Martinelli

Martinelli is an Italian duo from Italy, Aldo Martinelli and Simona Zanini and was very famous during the '80s for their italo-disco productions. They are the real people behind the italo-disco groups of Moonray, Topo and Roby and Doctor's Cat. Aldo Martinelli was born in Milan, he received a diploma in piano at the Conservatorio of Alessandria. He played keyboards live in big bands and worked as a music teacher in school. A composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist, who performs as a keyboardist and a guitarist, he soon sought to arrange and produce his own music. At the beginning of the eighties he acheived a series of important successes in the record world, starting from "Take a chance" (Bizzy & co.), theme for the popular prime time TV show "Premiatissima (82/83). Simona Zanini is an Italo-American singer, was born in the United States and moved to Italy with her family as a child in the 70s. In her late teens, after being chosen during a national casting directed by the La Bionda Brothers, she was signed by CBS Records and worked with the most important Italian musicians of that time. In 1983, looking for an English mother tongue artist to sing and write lyrics for his songs Aldo met Simona and they worked together on the Doctor's Cat "Feel the Drive": her vocal talent, together with the fact her mother tongue was English, made her singing credible for export. His attention towards melody and his care for vocal and instrumental harmonies immediately satisfied the craving of dance music fans in Europe and signed a milestone in what would be called the Italo Disco music. Sure enough that first song led way to a successful series of dance music productions in which Simona was the lyricist and lead vocal, and Aldo was the player of all instruments and arrangements, often male vocalist and the co-producer. Shortly they climbed the charts in Europe. To be able to support multiple releases of the prolific team in a relatively short period of time, the recordings were released under different stage names - but always with the same female lead voice and the same instrumental performer. For this reason several models were hired for television appearances and playback in disco or music shows. Among the stage names: Doctor's Cat, the duo Martinelli, Topo & Roby and Moon Ray, with the worldwide hit "Comanchero". Within five years, since 1983, they show at the top of the charts in France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland with many of these different names at the same time, earning gold records in all these countries. The success of their hits induced other producers to seek cooperation from them: the first Radiorama hit, "Chance to Desire" was written by the duo and sung by Simona. Simona continues to write and sing for Radiorama for a few more songs and also writes for other artists, the most successful being "The Legend" album of Valerie Dore, (lyrics, vocals and production), released by EMI. In 1987 she continues to work behind the scenes, she puts up a small production & music publishing company and a recording studio, coproducing young Italian pop music for the Sanremo Festival and goes back to singing live, in local clubs also performing in other genres, rock and west coast. In the years 2000 she experiences the marketing and trading side of the music business, managing a music import company. During the next years Aldo followed the promotion of his Italo Disco hits in many TV shows such as "Discoring" , "Superclassifica Show", "Festivalbar" (the national hit parade TV reviews), Raffaella Carrà and many TV shows in France and Germany. Throughout his music career, Aldo never abandons teaching music and as a matter of fact he is working on an innovative text book for Music Education in school. The experience gathered by both of them in various fields of music production during the years and the affection of DJs and fans of the 80's Italo-disco music, who know the name of those who were behind the various stage names, have led them to return to the genre and work together on new music, this time performing in person on stage. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.