Italian singer-songwriter Raffaele Riefoli, better known as Raf, was born 66 years ago in Margherita di Savoia, is married and has 2 children.
In the early 80s, Raf lived in London prior to initialising his music career, and his first album was recorded in the English language. It included the international hit ‘Self Control’, which was a number one in his native Italy and Switzerland and was also very successful in Germany and Austria.
An interesting fact is that American singer Laura Branigan recorded a cover version of Raf’s ‘Self Control’ at the same time Raf released his, and which was also a worldwide hit.
Raf had other English songs like ‘London Town’ and ‘Hard’ amongst others, but they did not prove as successful as ‘Self Control’. In 1987, he decided to re-release his first album, but it failed to chart.
More albums followed which featured tracks that topped the Italian charts like ‘Cosa Restera` degli Ann 80’, ‘Ti Pretendo’, ‘Oggi un dio non ho’, ‘Due’, ‘Il Battito Animale’, ‘Stai con Me’ and ‘Infinito’.
As a songwriter, Raf wrote songs for other artists, in particular ‘Si puo` dare di Piu`’, which was the winning entry of the 1987 San Remo Music Festival, sung by Umberto Tozzi, Gianni Morandi and Enrico Ruggeri. He also wrote the hit ‘Gente di Mare’ in collaboration with Umberto Tozzi and Giancarlo Bigazzi and sung it in duet with Umberto in the 1987 Eurovision Song Contest. It arrived in third place.
Raf participated 4 times in the San Remo Music Festival – in 1988, 1989, 1991 and 2015, but never won. He did, however, win the Festivalbar in 1989 with the hit ‘Ti Pretendo’.
In the summer of 2024, Raf embarked on a tour to ‘celebrate’ the 40th anniversary since the release of his biggest hit ‘Self Control’ and in May this year commenced a tour in Italian theatres.
To date, Raf recorded 13 studio, 2 live and 1 video albums, 8 collections, an EP, 68 singles and 61 music videos.
*Image: no infringement intended. Source: alchetron.com