By David Mann M.D.
CSMR Correspondent
PARKER, CO -- USA -- Given that the average European country is comparable in size to the average US state, it is no surprise that European musical talent often overflows national boundaries and always seems to end up on the charts of the dominant German pop music market.
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| Mina Mazzini |
This is exactly what happened in the early 1960s - and well beyond, with the legendary Italian singer, Mina Mazzini, better known as just "Mina."
Internationally famous for her powerful voice, multitude of hits, and free-wheeling life-style, amazingly, now at age 77, Mina continues to churn out albums -- the latest, Le Migliori ("The Best"), was released only last October and rose to become the #1 album in the Italian charts!
Given that her first #1 hit was in 1959, and with the dozens of hits has she had over the decades, one can plausibly argue that she is the most influential Italian pop singer of all time.
American jazz legend, Louis Armstrong called her "the greatest white singer in the world."
Mina was quite the iconoclast in her early days. The racy lyrics of her songs got her banned from TV and radio in the 1960s. She was the original "bad girl", emoting sex appeal, smoking in public, shaving her eyebrows, and dying her hair blond.
Her loud voice and quivering body movements earned her the moniker "Queen of Screamers." In later years she mellowed a bit, broadened her repertoire and came to be appreciated as the national treasure she is today.
Mina Mazzini married a cardiologist in 2006 and now lives in Switzerland.
Like many other Italo-European singers (Gigliola Cinquetti and Albano and Romina Power for example), Mina recorded hits in many languages, including English, French, Spanish, Italian, and of course German.
Here is her song "Heißer Sand" ("Hot Sand") which hit #1 on the German pop charts in 1962 and stayed there for 9 weeks.
North American readers might recognize her powerful voice backing this Dolce and Gabbana (the fashion designers whose clients include First Lady Melania Trump) commercial which appeared in recent years. Here is her song "Città vuota" ("Empty City") released in 1963, it was so far ahead of its time that it was used in this recent, rather sexy 21st century commercial on American TV:
Here's Mina performing another of her early 60s hits, "il Cielo in una stanza" ("The Sky in a Room"):
To this day, Mina has a large and devoted fan following which has an active fan club page:
http://www.minafanclub.it
Here is Mina's facebook fan page:
https://www.facebook.com/minafanclub/
And here's the official Mina Mazzini website:
http://www.minamazzini.it/it/