Mamma mia!
Our Patron Saint of Extreme Eye-Shadow, Signorina Mina Mazzini is 85 years old today!
From the first time I featured her over at my Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle blog back in 2010:
A pioneer in many ways, Signorina Mazzini escaped the poverty and conventional society of her native Cremona in the late 50s to become a rock'n'roll singer, touring Italy and the Mediterranean. In a scandalous media frenzy for its day, Mina's attempt to hit the big time on TV was almost scuppered by conservative Catholic outrage at her unmarried pregnancy, and for a while she was banished from the screens. But you can't keep a good diva down for long, and by the mid-1960s the "Queen of Screamers", as she was known, became a chart-topping phenomenon.Mina's songs were hugely significant in European pop - she pioneered several of Bacharach & David's numbers (translated into Italian, natch), becoming an equivalent of Dionne Warwick (or maybe Cilla Black) in her homeland as a consequence. Even Dusty Springfield acknowledged her as one of her influences!
Her Grande Grande Grande became Shirley Bassey's anthemic Never Never Never, Piano became Softly As I Leave You and was a hit for both Matt Monro and Frank Sinatra, and Dalida (no less!) scored a massive hit when she recorded a French version of Mina's Paroles, Paroles with Alain Delon...
Having retired from hosting and appearing on numerous Italian TV shows, Mina is currently living out her retirement in Switzerland. She remains adored in Italy, and her music is widely used in film soundtracks to this day.
Not one to be kept silent, however - though she was ostensibly "retired" back then, she actually never stopped recording and releasing albums (almost every year), the most recent of which she released last November!
How can anyone possibly even try to do justice to a career that has spanned eight decades? Let's just stick to a few selected highlights...
Tanti felici ritorni, Mina Anna Mazzini (born 25th March 1940)!
A couple of years ago, around Christmas, I kept hearing, from a TV in another room in the house, was a commercial for La Marca Prosecco. What the heck was that song? Used the phone to ID it and it was Nessuno by Mina. I was hooked. The video for the song is a hoot. And thanks to your post for a few songs of hers I hadn't yet discovered.
ReplyDeleteBut the real winner is Mina singing Renato. Big hair, stirrup pants, a bosom dance off with the winner stealing a boyfriend. I hope she enjoys many more years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBbB-A_gAWQ&list=RDMMJBbB-A_gAWQ&start_radio=1
With a back-catalogue going back to the 1950s, there's hours and hours worth of wonderful Mina to wade through! The two you have flagged up are simply faboo, and will (of that I have no doubt) one day feature on my "regular blog" Give 'em the old Razzle Dazzle.
DeleteSo pleased to meet a fellow Mina fan! Jx