Carla Bissi, known professionally as Alice or Alice Visconti (; born 26 September 1954), is an Italian singer-songwriter and pianist who began her career in the early 1970s. After releasing three albums by the end of the decade, her breakthrough came in 1981 when she won the
Sanremo Music Festival
The Sanremo Music Festival, officially the Italian Song Festival () and commonly known as just (), is the most popular Italian song contest and awards ceremony, held annually in the city of Sanremo, Liguria. It is the longest-running annual ...
with the song "Per Elisa". This was followed by European hit singles like "Una notte speciale", "Messaggio", "Chan-son Egocentrique", "Prospettiva Nevski" and "Nomadi" and albums like ''
Gioielli rubati
''Gioielli rubati– Alice canta Battiato'' is the seventh studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1985 on EMI Music.
History
The album, whose title translates as ''Stolen Jewels – Alice sings Battiato'', followed t ...
'', ''
Park Hotel'', ''
Elisir'', and ''
Il sole nella pioggia
''Il sole nella pioggia'' is the eleventh studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1989 on EMI Music.
Synopsis
The album, whose title translates as ''The Sun in the Rain'', includes the single releases "Visioni" and "Il so ...
'' which charted in Continental Europe, Scandinavia, and Japan.
In 1984, she represented Italy in the
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...
with "
I treni di Tozeur
"I treni di Tozeur" ("The trains of Tozeur") is an Italian song, written by Franco Battiato, and Giusto Pio. It was the entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984, performed in Italian (with some lyrics in German) by Alice and Battiato.
In a stu ...
," a duet with longtime collaborator
Franco Battiato
Francesco "Franco" Battiato (; 23 March 1945 – 18 May 2021) was an Italian musician, singer, composer, filmmaker and, under the pseudonym Süphan Barzani, also a painter. Battiato's songs contain esoteric, philosophical and religious themes, a ...
. In her more recent career Alice has explored a diverse range of musical genres including classical,
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
,
electronica
Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to r ...
and
ambient
Ambient or Ambiance or Ambience may refer to:
Music and sound
* Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgrounds
* Ambient music, a genre of music that puts an emphasis on tone and atmosphere
* ''Ambient'' (album), by Moby
* ...
, and has collaborated with a large number of renowned English and American musicians. Her latest album ''
Samsara'' was released in 2012.
Biography
Early career (1970s)
Born in
Forlì
Forlì ( , ; rgn, Furlè ; la, Forum Livii) is a ''comune'' (municipality) and city in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, and is the capital of the province of Forlì-Cesena. It is the central city of Romagna.
The city is situated along the Via E ...
, Alice started taking piano lessons in the local Conservatory and singing privately at the age of eight. Her career in music started at age 17 when she participated in the 1971
Castrocaro Music Festival The Castrocaro Music Festival, also known as Concorso per Voci Nuove, is an Italian musical contest which takes place every year in the town of Castrocaro Terme e Terra del Sole, near Forlì, from 1957. The competition is exclusively reserved for ne ...
under her birth name. She went on to win the contest with an interpretation of the song "Tanta voglia di lei", originally composed and recorded by classic Italian rock band
Pooh
Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear and Pooh, is a fictional Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic teddy bear created by English author A. A. Milne and English illustrator E. H. Shepard.
The first collection of stories about the character w ...
.
The following year saw her winning another music award, ''La gondola d'argento'' in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
, with the song "La festa mia" as well as making her debut in the important
Sanremo Music Festival
The Sanremo Music Festival, officially the Italian Song Festival () and commonly known as just (), is the most popular Italian song contest and awards ceremony, held annually in the city of Sanremo, Liguria. It is the longest-running annual ...
performing "Il mio cuore se ne va" in the Newcomers category, also released as her debut single, the song however failed to qualify for the finals. Two further singles on the Carosello label credited under her birth name Carla Bissi followed in 1972 and 1973, both going relatively unnoticed by Italian audiences.
In 1975 she quit her day job at a design studio and took the stage name Alice Visconti as she was signed by the Italian subsidiary of
CBS Records CBS Records may refer to:
* CBS Records or CBS/Sony, former name of Sony Music, a global record company
* CBS Records International, label for Columbia Records recordings released outside North America from 1962 to 1990
* CBS Records (2006), founde ...
and released her debut album ''
La mia poca grande età
''La mia poca grande età'' is the debut album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released under the stage name "Alice Visconti" in 1975 on CBS Records.
The album was re-released on CD in Japan in 2006 in Warner Music's ''European Rock Collect ...
''. The album consisted of material written by some of Italy's most successful composers and lyricists of the era and among the musicians contributing were in fact members of Pooh. The singles "Piccola anima" and "Io voglio vivere", both in the fairly traditional Italian
easy listening
Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, n ...
genre, became minor chart successes in late 1975 and early 1976, the latter also a modest hit in France.
A second album on CBS followed in late 1977, ''
Cosa resta... Un fiore'', recorded with the same team of producers, composers and musicians as the debut, including the singles "...E respiro" and "Un'isola" which also met with moderate commercial success.
Commercial breakthrough (1980s)
Capo Nord
In late 1979, shortly after her contract with CBS had expired, Alice met a man with whom she would go on to collaborate with for the next three decades with great success, the experimental, unconventional and highly productive composer and singer
Franco Battiato
Francesco "Franco" Battiato (; 23 March 1945 – 18 May 2021) was an Italian musician, singer, composer, filmmaker and, under the pseudonym Süphan Barzani, also a painter. Battiato's songs contain esoteric, philosophical and religious themes, a ...
who was just on the verge of having his Italian breakthrough in the pop genre with the album ''
L'era del cinghiale bianco
''L'era del cinghiale bianco'' (Italian: "The Era of the White Boar") is an album by Italian singer-songwriter Franco Battiato. It was released in 1979 by the label EMI ''Italiana''.
This album marks the return of Battiato to pop, after a peri ...
'', released in 1979. Battiato secured Alice a contract with his label
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...
and the two began working together with his producer Angelo Carrara on what was to become her first proper hit single, the dark and despairing "Il vento caldo dell'estate" ("The Warm Summer Wind") and the following album ''
Capo Nord'' ("
North Cape"). Co-written and arranged by Battiato, the album saw Alice making a dramatic change in musical direction as it combined influences from contemporary rock and
new wave and a musical landscape with prominent use of synthesizers and distorted electric guitars. At this time she also dropped the Visconti part of her stage name and the ''Capo Nord'' album was the first to be credited simply as Alice. The album also marked her debut as a composer, with her writing the majority of the songs and over the course of the following albums she would become increasingly involved in the production of her music, both as composer, lyricist, musical arranger and
sound engineer
An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, ...
.
Per Elisa
In early 1981 Alice returned to the Sanremo Music Festival with the song "Per Elisa", composed by herself, Franco Battiato and his longtime co-writer, classical violinist
Giusto Pio
Giusto Pio (11 January 1926 – 12 February 2017) was an Italian conductor, composer, violinist, music educator and songwriter.
Born at Castelfranco Veneto, he studied music in Venice. Later he was engaged as violinist in the RAI orchestra o ...
