Lu Colombo

Last updated

Lu Colombo
Birth nameMaria Luisa Colombo
Born (1952-07-03) 3 July 1952 (age 70)
Origin Milan, Italy
Genres Italo disco
Occupation(s)Singer
Years active1980–present
Labels Carosello Records, EMI Italiana, UP Art Records
Website http://www.lucolombo.it/

Lu Colombo, best known as Lou Colombo, pseudonym of Maria Luisa Colombo (Milan, 3 July 1952), is an Italian singer-songwriter, producer and publisher, widely known for the song Maracaibo.

Contents

Life and career

Lu Colombo was born into a family of art and music lovers. Encouraged by her mother and father, she began experimenting with music and painting as a young child, later pursuing classical studies and earning a degree in literature. In the sixties she started singing and playing guitar, recording as a backing vocalist with the band Stormy Six and as a member of the trio Plastic Doves. In the seventies she entered the theater scene, writing and editing soundtracks, as well as working in a music and film editing studio and composing and performing advertising jingles. In the same period, she worked at a music magazine as a graphic designer and as an assistant to the photographer Giovanni Molino.

In 1981 she released the single Maracaibo on the Carosello label. In 1982 the song was mixed by Tony Carrasco and rereleased on Moon Records, along with her other single Skipper. In 1983 she signed a contract with the Italian EMI label and released the single Dance All Nite, performing it at the 1983 edition of Festivalbar, a popular live-music performance television show, and winning the Disco Estate song competition. Dance All Nite and Maracaibo were both featured in the soundtrack for the film Vacanze di Natale (1983, dir. Carlo Vanzina). In 1984 she returned to Festivalbar, performing her new song Aurora. In 1985 she was invited to Festivalbar again, after winning the Saint Vincent Festival, with her song Rimini Ouagadougou. In the late-eighties she slowly left the dance-music scene, and in the nineties she moved abroad to dedicate herself to mural painting.

In 2001 Lu released the album Maracaibo 20th Anniversary for label Self Distribuzione, and in 2011 she released a reggae version of Maracaibo for a 30th Anniversary album. In 2004 she returned to writing and performing original music, joining Maurizio Geri on the swing album L'uovo di Colombo (Trimurti Records), as well as recording new versions of the  songs Rimini-Ouagadougou and Gina. Lu premiered her new album at the Mantova Music Festival, at Midem, at Womex and at MEI. In 2008 she produced and performed 19 giorni e 600 notti (cover of 19 días y 500 noches by Joaquín Sabina) in Pan Brumisti’s album Quelle piccola cose, presented at the Tenco Award.

In 2009 she collaborated with the Brescian musical group The The on their album Lupai, consisting of dance covers from the sixties and seventies. The album was distributed on newsstands and proceeds financed humanitarian initiatives in Guatemala and Ghana. In 2012 she released the album Molto più di un buon motivo (Artup Records), in which she interprets twelve songs by Joaquín Sabina, all translated into Italian by Sergio S. Sacchi of Club Tenco, including 19 giorni e 600 notti and an interpretation of De purisima y oro.

In 2014 Lu travelled to Barcelona, Spain to join the group Tinta Roja for a concert in the program of Cose di Amilcaree, later meeting Joaquín Sabina in Madrid. Between 2010 and 2020 she performed in numerous events, concerts and projects, including a tribute to Gabriella Ferri recorded with the winds section of the alternative circus act Circo Paniko. She then composed the song Bambu balla with the accordionist Jovica Jovic, winning fifth place at the 2014 edition of Zecchino d'Oro, an international children's song competition. Lu also contributed to book/cd compilations Mutifilter and Ventanni di sessantotto for publisher Squilibri Editore, performing these songs in Florence and at the Palazzina Liberty in Milan. In 2016 she released the EP Basta with four songs on the subject of violence against women, including a translation and interpretation of I will survive by Gloria Gayner. While writing and performing this album she participated in various social and humanitarian initiatives related to the struggle to end violence against women.

In early 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 lockdown in Milan, Italy, she composed, recorded, published the song Ali ali, dedicated to all health workers saving lives and the public services fighting the virus, performing it from her balcony. A second version of this song, entitled Ali ali phase 2, was later recorded with Luca Pozzuoli. For April 25, 2020, the day of Italy liberation and the end of World War II, she wrote the song Neve al sole in collaboration with Silvio Meazza, dedicating the piece to her father who was a prisoner of war. Later that year she performed as percussionist on the song Danza featuring Tony Esposito. Since late-2020 she Lu has been collaborating with dj’s Max Monti and Claudio Coveri on a dance remix of her 80s’s hit Rimini Ouagadougou. It will be released in summer 2021.

