GIORGIO MORODER

If you haven’t heard his tracks even at the cinema, do you want to know if he has won anything? Any small recognition? I would say no! And if that’s not enough, in 2005 he even became a “Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic”… He wrote “official” tracks for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and even for the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy; the official song “Un’estate italiana,” performed by Edoardo Bennato and Gianna Nannini, is his… What more could you want? He is one of our own, he is Italian, born in 1940 in Ortisei… and thank goodness he didn’t become a ski instructor!

But let’s get to disco. He started in ’68 under the name “Giorgio” with poor results, doing better in 1970 when he participated in the “Cantagiro” with the track “Looky, Looky.” Between 1976 and 1979, he achieved all of this (in no particular order): Munich Machine with the track “Get on the Funk Train”; The Sparks with “Beat the Clock,” which flew to number one; The Three Degrees with “The Runner”; for himself with “Utopia” and “From Here to Eternity”; and from the soundtrack of “Midnight Express,” “The Chase.”

But the most important and interesting collaboration for Disco music would be with Her Majesty, Donna Summer… with her, in 1975, he released the scandalous record featuring 16 minutes of simulated orgasm, “Love to Love You Baby,” followed by the historic 1976 album “I Remember Yesterday,” containing numerous hits like “I Feel Love.” The two were unstoppable: 1978’s “MacArthur Park,” 1979’s “Bad Girls,” “Hot Stuff,” “Dim All the Lights,” and “Sunset People.” It was in 1978 that he (and consequently she) won the Oscar for “Last Dance” from “Thank God It’s Friday.”

All that’s left to add is: “Long live the King”!!!