12 Facts About Lucio Dalla

Lucio Dalla was the composer of "Caruso", a song dedicated to Italian opera tenor Enrico Caruso, and "L'anno che verra".

Lucio Dalla began to play the clarinet at an early age, in a jazz band in Bologna, and became a member of a local jazz band called Rheno Dixieland Band, together with future film director Pupi Avati.

The Rheno Dixieland Band won the first prize in the traditional jazz band category and was noticed by a Roman band called Second Roman New Orleans Jazz Band, with whom Lucio Dalla recorded his first record in 1961 and had the first contacts with RCA records, his future music publisher.

Lucio Dalla's first single, a rendition in Italian of the American traditional standard "Careless Love" was a failure, as it was his first album, 1999, that was released the following year.

Lucio Dalla's recording debut as a soloist took place in 1964, with the release of the 45 rpm-single "Lei ".

The first album of this new phase was Com'e profondo il mare, in which Lucio Dalla was accompanied by members of future pop band Stadio.

In 1979, his popularity was confirmed by the success of the Banana Republic album and the first of two self-titled albums, Lucio Dalla, followed by Dalla in 1980.

In 2010, Lucio Dalla came back to work with Francesco De Gregori during the "Work in Progress" tour and album.

Lucio Dalla's discography includes twenty-two studio albums for the Italian market, a Qdisc, nine live albums, various collections and several albums for the foreign market.

Lucio Dalla featured as an actor in seventeen films and was musical director for seventeen others.

Lucio Dalla was outed as gay after his funeral, at which his longterm associate and partner Marco Alemanno, with whom he had shared a house, spoke; he had not publicly acknowledged this during his life, saying in a 1979 interview "Non mi sento omosessuale".

Lucio Dalla was in the company of Marco Alemanno when he died.