Discography

Singles
LP

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicola Di Bari</span> Italian singer-songwriter and actor

Nicola Di Bari is an Italian singer-songwriter and actor. He is considered one of the "sacred monsters" of Italian pop music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carmen Russo</span> Reality television personality, singer, actress, dancer

Carmela Carolina Fernanda "Carmen" Russo is an Italian showgirl, television personality, actress, dancer, model, dance teacher and occasional singer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mia Martini</span> Musical artist

Mia Martini was an Italian singer, songwriter and musician. She is considered, by many experts, one of the most important and expressive female voices of Italian music, characterised by her interpretative intensity and her soulful performance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elisa (Italian singer)</span> Italian singer-songwriter

Elisa Toffoli , performing under the mononym Elisa, is an Italian singer-songwriter. She is one of few Italian musicians to write and record mainly in English. She draws inspiration from many genres such as pop, alternative rock, electronica and trip hop. In Europe she is perhaps most recognised for the single "Come Speak to Me", while American audiences may recognise the song "Dancing" as featured in both the 2006 and 2007 seasons of So You Think You Can Dance. On 18 December 2012, her collaboration with Ennio Morricone, "Ancora qui", was featured on Quentin Tarantino's film, Django Unchained and its soundtrack album, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuele Bersani</span> Italian singer-songwriter

Samuele Bersani is an Italian singer-songwriter. He received the "Mia Martini" Critics Award at the Sanremo Music Festival in 2000 and in 2012, with the songs "Replay" and "Un pallone", respectively. His best known songs also include "Giudizi universali", released in 1997 and certified in 2017 as a platinum-selling single by the Federation of the Italian Music Industry, and "Spaccacuore", which was later covered by Italian singer Laura Pausini.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">All Nite (Don't Stop)</span> 2004 single by Janet Jackson

"All Nite (Don't Stop)" is a song recorded by American singer Janet Jackson for her eighth studio album, Damita Jo (2004). It was written and produced by Jackson and Swedish duo Bag & Arnthor (consisting of Anders Bagge and Arnthor Birgisson), with additional writing from Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Virgin Records released the song on May 17, 2004, as the album's third and final single. "All Nite (Don't Stop)" is an electro-funk and house song that contains elements of samba, Latin, dance-pop, and dancehall. Jackson sings the song in a breathy falsetto, with lyrical metaphors comparing various actions to dancing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Oxa</span> Italian singer

Anna Hoxha, known professionally as Anna Oxa, is an Italian singer, actress, and television presenter. Oxa has received mainstream popularity and recognition within Italy due to her numerous participations in the Sanremo Music Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alice (singer)</span> Italian singer

Carla Bissi, known professionally as Alice or Alice Visconti, 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 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, Park Hotel, Elisir, and Il sole nella pioggia which charted in Continental Europe, Scandinavia, and Japan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fiorella Mannoia</span> Italian singer and songwriter

Fiorella Mannoia is an Italian singer and songwriter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patty Pravo</span> Italian singer (born 1948)

Patty Pravo is an Italian singer. She debuted in 1966 and remained most successful commercially for the rest of the 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Having suffered a decline in popularity in the following decade, she experienced a career revival in the late 1990s and reinstated her position on Italian music charts. Her most popular songs include "La bambola" (1968), "Pazza idea" (1973), "Pensiero stupendo" (1978) and "...E dimmi che non vuoi morire" (1997). She scored fourteen top 10 albums and fourteen top 10 singles in her native Italy. Pravo participated at the Sanremo Music Festival ten times, most recently in 2019, and has won three critics' awards at the festival. She also performed twelve times at the Festivalbar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giuni Russo</span> Italian singer-songwriter

Giuni Russo was an Italian singer-songwriter who specialised in experimental music after a short successful stint as an art-pop singer in the early 1980s. With her five-octaves range, she could produce extremely high notes and experimental sounds. She sang in Italian, English, French, German, Chinese, Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian and Latin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paola Turci</span> Italian composer

Paola Turci, is an Italian singer, songwriter, performer and author.

"La mia risposta" is a song recorded by Italian singer Laura Pausini in 1998. Written by Pausini herself with Cheope and Claudio Guidetti, it was chosen as the third single from her fourth album with the same title. The song was also recorded in Spanish, under the title "Mi respuesta". This version of the song was included in her first compilation album, The Best of Laura Pausini: E ritorno da te, released in 2001, while the Italian-language version was included in the Spanish edition of the same compilation.

"Non me lo so spiegare" is a song written and recorded by Italian singer Tiziano Ferro. It was released as the third single from his second studio album, 111. The music video for the song was directed by Paolo Monico. The song was also translated in Spanish and recorded by Tiziano Ferro himself for the Hispanic version of the album, under the title "No me lo puedo explicar".

Gianfranco Mocchetti, also known as Gianni Mocchetti, was an Italian singer-songwriter, guitarist and bassist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diodato</span> Italian singer and songwriter

Antonio Diodato, known simply as Diodato, is an Italian singer-songwriter. He won the 70th edition of the Sanremo Music Festival with the song "Fai rumore" and was scheduled to represent Italy in the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, before the event's cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francesco Baccini</span> Italian singer-songwriter

Francesco Baccini is an Italian singer-songwriter.

Opera, also spelled as Gli Opera, was an Italian pop-rock band, active between 1975 and 1985.

Ladri di Biciclette is an Italian funky-R&B band, mainly successful between late 1980s and early 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frah Quintale</span> Musical artist

Francesco Servidei, better known as Frah Quintale, is an Italian rapper and singer-songwriter. After debuting with the hip hop duo Fratelli Quintale in 2006, he launched his solo career with independent label Undamento. His first solo album, Regardez moi, was released in 2018, and was certified platinum in Italy.

References