Anything You Want'', on Ariola Records. It peaked at No. 51 on the US Black Albums

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...

on the strength of its title track, which had been released as a single and which peaked at No. 37 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The title track fared better on the US Hot Soul Singles chart, where it went to No. 10, also making minor dents on the Adult Contemporary (#49) and Canadian pop charts (#69). John released a less successful second album, ''I Won't Change'', in 1981.

References

External links

Official WebsiteOfficial Facebook Page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Valenti, John Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Singers from Chicago American male singer-songwriters Singer-songwriters from Illinois