Domenica Rita Adriana "Mimì" Bertè (; 20 September 1947 – 12 May 1995), known professionally as Mia Martini (), was an Italian singer, songwriter and musician.James Christopher Monger. Mia Martini. allmusic.comMia Martini. raiuno.rai.it. April 2000 She is considered, by many experts,Dario Salvatori, Dizionario delle canzoni italiane, Elle U Multimedia, 2001, pg. 31Dizionario delle canzoni italiane, pg. 226 one of the most important and expressive female voices of Italian music, characterised by her interpretative intensity and her soulful performance.
Her debut album, Oltre la collina with the song "Padre davvero" is regarded as one of the best Italian albums made by a female artist."I miti musica" n. 18, "Mia Martini", Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1999 Hit songs like "Piccolo uomo", "Donna sola", "Minuetto", "Inno", "Al mondo", "Che vuoi che sia se t'ho aspettato tanto", "Per amarti" and "La costruzione di un amore" made her one of the most popular artists of Italian music in the 1970s, both nationally and internationally. She is the only female artist to have won two Festivalbar consecutively, respectively in 1972 and in 1973.Mia Martini: storia di una voce - Puntata de "La storia siamo noi" - Rai EducationalMaurizio Seymandi, 1975 settembre, Vota la voce, i lettori hanno scelto i più popolari dell'anno, TV Sorrisi e Canzoni, 38, 15, https://web.archive.org/web/20081221084327/http://www.sorrisi.com/sorrisi/upload/miamartini/miamartini1975_38.pdfCucco Paolo, 1977, Mia Martini. Libera felice e sconfitta, TV Sorrisi e Canzoni, 22, 71-72, https://web.archive.org/web/20081221084343/http://www.sorrisi.com/sorrisi/upload/miamartini/miamartini1977_22.pdf In 1977, two important encounters occurred in Martini's life: the first with Charles Aznavour, with whom she began a musical collaboration, and the second with singer-songwriter Ivano Fossati, with whom she started an artistic and sentimental partnership.
In 1982, she sang "E non finisce mica il cielo", written by Fossati, at the Sanremo Music Festival, where she received the Critics Award, which was created specifically for her interpretation and which was named after her as "Mia Martini" Critics Awards from 1996, the year after her death. In 1983, she was forced to leave the music industry and quit her career, as the music sector and colleagues considered her a person bringing bad luck and barred her from participating in any music and TV events, radio shows and concerts. This kept her away from the music scene for seven years. Only in 1989 was she able to reprise her career, when she returned to perform at the Sanremo Music Festival, singing "Almeno tu nell'universo", which brought her a new success.
Martini's later hits included "Gli uomini non cambiano", "La nevicata del '56" and "Cu' mme", the latter with Roberto Murolo. She represented Italy at the Eurovision Song Contest twice, in 1977 with the song "Libera" and in 1992 with "Rapsodia". She died from a drug overdose on 12 May 1995.
Biography Early life Domenica Rita Adriana Bertè was born in Bagnara Calabra, Reggio Calabria, in southern Italy, on 20 September 1947, the second of four daughters: the oldest, Leda (born 1946), Loredana (born 1950) and the youngest Olivia (born 1958).Evan C. Gutierrez. Loredana Bertè. allmusic.com Her father, Giuseppe Radames Bertè (1921–2017), was a teacher of Latin and Greek; born in Villa San Giovanni, he moved to Marche with his family, first working as a professor and later becoming high school headmaster in Ancona. Her mother, Maria Salvina Dato (1925–2003), born in Bagnara Calabra, was an elementary school teacher.
Bertè, nicknamed "Mimì", spent her childhood in Porto Recanati, Marche, where she showed an early interest in music. She began to perform at parties and dance halls and entered some song contests for new voices. In 1962, she convinced her mother to take her to Milan for an audition, with the hope of getting a record deal.
The beginnings as Mimì Bertè
The only one willing to put her to the test was the author and music producer Carlo Alberto Rossi, who decided to launch her as a yé-yé girl, following the musical fashion of the moment. With the song "Ombrello blu", she participated in the Pesaro Festival. In 1963, the 16-year-old Mimì Bertè recorded her first song.
In May 1964, she won the Bellaria Festival, with the song "Come puoi farlo tu",Articolo di Menico Caroli apparso su Musikbox nº 16 but it was with the song "Il magone" that she reached some media exposure and also with the song "Ed ora che abbiamo litigato", performed in 1965 at the variety show Teatro 10.
The numerous auditions made by Mimì Bertè in that period, in anticipation of an album, however, remained unreleased for almost thirty years: Carlo Alberto Rossi, hoping for her musical growth, pushed her to sign with a bigger record label, Durium, which in 1966 published her record Non sarà tardi / Quattro settimane, without, however, any success.
After her parents split, she moved to Rome with her mother and sisters, where she tried to emerge again by forming a trio together with her sister Loredana and her friend Renato Fiacchini (known as Renato Zero), also earning a living with a modest job at the union of singers and songwriters.