. The song was both lyrically and musically a modern paraphrase of
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
's "
Für Elise
Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor (WoO59, Bia515) for solo piano, commonly known as "Für Elise" (, ), is one of Ludwig van Beethoven's most popular compositions. It was not published during his lifetime, only being discovered (by Ludwig Nohl) 40 year ...
" but it was by no means an archetypal sentimental Sanremo ballad. The rough rock track had lyrics which dealt with jealousy, betrayal, anger and revenge. For the live performance at the contest, she made full use of her vocal strength and range; one of the singer's trademarks is the exceptionally low register of her
contralto
A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type.
The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typically b ...
voice. "Per Elisa" is also partly sung in
falsetto
''Falsetto'' (, ; Italian diminutive of , "false") is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave.
It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous ed ...
and thus covers close to four
octave
In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...
s. The unorthodox entry and Alice's delivery of the song while dressed in tight jeans and a leather jacket made a strong impression on both the juries and the TV audiences; "Per Elisa" won the contest, becoming one of the first up-tempo rock tracks to do so and it became her commercial breakthrough, not only in Italy but also in the rest of Continental Europe, becoming a Top 10 hit also in
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
and
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
and most other parts of Western Europe, including
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
. An album titled ''
Alice
Alice may refer to:
* Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname
Literature
* Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll
* ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...
'' followed a few months later (released as ''Per Elisa'' outside Italy) including follow-up single "Una notte speciale" ("A Special Night") and the same year Bissi set out on her first European tour.
Azimut – Falsi allarmi
The following years saw the release of the albums ''
Azimut'' (''
Azimuth
An azimuth (; from ar, اَلسُّمُوت, as-sumūt, the directions) is an angular measurement in a spherical coordinate system. More specifically, it is the horizontal angle from a cardinal direction, most commonly north.
Mathematicall ...
'') and ''
Falsi allarmi
''Falsi allarmi'' is the sixth studio album by the Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1983 by EMI Music.
The album includes the single releases "Il profumo del silenzio", "Carthago", "Solo un'dea" and "Notte a Roma".
After the chart ...
'', again mainly composed by Bissi herself, but also including further songwriting collaborations with Battiato and Giusto Pio, and both albums produced by Angelo Carrara. The albums spun off further popular single releases like "Messaggio" ("Message"), the nonsensical French/Italian/German/English language "Chan-son Egocentrique" ("Selfcentred Song", a duet with Battiato), "A cosa pensano" ("What Are They Thinking"), "Notte a Roma" ("Night in Rome"), "Solo un'idea" ("Just A Thought") and "Il profumo del silenzio" ("The Scent of Silence"). These became especially successful in West Germany, which led to her recording the German/Italian language duet "Zu Nah Am Feuer" with singer
Stefan Waggershausen
Stefan Waggershausen (born 20 February 1949) is a German singer, composer, and songwriter.
Waggershausen was born in Friedrichshafen, at Lake Constance. In 1974 he produced his first record as singer. In 1980, he had his first big success with th ...
in late 1983, an English/Italian version was later also released in certain territories under the title "Close to the Fire". The single which sold nearly a million copies in West Germany alone was also a number one in Switzerland and Austria. The duet made her one of the best-selling Italian artists on the German-speaking markets of the mid-1980s and it has been said that she at this stage of her career even sold more records in these countries, the
Benelux
The Benelux Union ( nl, Benelux Unie; french: Union Benelux; lb, Benelux-Unioun), also known as simply Benelux, is a politico-economic union and formal international intergovernmental cooperation of three neighboring states in western Europe: B ...
and Scandinavia than in her native Italy.
I treni di Tozeur
In May 1984 Alice and Franco Battiato represented Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest with the for its genre highly unconventional song "
I treni di Tozeur
"I treni di Tozeur" ("The trains of Tozeur") is an Italian song, written by Franco Battiato, and Giusto Pio. It was the entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984, performed in Italian (with some lyrics in German) by Alice and Battiato.
In a stu ...
" ("The trains of Tozeur"), again composed by Battiato, Giusto Pio and lyricist Rosario Cosentino. The mid-tempo synth-driven ballad was based around a very brief excerpt from
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...
's opera ''
The Magic Flute
''The Magic Flute'' (German: , ), K. 620, is an opera in two acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a ''Singspiel'', a popular form during the time it was written that inclu ...
'' and was performed on stage in
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
with three classically trained
mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano or mezzo (; ; meaning "half soprano") is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middle C ...
s. Despite being tipped to win and arguably the best reception from the audiences on the night as well as receiving the coveted "twelve points", the full mark, from countries as diverse as Spain and Finland, Alice and Battiato lost out to the Swedish song "
Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley
"Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley" was the winning song in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984 performed in Swedish by the trio of brothers Herrey's, representing . Lyrics were written by Britt Lindeborg, and the tune by Torgny Söderberg. It was produced by ...
", and finished 5th out of 19 entries. "I treni di Tozeur" however became that year's bestselling entry in Continental Europe, and paradoxically enough also a Top 20 hit in Sweden. The song is also in fact one of the very few Italian Eurovision entries ever to become a commercial success in Italy itself – even topping the Italian singles chart, and some twenty-five years later it still remains the best-selling single in Bissi's career to date. Both Alice and Battiato have since recorded several solo interpretations of "I treni di Tozeur", both with contemporary and classical arrangements, and the song also appears on the CD set of Eurovision ''Winners and Classics'' produced to coincide with the ''
Congratulations
Congratulations may refer to:
Film and television
*'' Congratulations: 50 Years of the Eurovision Song Contest'', 2005 television programme to commemorate its fiftieth anniversary
Music Albums
* ''Congratulations'' (album), an album by ...
'' 50th Anniversary special of late 2005 as well as on the accompanying DVD.
Gioielli rubati
In 1985 Alice followed up the success of the "I treni di Tozeur" single with a full-length tribute album entitled ''
Gioielli rubati
''Gioielli rubati– Alice canta Battiato'' is the seventh studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1985 on EMI Music.
History
The album, whose title translates as ''Stolen Jewels – Alice sings Battiato'', followed t ...
– Alice canta Battiato'' (''Stolen Jewels – Alice Sings Battiato''), including nine of the composer's best-known songs. Angelo Carrara's production of the album, recorded in
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
and mixed at
The Power Station Studios in New York City, accentuated Battiato's influences from classical masters such as
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...
,
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
and
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...
by juxtaposing modern
sequencer
Sequencer may refer to:
Technology
* Drum sequencer (controller), an electromechanical system for controlling a sequence of events automatically
* DNA sequencer, a machine used to automatically produce a sequence readout from a biological DNA sam ...
-programmed synthesizers and
drum machines against a classically arranged
string section, just like in the case of "I treni di Tozeur" courtesy of the opera house
La Scala
La Scala (, , ; abbreviation in Italian of the official name ) is a famous opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the ' (New Royal-Ducal Theatre alla Scala). The premiere performan ...
in Milan. The album's opening track "Prospettiva Nevski", minutely detailing a cold winter's day at
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
's "
Nevsky Prospekt
Nevsky Prospect ( rus, Не́вский проспе́кт, r=Nevsky Prospekt (street), Prospekt, p=ˈnʲɛfskʲɪj prɐˈspʲɛkt) is the main street (high street) in the federal city of Saint Petersburg, St. Petersburg in Russian Federation, ...
