Artist: Gino Vanelli
Title Of Album: 10 Albums
Year Of Release: 1973 - 1990
Label: A&M
Genre: Vocal Jazz
Quality: MP3
Bitrate: 192 - 256 Kbps
Website:
www.ginov.comReview:
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The
1970s was a decade dominated by glam, punk, heavy metal, new wave,
disco and funk. It was a decade where notions of pop and rock
authenticity and hipness were constantly being contested and redefined.
In the midst of such a heady maelstrom, a handful of artists such as
Gino Vannelli and Steely Dan opted to buck all the trends, writing and
producing sophisticated jazz-inflected pop. In Vannelli's case, such
decade defining hits as "People Gotta Move" and "I Just Wanna Stop"
came wrapped in elaborate arrangements dominated by multiple
synthesizers while being totally bereft of guitars. While Vannelli
wasn't a favorite with the Rolling Stone wing of rock critics, he
managed to rack up ten Billboard pop chart hits, seven of which also
charted Adult Contemporary, three of which crossed over to the R&B
charts. Gino Vannelli remains one of the most distinctive voices in
contemporary pop music.
Gino BioBorn in Montreal in the summer
of 1952, Vannelli grew up in a family headed by a jazz singing father
and a keen eared mother. Enamored with a bevy of jazz drummers such as
Joe Morello, Gene Krupa, Ed Thigpen and Elvin Jones, as a child
Vannelli studied drums and music theory for five years. By the age of
12 he had formed a rock band dubbed the Cobras and a year later, with
his brother Joe holding down the keyboard chair, Vannelli headed up the
Motown-influenced Jacksonville 5 (note this is five years before the
Jackson 5 recorded their first record). Along the way he picked up
guitar and piano and began to sing.
By age fourteen he had
fallen in love with classical music, attending concerts by the Montreal
Symphony every last Thursday of the month.
"I had a double
standard," reflects Vannelli. "I used to defend Charlie Watts and Ringo
Starr, thinking they were part of something new and exciting. Yet, when
I'd listen to Dave Brubeck Live at Newport, my standards would be
totally different. I also fell in love with the French Impressionists.
I remember hearing the Montreal Symphony playing "Daphne and Chloe" and
walking away saying, 'What was that? I felt altered. What it really was
all about was finding the magic in the down and dirty and the
celestial."
Before his seventeenth birthday, Vannelli had signed
with RCA Records in Canada, releasing a single under the pseudonym Van
Elli, "Gina Bold" b/w "Never Cry Again." Bitten by the music industry
bug, Gino and his brother Joe headed for New York and then later Los
Angeles, pounding the pavement looking for an American record deal.
While lots of record execs were suitably impressed by Vannelli's
songwriting abilities and his near three octave vocal range, no one was
willing to take a chance on an artist who so clearly was working with
music outside of the mainstream tastes of the day.
Discouraged
to the point of giving up, the Vannelli brothers were ready to head
back to Montreal to find work outside of music. In an oft repeated
story, Gino decided make one last desperate effort to get signed. Early
one morning he headed out to the offices of A&M Records where he
waited outside the gates for any sign of company co-owner Herb Alpert.
When Alpert appeared in the parking lot many hours later, Vannelli ran
through the gates past a startled security guard and begged a slightly
apprehensive Alpert for a chance to audition. Acting on a hunch, Alpert
acceded to his request and Vannelli proceeded to play on acoustic
guitar some of the songs he had recently written including "People
Gotta Move," "Crazy Life," "Mama Coco," "Powerful People" and "Lady."
All five songs would end up on the six albums Vannelli would record for
A&M between 1974 and 1978.
Five of those six albums made the
Billboard album charts, culminating with Brother to Brother (produced
by brothers Gino, Joe, and Ross Vannelli) , which achieved a coveted
Top 20 position in the fall of 1978. A classy, elegant and impassioned
artist, on Vannelli's A&M albums he recorded contemporary songs
inspired by R&B and Jazz and developed a significant cross over
audience. With his records climbing the charts, Vannelli toured as the
opening act for Stevie Wonder, was the first white artist to appear on
Soul Train, was nominated for a handful of Grammy Awards and soon
headlined his own concerts at major venues in key US cities. In his
native Canada, his talents were recognized with a plethora of Juno
Awards.
With Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss getting ready to sell
A&M, and a new CEO at the company informing him that he should
follow Rod Stewart's lead and record a disco album, in 1980 Vannelli
elected to sign with Arista Records. His sole Arista album,
Nightwalker, provided him with a #6 pop hit in "Living Inside Myself."
When Vannelli opted to follow it up with a stripped down edgier album
called Twisted Heart, the powers at be at Arista refused to release it.
For the next three years, in a move reminiscent of similar episodes in
the careers of George Michael and Prince, Vannelli and his record
company engaged in all-out war.
After a four year hiatus,
Vannelli was finally released from his Arista contract and in 1985 he
released the successful Black Cars album and single on HME. Two years
later, he recorded Big Dreamers Never Sleep for CBS, whose single,
"Wild Horses," stormed its way to the Top 10 in several countries.