In 1969, she served four months in prison in Tempio Pausania for having been discovered in possession of a marijuana cigarette during an evening in a well-known nightclub in Sardinia, a crime that at the time did not make any distinction between the possession of soft drugs vs hard drugs, and therefore was strictly prosecutable. The singer was acquitted after a stint in prison, during which she attempted suicide. Consequently, the publication of her record Coriandoli spenti / L'argomento dell'amore was blocked, and the album, recorded a few months earlier for Esse Records, remained unreleased for over thirty years (today it is one of the rarest records in Italy).Tg 2 Dossier, "Voci spezzate", Rai, 2005
In 1970, she participated as a chorister, with her sister Loredana and alongside the musical group ″Cantori Moderni di Alessandroni″, to the album Per un pugno di samba, recorded during his stay in Rome by Chico Buarque de Hollanda, whom the singer will always be a great admirer. In the same year, the pianist Toto Torquati convinced Mimì to perform live, playing for her in a repertoire more appropriate to her voice.
1970s Success as Mia Martini A meeting with lawyer and music producer Alberigo Crocetta proved decisive. Crocetta was the founder of the famous Piper Club, where many famous artists used to perform. He decided to launch Mimì Bertè, thinking also about the international music market and therefore creating her stage name "Mia Martini": Mia like Mia Farrow (her favourite actress), and Martini, chosen among three of the most famous Italian words abroad (spaghetti, pizza and Martini). Her look became more eclectic, characterised by numerous rings and a peculiar bowler hat.
In 1971, the record company RCA Italiana released "Padre davvero", the first song released as Mia Martini and recorded with the band La Macchina. The lyrics by Antonello De Sanctis deal with a generational conflict between a father and a daughter, and were immediately judged "irreverent" by radio and television censorship. Nevertheless, she won at the Festival di Musica d'Avanguardia e Nuove Tendenze in Viareggio. Another song of the album is "Amore.. amore.. un corno", a track written by a young Claudio Baglioni and Antonio Coggio. Baglioni wrote also "Gesù è mio fratello" and "Lacrime di marzo" for Martini's LP record Oltre la collina. "The important thing is to put memories behind you. I did it with a record, titled Oltre la collina in which I practically put all of myself, all my past. In the song "Padre davvero" there is also my father, who left home one day, twenty years ago, and whom we have not seen since then. I accidentally learned that he lives in Milan and teaches in a high school. There is also my experience with the hippies in Ibiza, Spain and Kathmandu, Nepal, in the East. An adventurous, unpredictable, especially painful life."
The album (the singer's first), released in November 1971, is considered one of the best works ever made by an Italian female artist, as well as one of her best works.Menico Caroli, Mia Martini. Il mio canto universale, Tarab, 1999 Oltre la collina is also one of the first Italian concept albums, addressing young despair and loneliness, religion, illness and suicide. Martini also caught the attention of Lucio Battisti, who expressed his admiration for her unusual vocalism and asked her to be in his TV special Tutti insieme, in which she sang "Padre davvero" in its censored version.
In 1971, Martini was expected to perform at the TV show Canzonissima with the song "Cosa c'è di strano", but the song was released only in the summer of 1973 in a compilation by RCA Italiana. However, the compilation was immediately withdrawn from the market to prevent the Ricordi (new record company of the singer since February 1972) from reporting the label for breach of contract.
In 1972, the label company RCA tried to get Martini to perform at Sanremo Music Festival with the song "Credo", but she was not selected. Her album was released anyway, but in very few copies.
Hits: "Piccolo uomo" and "Minuetto" (1972–1973) When her producer Alberigo Crocetta left the label company RCA to join the record company Ricordi in Milan, Martini followed him and recorded "Piccolo uomo". The track was written by Bruno Lauzi and Michelangelo La Bionda, with music by Dario Baldan Bembo, who was initially opposed to entrusting the track to a relatively new artist.
Destined, in fact, to the band I Camaleonti, the song was instead presented by Martini at the festival Pop, Beat, Western Express in London on 26 May 1972 and was played numerous times on the Italian radio show Alto gradimento. "Piccolo uomo" was proposed for the event Un disco per l'estate but was not selected. The single was also proposed to the summer song contests Cantagiro and Festivalbar, where Martini earned her first victory.La cantante senza maschera, published on Senza Maschera, 20 August 1972, nº23 pag.56 Martini's success was immediate. She 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.
In September, Martini also participated for the first time in the Mostra Internazionale di Musica Leggera in Venice with "Donna sola", a song with strong soul influences. The track was the most successful single of the event, with approximately 270,000 copies sold. The following year, Martini won the prestigious Gondola D'Oro. "Donna sola" reached the 2º place in the hit-parade of the best-selling singles during the month of November.HitParadeItalia - Top10 del 25 novembre 1972
In October Martini released her second album, Nel mondo, una cosa which contained songs such as "Valsinha" by Vinícius de Moraes and Chico Buarque, "Amanti" by Maurizio Fabrizio, and the poignant covers "Madre" and "Io straniera", two pieces respectively by John Lennon and Elton John. The album reached the top of the charts with around 300,000 copies soldTop Annuali Album 1972 and received the Record Critics Award as the best LP of 1972.
At the beginning of 1973, Martini's hits "Piccolo uomo" and "Donna sola" were released in Germany. She appeared on television shows in European countries including France and Spain, and she was called by critics "the queen of youth music in Italy". The record label Ricordi proposed to Martini to perform at Sanremo Music Festival with the track "Vado via". She at first accepted, and then renounced in extremis, decreeing the fortune of Drupi, who had sung the audition of the song and he is invited to compete at Sanremo festival.Drupi told in the TV show Italia sì on 30 November 2019 that Martini turned down the offer to sing at Sanremo ten days before the event.