" in the early twentieth century, became Alice's best-selling solo single in Continental Europe and Scandinavia since her breakthrough with "Per Elisa" and was followed by "Summer on a Solitary Beach", "Il Re del Mondo" ("The King of the World") and "Luna indiana" ("Indian Moon", loosely based on
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
's "
Moonlight Sonata
The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, marked ''Quasi una fantasia'', Op. 27, No. 2, is a piano sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven. It was completed in 1801 and dedicated in 1802 to his pupil Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. The popular name ''Mo ...
") and introduced Battiato's music to a wider European audience. In Italy the ''Gioielli rubati'' album won Alice the award
Premio Tenco
The and its twin the are sedans sold in Japan from 2001 to 2021 by Toyota. The sedans are designated as a compact car by Japanese dimension regulations and the exterior dimensions do not change with periodic updates. Unlike Toyota's other v ...
for Best Interpretation the following year.
Park Hotel
In 1986 Bissi changed musical direction as she returned to the charts with the album ''
Park Hotel'', her first project with keyboardist, arranger and producer Francesco Messina, with whom she was to collaborate extensively over the next two decades. The album which included material co-written by Bissi herself, Messina, as well as prolific Italian lyricist, composer and singer
Juri Camisasca
Roberto Camisasca (born 9 August 1951), best known as Juri Camisasca, is an Italian singer-songwriter and composer.
Life and career
Born in Melegnano, a self-taught musician, Camisasca debuted in 1974 with the progressive rock album ''La finestr ...
was also Bissi's first proper international venture as it was entirely recorded with a four-piece band consisting of Italian keyboardist Michele Fedrigotti plus three internationally acknowledged and highly influential musicians: American bassist
Tony Levin
Anthony Frederick Levin (born June 6, 1946) is an American musician and composer, specializing in electric bass, Chapman Stick and upright bass. He also sings and plays synthesizer. Levin is best known for his work with King Crimson (since 198 ...
, American drummer
Jerry Marotta
Jerome David Marotta (born February 6, 1956, in Cleveland, Ohio) is an American drummer who resides in Woodstock, New York. He is the younger brother of Rick Marotta, who is also a drummer and composer.
Career
Marotta was a member of the bands ...
and British guitarist
Phil Manzanera
Phillip Geoffrey Targett-Adams (born 31 January 1951), known professionally as Phil Manzanera, is an English guitarist, songwriter and record producer. He is the lead guitarist with Roxy Music, and was the lead guitarist with 801, and Quiet Sun. ...
. The album was notably different from the preceding "I treni di Tozeur" and ''Gioielli rubati'', as it mainly focussed on
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
-tinged, melancholy and suggestive ballads with airy soundscapes giving plenty of room for the musicians to display their respective talents and for Bissi to use her vocal skills in a new musical environment. ''Park Hotel'' was promoted by lead single "Nomadi" ("Nomads"), an epic ballad by Camisasca, followed by "Il senso dei desideri" ("The Sense of Desire"), "Viali di solitudine" ("The Boulevards of the Lonely"), "Volo di notte" ("Fly by Night") and a remix of the up-tempo track "Conoscersi" ("Knowing Yourself"). ''Park Hotel'' was a considerable success both critically and commercially, reaching the Top 20 in most parts of Continental Europe, peaking at No. 13 on the Swedish albums chart and it also became her breakthrough on the Japanese market, despite the fact that all lyrics still were entirely sung in the Italian language.
Elisir
A tour in Continental Europe and Scandinavia followed in 1987 on which Bissi performed tracks from the ''
Park Hotel'' album alongside reworked arrangements of songs from her earlier repertoire; the romantic "Una notte speciale" became an up-tempo rock track, breakthrough single "Il vento caldo dell'estate" was given an updated synthesizer and drum-machine treatment while songs like "La Mano", "Rumbarock" (retitled "Hispavox") and "Notte a Roma" were performed
unplugged
Unplugged may refer to:
*Acoustic music, music not produced through electronic means
*Unplugged (B.A.P song), "Unplugged" (B.A.P song), 2014
*Unplugged (Modern Family), "Unplugged" (''Modern Family''), a 2010 episode of ''Modern Family''
Albums a ...
with acoustic guitars and sparse percussion. After the completion of the tour six of these interpretations were recorded in studio and released on the album ''
Elisir'' which also included two previously unreleased songs, the opening track "Nuvole" ("Clouds") and a cover version of
Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
and
McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
's "
The Fool on the Hill
"The Fool on the Hill" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1967 EP and album '' Magical Mystery Tour''. It was written and sung by Paul McCartney and credited to the Lennon–McCartney partnership. The lyrics describe the ...
", released as the lead single. ''Elisir'' was later awarded the prestigious prize ''
Goldene Europa Goldene Europa award is the oldest German Television award for artists and entertainers. It was awarded from 1968 to 2003. In the years 1989 and 2001, there were no ceremonies. Since 1981, the gala was broadcast on television.
The original sculptu ...
'' for sales on the German-speaking markets. In Japan the album was released under the title ''
Kusamakura'' (''Grass Pillow'') and then included the new recording "Le scogliere di Dover" ("The reeves of
Dover
Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...
"), with which Alice participated in the
World Popular Song Festival
The , also known as Yamaha Music Festival and unofficially as the "Oriental Eurovision", was an international song contest held from 1970 until 1989. It was organised by the Yamaha Music Foundation in Tokyo, Japan from 1970 until 1989. The first ed ...
in Tokyo in early 1988.
Mélodie Passagère
Musically and vocally versatile and unwilling to be categorised or defined, 1988 saw Bissi setting out on a low-key tour in smaller venues and classical concert halls in Italy and Switzerland accompanied solely by herself and Michele Fedrigotti on pianos and keyboards, performing not her pop hits but
arias
In music, an aria (Italian: ; plural: ''arie'' , or ''arias'' in common usage, diminutive form arietta , plural ariette, or in English simply air) is a self-contained piece for one voice, with or without instrumental or orchestral accompanimen ...
and
lieder
In Western classical music tradition, (, plural ; , plural , ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music to create a piece of polyphonic music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German, but among English and French sp ...
by
fin de siècle
() is a French term meaning "end of century,” a phrase which typically encompasses both the meaning of the similar English idiom "turn of the century" and also makes reference to the closing of one era and onset of another. Without context ...
composers
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré (; 12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers ...
,
Erik Satie
Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (, ; ; 17 May 18661 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but was an und ...
and
Maurice Ravel
Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...
. The partly instrumental concert was later recorded in studio and released as ''
Mélodie passagère on EMI.
Il sole nella pioggia
In 1989 Bissi returned with another pop album, ''
Il sole nella pioggia
''Il sole nella pioggia'' is the eleventh studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1989 on EMI Music.
Synopsis
The album, whose title translates as ''The Sun in the Rain'', includes the single releases "Visioni" and "Il so ...
