Lucio Battisti

Lucio Battisti was born in Poggio Bustone, a small town in central Italy, on March 5, 1943. He learned to play guitar in his teens and in 1964 he moved to Rome, where he made his first appearances onstage as a member of I Campioni, the backing band of singer Tony Dallara. The following year he relocated to Milan in search of a proper record contract. A&R woman Christine Leroux saw that Battisti had talent and thus introduced him to Giulio "Mogol" Rapetti, already an established wordsmith. Italian pop's most successful writing partnership was born.

After writing a handful of songs for other performers, in 1966 Battisti debuted as a singer/songwriter with the single "Per una lira", which failed to chart. But a year later Equipe 84 had a big hit with Battisti/Mogol's innovative "29 settembre", the first in a long line of achievements (which would also include an UK Number 1 courtesy of Amen Corner's "Half As Nice").

By 1969, Battisti had become a superstar, first making a one-off appearance at the Sanremo Festival alongside Wilson Pickett, then winning the Festivalbar with "Acqua azzurra, acqua chiara", and finally issuing his classic self-titled debut album. 1970 was another crucial year for Battisti: he got married, recorded his second album Emozioni and, most notably, went on a week-long horse-riding marathon from Milan to Rome with Mogol.

In 1971, after making an experimental LP (Amore e non amore) with the as-yet-unknown Premiata Forneria Marconi, Battisti and Mogol set up their own label, Numero Uno, and started focusing more on albums than singles. Their partnership lasted until 1980, by which time Battisti had recorded eight finely-crafted albums, plus a collection of hits translated in English (Images) with which he vainly hoped to crack the US market, despite the involvement of Tom Waits' producer Bones Howe.

(On the bright side, no less an authority than David Bowie had written English lyrics for "Io vorrei... non vorrei... ma se vuoi", recorded by Mick Ronson as "Music Is Lethal" in 1974.)

After the bitter break-up with Mogol, Battisti decided that he would carry on making records, but would not talk to journalists or appear on TV any more, so he hid away in his mansion and started working on a series of impenetrable, electro-oriented LPs that puzzled critics and audience alike. For the first one, the lyrics were provided by Lucio's wife, while the final five albums were the product of his partnership with elliptical poet Pasquale Panella. Their most recent effort, Hegel, appeared in 1994.

Battisti died after long illness on September 9, 1998.