Black
Cars and Big Dreamers Never Sleep proved to be big sellers in
continental Europe and Vannelli spent much of the latter part of the
decade touring overseas. To this day, he continues to have a large
European following, usually mounting at least one major tour of the
continent every year.
By 1990, Vannelli had grown weary of the
music industry and Los Angeles and decided to move his family to the
quieter environs of Portland, Oregon. He built his own studio, started
his own label, on which he released the live Inconsolable Man in 1990,
and spent a number of years studying a profusion of world religions and
philosophers.
"I decided to pull myself out of the mainstream," he explains, "and take the side streets."
Signing
with Verve, Vannelli's commercial output took a radical left turn with
the largely acoustic jazz albums Yonder Tree and Slow Love, released in
1995 and 1997 respectively. By the end of the decade his muse was
taking him still further afield, toward one of his earliest loves,
classical music. To prepare himself, he took voice lessons for a couple
of years and began working on the material that would appear on Canto,
released by BMG Canada in 2003. Featuring songs sung in English,
Italian, Spanish and French, Canto was warmly received in Europe while
also being purchased by a core of his faithful North American fans.
Satisfied
with his forays into jazz and classical, Vannelli felt that it was time
to return to pop and in 2005 signed a new deal with Universal Music.
These Are The Days, a compilation that combined seven of his earlier
classic hits with seven new songs, marked the debut of yet another
phase of Vannelli's continually fascinating career and a return to the
pop genre that made him an icon.
Gino's international
recognition continues to grow as he continues to explore new boundaries
of popular music. Whether he is performing with his jazz combo at
venues across Europe or playing with his full band to throngs of
enthusiastic fans in such diverse locales as Las Vegas, New Orleans,
Indonesia, and South Africa, Gino Vannelli's reputation as a high
quality performer and brilliant music creator along with his engaging
personality keep his career soaring to greater and greater heights.
Gino Vanelli - Crazy Life (Orig. Release 1973)
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Track-------
1. People Gotta Move
2. Lady
3. Son Of A New York Gun
4. Jack Miraculous
5. Jo Jo
6. Powerful People
7. Felicia
8. Work Verse
9. Poor Happy Jimmy (Tribute To Jim Croce)
Gino Vanelli - Powerful People (orig release 1974)
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Track-------
1. People Gotta Move
2. Lady
3. Son of a New York Gun
4. Jack Miraculous
5. Jo Jo
6. Powerful People
7. Felicia
8. Work Verse
9. Poor Happy Jimmy [Tribute to Jim Croce]
Gino Vanelli - Storm at Sunup (orig. release 1975)
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Track-------
1. Storm At Sunup
2. Love Me Now
3. Mama Coco
4. Father And Son
5. Where Am I Going
6. Keep On Walking
7. Love Is A Night
8. Gettin' High
Gino Vanelli - The Gist of The Gemini (1976)
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Track-------
1. Love Of My Life
2. Ugly Man
3. A New Fix For '76
4. Omens Of Love
5. Fly Into This Night War Suite
6. Prelude To The War
7. The Battle Of Cry
8. To The War
9. Carnal Question
10. After The Last Battle (Inst.)
11. To The War (Reflection)
12. Summers Of My Life
Gino Vanelli - A Pauper in Paradise (1977)
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Track-------
1. Mardi Gras
2. Valleys Of Valhalla
3. The Surest Things Can Change
4. One Night With You
5. A Song And Dance
6. Black And Blue
7. A Pauper In Paradise: 1st Movement
8. A Pauper In Paradise: 2nd Movement
9. A Pauper In Paradise: 3rd Movement
10. A Pauper In Paradise: 4th Movement
Gino Vanelli - Brother to brother (orig. release 1978)
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Track-------
1. Appaloosa
2. The River Must Flow
3. I Just Wanna Stop
4. Love & Emotion
5. Feel Like Flying
6. Brother To Brother
7. Wheels Of Life
8. The Evil Eye
9. People I Belong To
Gino Vanelli - The best of Gino (orig. Release 1981)
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Track-------
01. People Gotta Move
02. Mama Coco
03. I Just Wanna Stop
04. Powerful People
05. Crazy Life
06. Love of My Live
07. Fly Into This Night
08. Wheels Of Life
09. One Night With You
10. Appaloosa
11. Love Me Now
Gino Vanelli - Black Cars (Orig. release 1985)
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Track-------
1. Black Cars
2. The Other Man
3. It's Over
4. Here She Comes
5. Hurts To Be In Love
6. Total Stranger
7. Just A Motion Away
8. Imagination
9. How Much
10. Black Cars (Extended version)
Gino Vannelli - Big Dreamers Never Sleep (Orig. release 1987)
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Track-------
1. In the Name of Money
2. Time Out
3. Wild Horses
4. Young Lover
5. Down with Me
6. Persona Non Grata
7. Something Tells Me
8. Shape Me Like a Man
9. King for a Day
Gino Vanelli - Inconsolable Man (1990)
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1. Rhythm of Romance
2. If I Should Lose This Love
3. Shame
4. Sunset on L.A.
5. Moment to Moment
6. Cry of Love
7. Time of Day
8. Bound to Cry
9. Joker's Wild
10. Inconsolable Man