Artist:Umberto Tozzi
Song:Gloria
Album:Grandes Exitos
Most listeners should be familiar with Laura Branigan's 1982 top five hit Gloria. But you probably don't know that Gloria was written and first recorded by Italian singer songwriter Umberto Tozzi. It was a hit in Europe and Tozzi is a music legend in Italy. He was born on Mar. 4, 1952 in Turin, Italy. His father was a police officer. As a teen, he was in the band Off Sound and then he toured with Adriano Pappalardo in the early 70s. When Tozzi started to have success as a songwriter, he decided he wanted to record his own music. So he signed with CGD who at the time had a distribution deal with CBS. Later on CGD was sold to WEA. Tozzi released his 1976 debut album Donna Amonte Mia and the 1977 single Ti Amo topped the Italian charts for months. It was a hit across Europe. Then he released the 1979 album Gloria. The single Gloria was a big hit across Europe. It was first recorded in English by British singer songwriter Jonathan King (Everyone's Gone to the Moon) but it was not a hit. Then Laura Branigan scored a monster hit with her recording of Gloria. And of course that made Tozzi a lot of money. The story goes that Atlantic Records head Doug Morris suggested to Laura that she record an English version of Gloria. He really liked Tozzi's recording. He brought in Trevor Veitch to write the English lyrics. Morris wanted Laura's recording of Gloria to sound as much like Tozzi's as possible. So he brought in Los Angeles session keyboardist Greg Mathieson who had arranged Tozzi's original recording in Munich. That's why other than the vocals, the two recordings sound so much alike. Tozzi has continued to have success in Europe. You can get all his hits on this comp. Gloria is his claim to fame. Maybe you heard his recording of Gloria in the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street. Here's the video of Gloria by Umberto Tozzi.
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