Rocco Granata

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Rocco Granata
Rocco675.jpg
Born (1938-08-16) 16 August 1938 (age 84)
NationalityItalian
Belgian
Occupation(s)Accordionist, singer-songwriter

Rocco Granata (born 16 August 1938) is an Italian-Belgian singer, songwriter, and accordionist.

Contents

Granata was born in Figline Vegliaturo, Calabria, southern Italy; but his parents immigrated to Belgium when he was aged ten. Rocco's father was a coal miner, but Granata pursued music instead. He played accordion and toured Belgium with his band, 'The International Quintet'. He then released the songs "Manuela" / "Marina" as a single in 1959; the B-side became an international hit, reaching #1 in Belgium and in Germany as well as charting across Europe and in the United States. It sold over one million copies in Germany alone, and was awarded a gold disc. [1] It has been covered many times by artists such as Willy Alberti, Marino Marini, Ilham al-Madfai, Dalida and Louis Armstrong.

After the success of "Marina", Granata toured the world, including dates at Carnegie Hall. A feature film entitled Marina was released in 1960, which set the stage for a string of German hits. He also appeared in Italy at the Sanremo Festival in 1961.

Granata later became a successful record producer. He owned the record labels Cardinal Records and Granata Records, and has produced Marva, Louis Neefs, Miel Cools, and De Elegasten.

In 1989, Granata commissioned a dance remix of "Marina", which again topped the Belgian charts as well as those of Italy, France and Germany. He has appeared regularly on Belgian television, and served as a jury member for the 2002 Flemish preliminaries for the Eurovision Song Contest. In March 2000 he was awarded the ZAMU Lifetime Achievement Award by the Belgian music industry.

Granata has released some 65 singles over the course of his career.

In 2013 his early life was captured in another movie named Marina . [2]

Singles

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Marina is a biographical film released in 2013 and directed by Stijn Coninx. The film is based upon the life of the Italian singer Rocco Granata who moved to Belgium when he was a young boy. It features Matteo Simoni as Rocco Granata and Evelien Bosmans as Helena. Most part of the film is in Italian as Rocco's parents did not speak the Dutch language. Other parts are in Dutch and some dialogues in French and English.

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"Marina" is a 1959 Italian song by Italian-Belgian singer-songwriter Rocco Granata, his first international hit and best known song. Originally released in 1959 as the B-side of "Manuela", the B-side became more played than the A-side, and by 30 January "Marina" interrupted "Oh! Carol" by Neil Sedaka for one week at the No.1 spot of Hitkrant's List of European number-one hits of 1960. The song sold millions of copies.
It was #1 in Belgium, #31 in the US, and #1 in Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Norway.
It was the #2 jukebox play of the whole year in Automaten-Markt's records after "Seemann" by Lolita.

References

  1. Murrells, Joseph (1978). The Book of Golden Discs (2nd ed.). London: Barrie and Jenkins Ltd. pp.  124–125. ISBN   0-214-20512-6.
  2. "Marina official website - a new film by Stijn Coninx". Marinafilm.be. Retrieved 18 August 2015.
  3. nl:Rocco Granata#Singles
  4. Joel Whitburn, The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits. 7th edn, 2000
  5. first week Archived 9 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine and second week on the Cash Box Top 100. Archived 20 November 2016 at the Wayback Machine
  6. The positions for the German Singles Charts are taken from Günter Ehnert: Hit Bilanz. Deutsche Chart Singles 1956–1980. Hamburg: Taurus Press 1990, S. 88