1. Mia Martini 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.
59 Facts About Mia Martini
1. 2.
Mia Martini is the only female artist to have won two Festivalbar consecutively, respectively in 1972 and in 1973.
3.
Mia Martini represented Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest twice, in 1977 with the song "Libera" and in 1992 with "Rapsodia".
4.
Mia Martini's mother, Maria Salvina Dato, born in Bagnara Calabra, was an elementary school teacher.
5.
Mia Martini began to perform at parties and dance halls, and entered some song contests for new voices.
6.
Mia Martini decided to launch Mimi Berte, thinking about the international music market and therefore creating her stage name "Mia Martini": Mia like Mia Farrow, and Martini, chosen among three of the most famous Italian words abroad.
7.
Mia Martini's look became more eclectic, characterised by numerous rings and a peculiar bowler hat.
8.
In 1971, the record company RCA Italiana released "Padre davvero", the first song released as Mia Martini and recorded with the band La Macchina.
9.
Mia Martini caught the attention of Lucio Battisti, who expressed his admiration for her unusual vocalism and asks her to be in his TV special Tutti insieme, in which she sang "Padre davvero" in its censored version.
10.
In 1971, Mia Martini was expected to perform at the TV show Canzonissima with the song "Cosa c'e di strano", but the song was released only in the summer of 1973 in a compilation by RCA Italiana.
11.
In 1972, the label company RCA tried to get Mia Martini to perform at Sanremo Music Festival with the song "Credo", but she was not selected.
12.
Mia Martini's album was released anyway, but in very few copies.
13.
When her producer Alberigo Crocetta left the label company RCA to join the record company Ricordi in Milan, Mia Martini followed him and recorded "Piccolo uomo".
14.
The single was proposed to the summer song contests Cantagiro and Festivalbar, where Mia Martini earned her first victory.
15.
Mia Martini appeared on several television broadcasts, and the single reached the top positions of the hit-parade and earned Martini her first Gold Record in sales.
16.
Mia Martini appeared on television shows in European countries including France and Spain, and she was called by critics "the queen of youth music in Italy".
17.
The record label Ricordi proposed to Mia Martini to perform at Sanremo Music Festival with the track "Vado via".
18.
In 1974, Mia Martini was considered by European critics the singer of the year.
19.
Mia Martini's records were released in various countries of the world: she recorded her successes in French, German and Spanish.
20.
Also that year, Mia Martini participated in the Festivalbar but as a guest: Vittorio Salvetti, patron of the popular event, asked her not to participate in the competition in order to avoid "burning the race", given her previous two consecutive victories.
21.
Mia Martini received the European Critics Award in Palma de Mallorca for the song "Nevicate", track in the LP Sensi e controsensi, which contains the track "Volesse il cielo" by Vinicius de Moraes, recorded live with an orchestra of sixty elements.
22.
Mia Martini was proclaimed best female singer of the year through the referendum "Vota la voce", announced by the popular weekly TV Sorrisi e Canzoni, while in autumn she was one of the protagonists of La compagnia stabile della canzone, variety show with Gino Paoli, Gigliola Cinquetti, Riccardo Cocciante and Gianni Nazzaro.
23.
Mia Martini's success caused her record label Ricordi to put pressure on her, forcing her to record songs of their choice.
24.
Mia Martini saw this demand as a limitation to her artistic freedom, but being bound by a contract, the singer could not back down.
25.
Later, the record company RCA, the Roman label that had launched her career five years earlier, proposed a contract to Mia Martini that gave more freedom to choose her repertoire.
26.
In 1977, Mia Martini was chosen to represent Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest with "Libera", a track recorded in different languages, finishing 13th out of 18.
27.
Mia Martini stated in later interviews that she didn't like the new version of the track and wanted to sing the original version of the song.
28.
The album Per amarti included the track "Ritratto di donna", with which Mia Martini participated at the World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo in 1977, placing second and winning the Most Outstanding Performance Award.
29.
However, after the month of reruns, Mia Martini renounced the renewal of the contract to bring the recital to England, at the Royal Albert Hall in London, to stay with her new lover Fossati.
30.
Meanwhile, Mia Martini clashed with RCA, following strong quarrels due to the significant changes made to the text and arrangement of "Libera".
31.