'' (''The Sun in the Rain''), which was proof of further musical development and evolution as it was clearly influenced by contemporary British artists in the
experimental
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...
and
alternative rock
Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from Popular culture, mainstre ...
genres such as Peter Gabriel,
Kate Bush
Catherine Bush (born 30 July 1958) is an English singer, songwriter, record producer and dancer. In 1978, at the age of 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut single "Wuthering Heights (song), Wuthering Heights", ...
and
David Sylvian
David Sylvian (born David Alan Batt, 23 February 1958) is an English musician, singer and songwriter who came to prominence in the late 1970s as frontman and principal songwriter of the band Japan. The band's androgynous look and increasingly ...
and among the all-star line up of musicians contributing to the project were in fact several who previously had collaborated with these: drummer
Steve Jansen
''yes'Steve is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Steven or Stephen
Notable people with the name include:
steve jops
* Steve Abbott (disambiguation), several people
* Steve Adams (disambiguation), several people
* Steve ...
and keyboardist
Richard Barbieri
Richard Barbieri (born 30 November 1957) is an English musician, composer and sound designer. Originally a member of new wave band Japan (and their brief 1989–1991 reincarnation as Rain Tree Crow), more recently he is known as the keyboard ...
, guitarist
Dave Gregory, trumpetist and multi-instrumentalist
Jon Hassell
Jon Hassell (March 22, 1937 – June 26, 2021) was an American trumpet player and composer. He was best known for developing the concept of "Fourth World" music, which describes a "unified primitive/futurist sound" combining elements of various w ...
, Turkish flutist
Kudsi Erguner
Kudsi Ergüner (born 4 February 1952 in Diyarbakır, Turkey) is a Turkish musician. He is considered a master of traditional Mevlevi Sufi music and is one of the best-known players of the Turkish ney flute.
Biography
As a boy, Erguner s ...
as well as the Italian trumpet and
flugelhorn
The flugelhorn (), also spelled fluegelhorn, flugel horn, or flügelhorn, is a brass instrument that resembles the trumpet and cornet but has a wider, more conical bore. Like trumpets and cornets, most flugelhorns are pitched in B, though some ...
jazz player
Paolo Fresu
Paolo Fresu ( sc, Pàulu; born 10 February 1961) is an Italian jazz trumpet and flugelhorn player, as well as a composer and arranger of music.
Career
Born in Berchidda, Sardinia, he picked up the trumpet at the age of 11, and played in the ban ...
. The album closes with the English language track "Now and Forever", a duet with British
progressive rock
Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...
singer-songwriter
Peter Hammill
Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill (born 5 November 1948) is an English musician and recording artist. He was a founder member of the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. Best known as a singer/songwriter, he also plays guitar and piano and ...
. The mainpart of the songs were collaborations between Juri Camisasca and pianist, violinist and composer Marco Liverani including lead single "Visioni" ("Visions"), follow-up and title track "Il sole nella pioggia", "Tempo senza tempo" ("Time Without Time") and "Le ragazze di Osaka" ("The Girls in Osaka"). Side two of the original vinyl album however opened with a multilayered
a cappella
''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...
interpretation of the medieval French folk song "Orléans" on which Alice again showed her vocal capability by singing all harmonies covering four octaves, followed by the acoustic "Anìn A Grîs" sung in the
Friulian language
Friulian ( ) or Friulan (natively or ; it, friulano; de-AT, Furlanisch; sl, furlanščina) is a Romance language belonging to the Rhaeto-Romance family, spoken in the Friuli region of northeastern Italy. Friulian has around 600,000 speakers, ...
. ''Il sole nella pioggia'' also included a reworking of the track "Le scogliere di Dover", originally released on the Japanese ''Kusamakura'' album, provided with new lyrics and retitled "I cieli del nord" ("The Skies of the North"). The album consolidated her position as one of Italy's leading artists and was followed by another successful European concert tour.
Experiments (1990s)
Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi
After a three-year absence from the music scene Bissi returned with the album ''
Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi'' ("Noon in the
Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...
") in 1992, her most experimental and mature work to date, again recorded with a number of distinguished international musicians such as Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri, Dave Gregory, Paolo Fresu as well as double bass player
Danny Thompson
Daniel Henry Edward Thompson (born 4 April 1939) is an English multi-instrumentalist best known as a double bassist. He has had a long musical career playing with a large variety of other musicians, particularly Richard Thompson and John Mart ...
, drummer
Gavin Harrison
Gavin Richard Harrison (born 28 May 1963) is an English musician. He is best known for playing with the progressive rock bands Porcupine Tree (2002–2010; 2021–present), King Crimson (2008, and 2014–present) and The Pineapple Thief (2016 ...
and bassist
Jakko Jakszyk
Michael "Jakko" Jakszyk (born Michael Lee Curran, 8 June 1958) is an English musician, record producer, and actor. He has released several solo albums as a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist and has been the lead singer for King Crims ...
.
''Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi'' displayed Bissi's effort to steer away from being a commercially oriented Mediterranean pop act to a much more ambitious performer and marked an increasing expansion into electronics, expressed in colourful synth sounds, occasional drum loops and subdued ambient passages as well as influences from contemporary jazz. The material was mainly co-written by Bissi and producer Francesco Messina with contributions from Richard Barbieri, Paolo Fresu and Rosario Cosentino but the album also included an English language cover version of
Tim Buckley
Timothy Charles Buckley III (February 14, 1947 – June 29, 1975) was an American musician. His music and style changed considerably through the years. Buckley began his career based in folk music, but his subsequent albums experimented with ja ...
's "Blue Melody" and lead single "In viaggio sul tuo viso" incorporates the
Hungarian folk melody "Istenem Istenem".
Despite receiving generally positive reviews from music critics and a following sold-out European concert tour the ''Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi'' album itself was only a moderate commercial success.
Art et Décoration
The years 1993 and 1994 saw Bissi embarking on the tour project ''Art et Décoration'' with the
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orch ...
Symphony Orchestra, interpreting works by composers such as
Reynaldo Hahn
Reynaldo Hahn (; 9 August 1874 – 28 January 1947) was a Venezuelan-born French composer, conductor, music critic, and singer. He is best known for his songs – ''mélodies'' – of which he wrote more than 100.
Hahn was born in Caracas b ...
,
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, one of the first American composers of international renown. His music was largely ignored during his early career, and many of his works went unperformed f ...
, Maurice Ravel,
Xavier Montsalvatge
Xavier Montsalvatge i Bassols (; 11 March 1912 – 7 May 2002) was a Spanish composer and music critic. He was one of the most influential music figures in Catalan music during the latter half of the 20th century.
Biography
Life
Montsalvatge ...
, Geni Sadero, Gabriel Fauré,
Ivor Gurney
Ivor Bertie Gurney (28 August 1890 – 26 December 1937) was an English poet and composer, particularly of songs. He was born and raised in Gloucester. He suffered from bipolar disorder through much of his life and spent his last 15 years in ps ...
,
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano C ...
, and
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Heitor Villa-Lobos (March 5, 1887November 17, 1959) was a Brazilian composer, conductor, cellist, and classical guitarist described as "the single most significant creative figure in 20th-century Brazilian art music". Villa-Lobos has become the ...
