Born on 14 June: Gianna Nannini, the Rebel of Italian Rock

She was born in 1954 in the beautiful city of Siena in Tuscany (Italy) to a family of pastry chefs!

From an early age, instead of learning the recipe for "riciarelli" (the delicious local biscuit), she developed a passion for music. For seven years, she studied quite diligently at the conservatory, first in Lucca and then in Milan, before throwing it all away. While her younger brother was preparing to try his luck in Formula 1, Gianna distanced herself from her family and threw herself wholeheartedly into rock. Meanwhile, in Florence, not far from her hometown, the label IRA (meaning anger) was also beginning to shake up the established order.

In Italy, the "cansoneta" (catchy, irresistible chorus mandatory) has always been popular. And not just at San Remo. But the singer would probably prefer people forgot her beginnings at "Un disco per l'estate" in 1974. She likely sees it as a youthful mistake.

In 1979, she enjoyed her first major success with "America", which caused a scandal as it was a real anthem to masturbation, for both women and men. On the record cover, the torch of the Statue of Liberty in New York was replaced with a vibrator in the colours of the American flag!

Throughout the 1980s, Gianna Nannini established herself as one of the most powerful and unique voices in Italian rock. Her album "Latin Lover" (1982) propelled her onto the international stage. She became extremely popular in Germany but also in France. "Profumo" (1986) remains, to this day, her most popular album, with tracks like "Bello e impossibile", even though France the following year awarded her second place in the Top 50 thanks to "I Maschi", a feat for a song in Italian in the land of Voltaire. Moreover, as is often the case with Gianna Nannini, the intentionally ambiguous lyrics waver between a celebration and a critique of relations between the sexes. For her part, she has never hidden her homosexuality. She lives with Carla, whom she has known for 40 years, and they have a daughter together, Penelope, born in 2010. She dedicated "Io e te" to her.

Since her beginnings, the Italian singer has recorded an impressive number of albums – so many, in fact, that we won't attempt to count them here. Her latest album, "Sei nel l’anima" (2024), is undoubtedly the most personal of her career. It marks a return to her first musical loves, while exploring intimate themes such as family and resilience. "I grew up with Otis Redding, Janis Joplin, Ray Charles and Etta James. They showed me how to sing. My father encouraged this American approach to my voice, but a few years later, the European sound became my identity. This album is like a return to the soul of my beginnings," she explains.

(MH with Stéphane Massart - Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)

Photo: Portrait of Gianna Nannini in Brussels (Belgium) in February 1987