Classic 1963-1967 recordings by Italy’s greatest-ever female pop star.
Mina is Italy’s most successful female recording artist of all time, with chart-topping albums in the 1960s and every decade since. A vocalist of great versatility, power, sophistication and drama – think Dusty Springfield, Shirley Bassey and Barbra Streisand all rolled into one quintessentially Italian singing sensation – her first recordings were issued in 1958. Since then, she has released over 100 singles and 70-plus albums: a total of more than 1,500 songs, with worldwide sales in excess of 150 million.
Her recordings for the Ri-Fi label – featuring spectacular singing, superb songs and stunning orchestrations – are among the finest to come out of Italy in the mid-60s. Following her initial hits, she enjoyed tremendous success all around the world, but never in the UK, where few of her recordings were made available and she remains unknown to all but a small number of devotees. This cherry-picked collection of gems from her matchless Ri-Fi catalogue is designed to remedy that situation.
Highlights include ‘Se Telefonando…’, a sophisticated opus composed and orchestrated by the great maestro Ennio Morricone; ‘È L’Uomo Per Me’, Mina’s chart-topping cover of Jodie Miller’s ‘He Walks Like A Man’; the intense and dramatic ‘L’Immensità’ with its breath-defying long notes; the super-fast and jazzy ‘Brava’, a song custom-written to show off her great vocal technique; and her gorgeous rendition of Jobim’s ‘Insensatez’.
MICK PATRICK