Mia Martini recalled this period of her life in an interview:.
32.
Mia Martini said he wanted me as a woman, but it wasn't true because in fact he didn't even want a child with me, and the proof of love was to completely abandon even the very idea of singing and completely destroy Mia Martini.
33.
In 1981, after a year of silence following two difficult surgeries at her vocal cords, Mia Martini decided to present herself as a songwriter and took on a more discreet and androgynous look, far from the eccentric one of the seventies.
34.
In 1982, Mia Martini competed for the first time at Sanremo Music Festival, where she sang a song written by Ivano Fossati, entitled "E non finisce mica il cielo".
35.
Mia Martini said, years later, of this period of her life:.
36.
Mia Martini said in an interview with the weekly magazine Epoca:.
37.
Mia Martini explained how the infamous story, which profoundly marked her artistic career and her personal life, began:.
38.
Mia Martini was a totally unreliable type and I refused it.
39.
Mia Martini organised a farewell concert at the theatre Ciak in Milan, in which she records the album Miei compagni di viaggio: She recalled the most important stages of her musical growth through the reinterpretations of authors dear to her, including John Lennon, Kate Bush, Randy Newman, Vinicius de Moraes, Fabrizio De Andre, Francesco De Gregori and Luigi Tenco.
40.
The B-side of the single was a track Mia Martini wrote called "Lucy", which in the refrain uses an ancient rhyme from Bagnara Calabra : a prayer not to hate one another and not to move away.
41.
Marginalised by the music sector and visibly tested by the end of her relationship with Fossati, Mia Martini retreated to the Umbrian countryside, renting a flat in the small village of Calvi dell'Umbria.
42.
Mia Martini's performance brought her newfound success with the public and critics, winning the Critics Award for a second time.
43.
In 1990, Mia Martini competed again at Sanremo Music Festival with the track "La nevicata del '56", winning the Critics Award for the third time.
44.
In 1991, Mia Martini published "Mi basta solo che sia un amore", a compilation album of her best-known love songs, plus the unreleased track "Scrupoli", which became the theme song of the homonymous television program.
45.
Mia Martini presented a song titled "Rapsodia", which was included in the homonymous compilation Rapsodia - Il meglio di Mia Martini, with her best-known songs in a remastered version, together with two live tracks recorded during the tour Per aspera ad Astra.
46.
In May 1992, Mia Martini competed at Eurovision with "Rapsodia", placing 4th.
47.
Mia Martini agreed to duet with her with the song "Stiamo come stiamo", at Sanremo Music Festival in 1993.
48.
The track was rejected, and Mia Martini was not convinced with the song.
49.
The news aroused an uproar, and singer Claudia Mori offered Mia Martini to replace her in the competition.
50.
Mia Martini declined the offer, which was not allowed under the regulations of Sanremo Festival.
51.
In 1994, Mia Martini moved to a new record company, RTI Music, with which she completed recording her new album started with the previous label, where the singer had some disagreements.
52.
In March 1995, two months before her death, Mia Martini announced to her fan club Chez Mimi plans for a new album entirely dedicated to the moon and in 1996, it was planned a duet with the singer Mina.
53.
Mina, a few months after Mia Martini's death, was the first singer to dedicate a recording tribute to her in her album Pappa di latte, which included a personal cover of the song Almeno tu nell'universo.
54.
Mia Martini suffered for some years from painful fibroids, for which she did not want to undergo surgery, fearing a possible change to her vocal timbre.
55.
On 14 May 1995, after a few days of being unreachable, Mia Martini's manager requested police intervention, and firefighters broke into her apartment.
56.
Mia Martini's coffin was covered with a flag of Napoli, the football team she supported.
57.
The film narrates Mia Martini's life, including her artistic career, her tumultuous relationships with her family, her sister Loredana and the discrimination she endured by the music system and her colleagues.
58.
The film begins in 1989 in Sanremo, with flashbacks that narrate some events in Mia Martini's life, told during an interview granted to a journalist by Mia Martini herself, a few hours before her participation at Sanremo Music Festival in 1989.
59.
The movie details her early start in the music industry, her success in the 1970s and her withdrawal from the music sector: a dramatic period of slander launched in the late 1970s by a producer with whom the singer refused to work with and who accuses Mia Martini of bringing bad luck.