. Unlike ''
Mélodie passagère'' the ''Art et Décoration'' project was not recorded by EMI and still remains unreleased.
Charade
In 1995 Bissi signed a five-year contract with the
WEA
The Wea were a Miami-Illinois-speaking Native American tribe originally located in western Indiana. Historically, they were described as either being closely related to the Miami Tribe or a sub-tribe of Miami.
Today, the descendants of the ...
/
Warner Music
Warner Music Group Corp. ( d.b.a. Warner Music Group, commonly abbreviated as WMG) is an American multinational entertainment and record label conglomerate headquartered in New York City. It is one of the " big three" recording companies and t ...
label and released another pop album, the both musically and lyrically introspective and contemplative ''
Charade
Charade or charades may refer to:
Games
* Charades, originally "acting charades", a parlor game
Films/TV
* ''Charade'' (1953 film), an American film featuring James Mason
* ''Charade'' (1963 film), an American film starring Cary Grant and A ...
'' featuring contributions from musicians like King Crimson's
Trey Gunn
Trey Gunn (born December 13, 1960) is an American musician, known for his membership in the progressive rock band King Crimson from 1994 to 2003, playing Warr Guitar and Chapman Stick.
Biography
A native Texan who now resides in Seattle, Washi ...
, several tracks with British
improvisational
Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...
solo violinist and arranger Stuart Gordon and acoustic tracks with the American/Belgian/Japanese
California Guitar Trio
California Guitar Trio (CGT) is a band of three guitar players founded in Los Angeles in 1991 by Paul Richards, Hideyo Moriya, and Bert Lams around the concept of playing acoustic guitars in the New Standard Tuning taught by Robert Fripp on Guita ...
. ''Charade'', which included single releases "Dammi la mano amore" ("Give Me Your Hand, My Love") and "Non ero mai sola" ("I Was Never Alone"), was very much in the same vein as 1992's ''Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi'' but further developed the use of minimalist ambient/avant-garde backgrounds, with fractured guitars and woodwind,
muted trumpet
A mute is a device attached to a musical instrument which changes the instrument's tone quality (timbre) or lowers its volume. Mutes are commonly used on string and brass instruments, especially the trumpet and trombone, and are occasionall ...
s and
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
set against programmed
TR-808 rhythms, influenced by contemporary dance music genres like electronica and
trance
Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...
, fused with
world music samples and
looped
''Looped'' is a play by Matthew Lombardo about an event surrounding actress Tallulah Bankhead. It had a Broadway run in 2010, after two previous productions in 2008 and 2009, all three of them featuring Valerie Harper.
Plot
Based on a real even ...
vocals, but again with the main focus on the esoteric and evocative lyrics.
On the following European ''Charade'' tour in 1996 Bissi performed with a four-piece band consisting of Robby Aceto (The Club,
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991.[Talkin ...](_blank)
, David Sylvian etc.) on electric and acoustic guitars, former
No-Man
No-Man are an English art pop duo, formed in 1987 as No Man Is an Island (Except the Isle of Man) by singer Tim Bowness and multi-instrumentalist Steven Wilson. The band has so far produced seven studio albums and a number of singles/outtakes ...
member Ben Coleman on violin and the two ex-
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
members Steve Jansen on drums and
Mick Karn
Andonis Michaelides (Greek: Αντώνης Μιχαηλίδης; 24 July 1958 – 4 January 2011), better known as Mick Karn, was an English-Cypriot musician and songwriter who rose to fame as the bassist for the art rock/ new wave band Japan. H ...
on bass guitar and
bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave bel ...
. After fifteen years of alternately composing, recording, promoting her work in the media as well as extensive touring, the ''Charade Tour'' marked Bissi's final major European concert venture.
Later in 1996 she appeared as singer and co-writer on Trey Gunn's solo album ''The Third Star'', performing the title track. In 1997 she and producer Francesco Messina, Gavin Harrison and Juri Camisasca among others (
Stefano Battaglia
Stefano Battaglia (born 1965 in Milan) is an Italian classical and jazz pianist.
He performed as a soloist with the European Youth Orchestra in Barcelona (1981). He won the J.S. Bach Festival award in Düsseldorf for best new pianist of the yea ...
,
Bruno Romani
Bruno Romani (Udine, 9 January 1960) is an Italian saxophonist, flutist and composer.
He was the founder of ''Detonazione'' (one of the most influential Italian post-punk bands of the 80s), author of contemporary jazz albums and collaborator as ...
, etc.) were part of the collaborative
crossover
Crossover may refer to:
Entertainment
Albums and songs
* ''Cross Over'' (Dan Peek album)
* ''Crossover'' (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles album), 1987
* ''Crossover'' (Intrigue album)
* ''Crossover'' (Hitomi Shimatani album)
* ''Crossover'' (Yoshino ...
/
ambient
Ambient or Ambiance or Ambience may refer to:
Music and sound
* Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgrounds
* Ambient music, a genre of music that puts an emphasis on tone and atmosphere
* ''Ambient'' (album), by Moby
* ...
/
fusion
Fusion, or synthesis, is the process of combining two or more distinct entities into a new whole.
Fusion may also refer to:
Science and technology Physics
*Nuclear fusion, multiple atomic nuclei combining to form one or more different atomic nucl ...
project ''Devogue'', with Bissi singing lead vocals on five of the thirteen titles, two of which in fact ambient dub remixes of tracks from her own studio albums. Later that same year she teamed up with Italian progressive rock band
Bluvertigo
Bluvertigo were an Italian alternative rock band from the Milan metropolitan area. Originally formed in 1992 with the name "Golden Age", the band switched to the name Bluvertigo shortly before recording their first album. The founding members are ...
for the duet "Troppe emozioni" ("Too Many Emotions"), included on their album ''Metallo non-metallo''.
Exit
In 1998 Bissi released ''
Exit
Exit(s) may refer to:
Architecture and engineering
* Door
* Portal (architecture), an opening in the walls of a structure
* Emergency exit
* Overwing exit, a type of emergency exit on an airplane
* Exit ramp, a feature of a road interchange
A ...
'', her most pop-oriented and melodic studio album since the late 1980s, again clearly influenced by urban dance music genres like electronica and
contemporary R&B
Contemporary R&B (or simply R&B) is a popular music genre that combines rhythm and blues with elements of pop, soul, funk, hip hop, and electronic music.
The genre features a distinctive record production style, drum machine-backed rhythm ...
; or as
Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
wrote in their review "the album often suggests
Sarah McLachlan
Sarah Ann McLachlan Order of Canada, OC Order of British Columbia, OBC (born January 28, 1968) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. As of 2015, she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is ''Surfacing ( ...
in a duet with
Enigma
Enigma may refer to:
*Riddle, someone or something that is mysterious or puzzling
Biology
*ENIGMA, a class of gene in the LIM domain
Computing and technology
* Enigma (company), a New York-based data-technology startup
* Enigma machine, a family ...
