ΜΙΝΑ,ΤΗΕ QUEEN OF THE ITALIAN SONG

Mina, stage name of Anna Maria Mazzini (Busto Arsizio, Varese, 1940) debuts as singer for game, during a summer, at the Bussola in Forte dei Marmi, after the show of an idol of the night clubs of the '50s Don Marino Barreto Jr.. Then she is exposed more 'seriously' in the 'shouter rock' style, a very fashionable music genre, so she was quickly famous. But from the rock and roll of the end of '50s, she passed in first years of '60s to a very polished style (with songs like Il Cielo In Una Stanza by Gino Paoli), she did not abandon more, putting in evidence greatest qualities of vocalist and performer, while her fame kept to grow up to peak the highest hit.
From the half of Sixties until the first years of Seventies she is the amazing protagonist of most famous television varieties, that carry her to dominate it the Italian hit parade for 15 years with songs signed by the best authors (from Lucio Battisti to Riccardo Cocciante). Her last concerts go back to 1978 at the Bussola, the theatre where she had toed make one's debut 20 years before (13 sold out concerts, interrupted for disease when already a month of retorts was outlined), but already from four years she had interrupted its television apparitions. The rest is the report of a 'voluntary exile' which goes on since two decades.In fact Mina retired from the scenes in order to move herself definitively to Lugano, (she assumed the Swiss citizenship in 1989).
However she did not disappear from the hearts of the Italians neither from the world of music, of which she is one of the best seller singer, through tens of old and recent hits. She records a new CD every year. They keep high her fame of Queen of the Italian song, while we assist to the continuous reissue of her old albums and of her greatest hits (with the reissue of true a 'rarities': Mina sings in English, in Spanish, live concert, TV recordings,…).
Today her voice is still splendid, perhaps still more ductile and expressive than in the past. Some recent items: 'Ti Conosco Mascherina' (1990), 'Mina Canta I Beatles' (1993) e 'Canarino Mannaro' (1994), 'Mina Cementano', (1998) e 'Olio' (1999). At the end of the 1999 Mina recorded covers of greatest hits by Renato Zero realizing the album 'N°0' which includes also duets with the Roman singer whose title is 'Neri'. In the October of 2000 another album was issued 'Dalla Terra', a collection of songs from the Christian traditional music.