Italian singer and composer Lucio Battisti was born on 5th March 1943 in Poggio Bustone and passed away on 9th September 1998.
At a young age, Lucio taught himself the guitar and when he was in his twenties, joined local bands and performed with them. He also went abroad and worked as a musician, plus learning various music genres such as blues, soul, soft, progressive and pop rock etc. In 1966, Lucio wrote 3 songs for other Italian artists and later partnered with music lyricist Mogol who helped him develop his singing career.
Battista participated in the 1969 San Remo Festival with the song ‘Un’avventura’ and that same year won the Festivalbar with the hit ‘Acqua azzurra, acqua chiara’. The following year, Lucio won the second time round with ‘Fiori rosa, fiori di pesco’.
For the rest of the 70s, several albums were released, which all peaked to number one in the Italian weekly charts. Some of the hits featured in these albums are: ‘La canzone del Sole’, ‘I giardini di Marzo’, ‘Il mio canto Libero’, ‘Ancora Tu’ and ‘Una donna per Amico’.
At the beginning of the 80s, Lucio had another successful hit named ‘Con il nastro Rosa’. Many other artists continued to issue cover versions of his most popular songs. Meanwhile, Battisti decided to break his partnership with Mogol to proceed with experimenting with music on his own.
The albums that were released next, however, were not very successful but Lucio did not seem to mind about this as apparently he was still making millions just from author rights regarding his songs of the 70s.
Lucio died on 9th September 1998, seemingly from cancer, at the age of 55. His songs continue to be very popular in his native Italy and he will always be considered as on of the best Italian singers of all time.