". The album spawned three single releases, "I Am a Taxi", "Dimmi di sì" ("Tell me yes") and "Open Your Eyes", an English/Italian language R&B duet with
Skye Edwards
Skye Edwards (born Shirley Klaris Yonavieve Edwards; 27 May 1974), sometimes simply Skye, is a British singer-songwriter. Her career began in 1994 when she and the Godfrey brothers (Paul Godfrey, a DJ, and Ross Godfrey, a multi-instrumentalist ...
, lead singer of British
trip hop
Trip hop (sometimes used synonymously with "downtempo") is a musical genre that originated in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom, especially Bristol. It has been described as a psychedelic music, psychedelic fusion of hip hop music, hip hop ...
band
Morcheeba
Morcheeba is an English electronic band formed in the mid-1990s with founding members vocalist Skye Edwards and the brothers Paul and Ross Godfrey. They mix influences from trip hop, rock music, rock, folk rock and downtempo, and have produced ...
. The promo video of the latter shows the two singers performing the track sitting in a rowing boat on a sunny summer's day in London's
Hyde Park
Hyde Park may refer to:
Places
England
* Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London
* Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds
* Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield
* Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester
Austra ...
. ''Exit'' also includes a second duet with Bluvertigo's Morgan, "L'immagine" ("The Images"), and closes with a cover version of French singer-songwriter
Leo Ferré's "L'Etranger" ("The Stranger"), with lyrics based on a poem by influential French nineteenth century poet, critic and translator
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poetry, French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticis ...
.
God Is My DJ
1999 saw Bissi on another small-scale tour project with a six-piece acoustic band, exploring and interpreting sacral and spiritual – but not exclusively religious – music, performing in smaller venues and churches in the North of Italy. ''
God Is My DJ'', which also was recorded and released by Warner Music, comprised works by composers as diverse as
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt (; born 11 September 1935) is an Estonian composer of contemporary classical music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in pa ...
,
David Crosby
David Van Cortlandt Crosby (born August 14, 1941) is an American singer, guitarist, and songwriter. In addition to his solo career, he was a founding member of both the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Crosby joined the Byrds in 1964. They got ...
,
Popol Vuh
''Popol Vuh'' (also ''Popol Wuj'' or ''Popul Vuh'' or ''Pop Vuj'') is a text recounting the mythology and history of the Kʼicheʼ people, one of the Maya peoples, who inhabit Guatemala and the Mexican states of Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatan and Q ...
,
Eleni Karaindrou
Eleni Karaindrou ( el, Ελένη Καραΐνδρου, born 25 November 1941) is a Greek composer. She is best known for scoring the films of the Greek director Theo Angelopoulos.
Biography
Karaindrou moved with her family to Athens when she wa ...
,
Gavin Bryars
Richard Gavin Bryars (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer and double bassist. He has worked in jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, avant-garde, and experimental music.
Early life and career
Born on 16 January 1943 in ...
, Franco Battiato and
Jane Siberry
Jane Siberry ( ; ; born 12 October 1955) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, known for such hits as " Mimi on the Beach", "I Muse Aloud", "One More Colour" and "Calling All Angels". She performed the theme song to the television series ''Maniac Ma ...
, French, Hungarian and
Livonia
Livonia ( liv, Līvõmō, et, Liivimaa, fi, Liivinmaa, German and Scandinavian languages: ', archaic German: ''Liefland'', nl, Lijfland, Latvian and lt, Livonija, pl, Inflanty, archaic English: ''Livland'', ''Liwlandia''; russian: Ли ...
n traditionals, as well as 11th and 14th century
hymn
A hymn is a type of song, and partially synonymous with devotional song, specifically written for the purpose of adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word ''hymn'' ...
s sung in
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
and
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
.
New projects (2000–2005)
Personal Jukebox
In the Spring of 2000 Bissi returned to the Sanremo music festival, twenty-eight years after her debut with "Il mio cuore se ne va" and nineteen years after the victory with "Per Elisa", and this time in the category for established artists. The song she performed, Juri Camisasca's "Il giorno dell'indipendenza" ("The Day of Independence"), qualified for the finals and finished in an honourable ninth place and was also the opening track on the career retrospective ''
Personal Jukebox
The Personal Jukebox (also known as ''PJB-100'' or ''Music Compressor'') was the first consumer hard drive-based digital audio player. Introduced in 1999, it preceded the Apple iPod, SanDisk Sansa, and other similar players. It was designed and ...
''. The album contained four single tracks from 1998's ''Exit'' and 1995's ''Charade'', the original versions of "Visioni" from 1989's ''Il sole nella pioggia'' and "In Viaggio Sul Tuo Viso" from 1992's ''Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi'' as well as new interpretations of tracks from her early repertoire, including "Chanson Egocentrique" (another duet with Bluvertigo), "Prospettiva Nevski", "A cosa pensano", "Nomadi", "Il vento caldo dell'estate", a technofied take on "Per Elisa" and an orchestral solo version of "
I treni di Tozeur
"I treni di Tozeur" ("The trains of Tozeur") is an Italian song, written by Franco Battiato, and Giusto Pio. It was the entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984, performed in Italian (with some lyrics in German) by Alice and Battiato.
In a stu ...
". "Il Giorno dell'indipendenza" was one of three new recordings, the other two being "Tutto è niente" ("All Is Nothing") and an Italian language cover version of
David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
/
Pat Metheny Group
The Pat Metheny Group was an American jazz band founded in 1977. The core members of the group were guitarist, composer and bandleader Pat Metheny; and keyboardist and composer Lyle Mays, who was in the group at its inception. Other long-standing ...
's "
This is Not America
"This Is Not America" is a song by English singer David Bowie and American jazz fusion band Pat Metheny Group, taken from the soundtrack to the 1985 film ''The Falcon and the Snowman''. It was released as a single in February 1985, reaching numb ...
".
Viaggio in Italia
In 2001 Bissi launched the tour project ''Le parole del giorno prima'' (''Words of the past day''), an
homage
Homage (Old English) or Hommage (French) may refer to:
History
*Homage (feudal) /ˈhɒmɪdʒ/, the medieval oath of allegiance
*Commendation ceremony, medieval homage ceremony Arts
*Homage (arts) /oʊˈmɑʒ/, an allusion or imitation by one arti ...
to some of Italy's foremost
cantautori, singer-songwriters and lyricists, including
Ivano Fossati
Ivano Alberto Fossati (born 21 September 1951) is an Italian pop singer from Genoa. He was a member of the progressive rock group Delirium and has worked with Fabrizio De André, Riccardo Tesi, Anna Oxa, Mia Martini, Ornella Vanoni, Shirley Bass ...
,
Fabrizio De André
Fabrizio Cristiano De André (; 18 February 1940 – 11 January 1999) was an Italian singer-songwriter, the most prominent ''cantautore'' of his time. His 40-year career reflects his interests in concept albums, literature, poetry, political pro ...
,
Francesco De Gregori
Francesco De Gregori OMRI (born 4 April 1951) is an Italian singer-songwriter. In Italy, he is popularly known as "Il Principe dei cantautori" ("The Prince of the singer-songwriters"), a nickname referring to the elegance of his lyrics.
He is of ...
, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Battiato and
Giorgio Gaber
Giorgio Gaber (), byname of Giorgio Gaberscik (25 January 1939 – 1 January 2003), was an Italian singer, composer, actor, and playwright. He was also an accomplished guitar player and author of one of the first rock songs in Italian ("Ciao ti ...
, mainly covering material from the 1970s and the early 1980s but interpreted with contemporary musical arrangements and an emphasis on the lyrical qualities of the songs.
The project was marred by further problems with record companies but eventually evolved into ''
Viaggio in Italia
''Journey to Italy'', also known as ''Voyage to Italy'', is a 1954 drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini. Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders play Katherine and Alex Joyce, a childless English married couple on a trip to Italy whose marriage i ...
'' (a title shared with Goethe's "Italian Journey" and Rossellini's "Journey to Italy"), released in 2003 on the independent label NuN. The album opens with a solo interpretation of the new composition "Come un sigillo" with music by Battiato and lyrics by philosopher
Manlio Sgalambro
Manlio Sgalambro (; 9 December 1924 – 6 March 2014) was an Italian philosopher and writer, born in Lentini.
Biography
Philosophical production
Sgalambro did not have certificates or degrees as business cards: how he became a writer of phi ...
, originally recorded as a duet with the composer on his 2002 album ''Fleurs 3''. The ''Viaggio in Italia'' album brought Alice back to the Top 20 in Italy, peaking at No. 16 in September 2003.
Recent career (2006–present)
In recent years Bissi has periodically toured with the project ''Lungo La Strada'' (''Along the Road'') with Steve Jansen, Marco Pancaldi and Alberto Tafuri, performing in both classical auditoriums, churches and concert halls in Italy.
EMI aftermath
After the comparatively low sales of albums ''Mélodie Passagère – Alice Canta Satie, Fauré & Ravel'' (1988) and ''Mezzogiorno Sulle Alpi'' (1992) the
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...
label declined to release or even record the 1993/1994 project ''Art et Décoration'' with the Arturo Toscanini Symphony Orchestra. Instead they released a ''greatest hits'' compilation in 1994 entitled ''Il vento caldo dell'estate'', taking its title from the artist's first Italian hit single and mainly focussing on material recorded in the early 1980s. The compilation was issued without the knowledge or approval of Bissi herself. The hits package included a
Euro disco
Eurodisco (also spelled as Euro disco) is the variety of European forms of electronic dance music that evolved from disco in the late 1970s, incorporating elements of pop and rock into a disco-like continuous dance atmosphere. Many Eurodisco ...
remix of the 1982 track "Chan-son Egocentrique", originally a duet with Franco Battiato. The remixed version of the track, also released as a 12" single, omitted all lines sung by the composer himself – again this was done without the knowledge or approval of either Bissi or Battiato. The two subsequently considered taking legal action against the label to have the compilation and the remix single withdrawn – only to find that they legally had no control over the use of their respective bodies of work recorded for EMI. This subsequently led to both artists leaving the label after a fifteen-year-long and highly successful collaboration.
Bissi's contract however stipulated that she was to deliver one final studio album to the label before the end of 1995. As a compromise she agreed to take part in the production of another hits compilation, this time under her supervision. Unlike the first version, ''
Viaggiatrice solitaria'' covered tracks from all eras of her career on EMI, including selections from her then more recent works ''Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi'' and ''Il sole nella pioggia''. The remix of "Chan-son Egocentrique" was omitted from the track list. Despite this, the 1994 collection – including the unapproved disco remix without Battiato's vocals – still remains in print, some fifteen years later.
After Bissi's parting ways with EMI, the label and its Dutch mid-price subsidiary Disky Communications have continued to capitalise on the rights to her back catalogue, issuing a large number of hits compilations in various price ranges under titles like ''I grandi successi di Alice'', ''Collezione'', ''Le signore della canzone'', ''Made in Italy'', ''Studio Collection'', ''The Best of Alice'', ''Collezione Italiana'' etc., again mainly including early 1980s hits. The year of 2006 alone saw EMI releasing no less than four of these ''best of'' packages in Continental Europe, Scandinavia and Japan.
Bissi's following five-year tenure on the Warner Music label has also resulted in the release of unapproved compilations. 2006 saw the label issuing a ''greatest hits'' package entitled ''Le Più Belle Canzoni Di Alice'', paradoxically and confusingly exactly the same title as one of the four EMI compilations released the very same year, which includes seven tracks recorded for the CBS label in 1975 and 1977 coupled with some of her best-known 80s hits such as "Per Elisa", "Prospettiva Nevski" and "Nomadi", the latter are however not the original versions but re-recordings dating from the 2000 album ''Personal Jukebox'', which the compilation fails to mention in its liner notes.
Discography
Carla Bissi
*"Il mio cuore se ne va" / "Un giorno nuovo" (1972, single)
*"La festa mia" / "Fai tutto tu" (1972, single)
*"Il giorno dopo" / "Vivere un po' morire un po'" (1973, single)
Alice Visconti
*''
La mia poca grande età
''La mia poca grande età'' is the debut album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released under the stage name "Alice Visconti" in 1975 on CBS Records.
The album was re-released on CD in Japan in 2006 in Warner Music's ''European Rock Collect ...
'' (1975)
*''
Cosa resta... Un fiore'' (1978)
Alice
*''
Capo Nord'' (1980)
*''
Alice
Alice may refer to:
* Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname
Literature
* Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll
* ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...
'' (released under the title ''Per Elisa'' in certain countries; 1981)
*''
Azimut'' (1982)
*''
Falsi allarmi
''Falsi allarmi'' is the sixth studio album by the Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1983 by EMI Music.
The album includes the single releases "Il profumo del silenzio", "Carthago", "Solo un'dea" and "Notte a Roma".
After the chart ...
'' (1983)
*''
Gioielli rubati
''Gioielli rubati– Alice canta Battiato'' is the seventh studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1985 on EMI Music.
History
The album, whose title translates as ''Stolen Jewels – Alice sings Battiato'', followed t ...
'' (1985)
*''
Park Hotel'' (1986)
*''
Elisir'' (1987)
*''
Mélodie passagère'' (1988)
*''
Il sole nella pioggia
''Il sole nella pioggia'' is the eleventh studio album by Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1989 on EMI Music.
Synopsis
The album, whose title translates as ''The Sun in the Rain'', includes the single releases "Visioni" and "Il so ...
'' (1989)
*''
Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi'' (1992)
*''
Charade
Charade or charades may refer to:
Games
* Charades, originally "acting charades", a parlor game
Films/TV
* ''Charade'' (1953 film), an American film featuring James Mason
* ''Charade'' (1963 film), an American film starring Cary Grant and A ...
'' (1995)
*''
Exit
Exit(s) may refer to:
Architecture and engineering
* Door
* Portal (architecture), an opening in the walls of a structure
* Emergency exit
* Overwing exit, a type of emergency exit on an airplane
* Exit ramp, a feature of a road interchange
A ...
'' (1998)
*''
God Is My DJ'' (1999)
*''
Personal Jukebox
The Personal Jukebox (also known as ''PJB-100'' or ''Music Compressor'') was the first consumer hard drive-based digital audio player. Introduced in 1999, it preceded the Apple iPod, SanDisk Sansa, and other similar players. It was designed and ...
'' (2000)
*''
Viaggio in Italia
''Journey to Italy'', also known as ''Voyage to Italy'', is a 1954 drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini. Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders play Katherine and Alex Joyce, a childless English married couple on a trip to Italy whose marriage i ...
'' (2003)
*''
Lungo la Strada Live'' (2009)
*''
Samsara'' (2012)
Compilations
*''Mi chiamo Alice'' (1979)
*''
Alice
Alice may refer to:
* Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname
Literature
* Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll
* ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...
'' (1984)
* ''
Alice
Alice may refer to:
* Alice (name), most often a feminine given name, but also used as a surname
Literature
* Alice (''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''), a character in books by Lewis Carroll
* ''Alice'' series, children's and teen books by ...
'' (1986)
*''
Kusamakura'' (Japan, 1988)
*''Il vento caldo dell'estate'' (1994)
*''
Viaggiatrice solitaria'' (1995)
*''
Alice canta Battiato'' (1997)
*''I primi passi'' (1998)
*''I grandi successi di Alice'' (The Netherlands; 2000)
*''Collezione'' (2001,
copy protected
Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention and copy restriction, describes measures to enforce copyright by preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media.
Copy protection is most commonly found on ...
, track listing identical to ''I grandi successi di Alice'', alternative cover art)
*''Le signore della canzone'' (2003, copy protected)
*''Made in Italy'' (2004, copy protected)
*''Studio Collection'' (2005, 2 CDs, copy protected)
*''The Best of Alice'' (2005; copy protected, track listing identical to disc 1 of ''Studio Collection'')
*''Le più belle canzoni di Alice'' (2006, EMI, copy protected)
*''Le più belle canzoni di Alice'' (2006, Warner Music)
*''Collezione italiana'' (2006, 2 CDs, copy protected, track listing identical to ''Studio Collection'', alternative cover art)
*''D.O.C.'' (2006, copy protected)
*''The Best Of – Platinum'' (2007)
*''Solo Grandi Successi: Alice'' (2007)
*''Per Elisa: The Capitol Collection'' (2008)
*''Made in Italy'' (2009, re-issue, track listing identical to ''I grandi successi di Alice'' and ''Collezione'', alternative cover art)
*''Alice: The Best of Platinum'' (2009)
*''Per Elisa: The Capitol Collection'' (2009, re-issue, slidepack)
*''Capo Nord'' / ''Alice'' (2011, 2 CD's, digipack)
*''Alice canta Battiato'' / ''Park Hotel'' (2012, 2 CD's, digipack)
*''Made in Italy – New Version'' (2012, second re-issue, track listing identical to ''I grandi successi di Alice'', ''Collezione'' & ''Made in Italy'', alternative cover art)
*''Essential'' (2012)
*''The Platinum Collection'' (2012, 3 CD's)
Collaborations and guest appearances
*
Stefan Waggershausen
Stefan Waggershausen (born 20 February 1949) is a German singer, composer, and songwriter.
Waggershausen was born in Friedrichshafen, at Lake Constance. In 1974 he produced his first record as singer. In 1980, he had his first big success with th ...
: ''Tabu'' (1984, duet on track "Zu Nah Am Feuer", extended mix also released on 12" single, English version "Close to the Fire" released as 7" single and included on album ''
Falsi allarmi
''Falsi allarmi'' is the sixth studio album by the Italian singer-songwriter Alice, released in 1983 by EMI Music.
The album includes the single releases "Il profumo del silenzio", "Carthago", "Solo un'dea" and "Notte a Roma".
After the chart ...
'' in several countries)
*
Franco Battiato
Francesco "Franco" Battiato (; 23 March 1945 – 18 May 2021) was an Italian musician, singer, composer, filmmaker and, under the pseudonym Süphan Barzani, also a painter. Battiato's songs contain esoteric, philosophical and religious themes, a ...
& Alice: "
I treni di Tozeur
"I treni di Tozeur" ("The trains of Tozeur") is an Italian song, written by Franco Battiato, and Giusto Pio. It was the entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1984, performed in Italian (with some lyrics in German) by Alice and Battiato.
In a stu ...
"/"Le biciclette di Forli" (1984, duet single and
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...
entry )
*
Claudio Rocchi: ''Claudio Rocchi'' (1984, duet on track "L'umana nostalgia")
*''Quando... Tributo a
Luigi Tenco
Luigi Tenco (21 March 1938 – 27 January 1967) was an Italian singer-songwriter.
Biography
Tenco was born in Cassine (province of Alessandria) in 1938, the son of Teresa Zoccola and Giuseppe Tenco. He never knew his father, who died in uncle ...
'' (1994, tribute album, lead vocals on track "Se sapessi come fai")
*''Tributo ad
Augusto'' (1995, tribute album, lead vocals and keyboards on track "L'auto corre lontano, ma io corro da te")
*
Trey Gunn
Trey Gunn (born December 13, 1960) is an American musician, known for his membership in the progressive rock band King Crimson from 1994 to 2003, playing Warr Guitar and Chapman Stick.
Biography
A native Texan who now resides in Seattle, Washi ...
: ''The Third Star'' (1996, co-writer and lead vocals on title track "The Third Star")
*
Bluvertigo
Bluvertigo were an Italian alternative rock band from the Milan metropolitan area. Originally formed in 1992 with the name "Golden Age", the band switched to the name Bluvertigo shortly before recording their first album. The founding members are ...
: ''Metallo non-metallo'' (1997, duet on track "Troppe emozioni")
*Devogue: ''Devogue'' (1997, lead vocals on tracks "Midnight Bells", "In piedi su uno specchio", "Le Condizioni del tempo a.m.", "Palmenhaus" and "Il cielo sopra il cielo")
*
Franco Battiato
Francesco "Franco" Battiato (; 23 March 1945 – 18 May 2021) was an Italian musician, singer, composer, filmmaker and, under the pseudonym Süphan Barzani, also a painter. Battiato's songs contain esoteric, philosophical and religious themes, a ...
: ''Fleurs 3'' (2002, duet on track "Come un sigillo")
*''Voli improvedibili – Tributo a
Franco Battiato
Francesco "Franco" Battiato (; 23 March 1945 – 18 May 2021) was an Italian musician, singer, composer, filmmaker and, under the pseudonym Süphan Barzani, also a painter. Battiato's songs contain esoteric, philosophical and religious themes, a ...
'' (2004, tribute album, lead vocals on track "È stato molto bello")
*Zerouno: ''Zerouno'' (2004, lead vocals on track "Sospesa")
Sources and external links
Official HomepageMusica Italiana biographyRadio Italia biography*
Allmusic discography
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
br>
Lavocedelledonnet.itSiebenpunkt Verlags biographyAliceweb biographyAlicesito biographySan Remo Story biographyWeb.de biographyStefan Waggershausen, official site, biographyAlicefans.se
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alice
1954 births
Living people
Eurovision Song Contest entrants for Italy
Eurovision Song Contest entrants of 1984
Italian musicians
Italian women singer-songwriters
Italian singer-songwriters
Italian pop singers
Sanremo Music Festival winners
People from Forlì