Born in Turin on 4 March 1952, in 1968, at just 16 years of age, he joined a very young band in Turin called “Off Sound”. In Milan he met Adriano Pappalardo, with whom he formed a band that toured all of Italy. In 1971, now 19, he gained his first major success as a writer with “Un corpo un’anima” written with Damiano Dattoli. Sung by Wess and Dori Ghezzi, it went on to win Canzonissima. In 1976, the song “Io camminerò” was released and taken to success by Fausto Leali. This was followed by Umberto Tozzi’s first album: “Donna amante mia”. His song “Ti amo” was produced in 1977, and is one of Tozzi’s most famous pieces, getting to No. 1 and staying in the charts for seven whole months. In 1978, after a period of searching for new inspiration, he returned to the limelight with “Si può dare di più”, sung together with Gianni Morandi and Enrico Ruggeri, which went on to win the Sanremo Song Festival. He then joined up with Raf to sing “Gente di mare” which was presented at Eurofestival; this was a major European success (No. 1 in the Belgian charts for 14 consecutive weeks). 1987 was the year of the album “Invisible”, and 1988 was when the famous live concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London was recorded. His career continued in the 90s with increasingly refined melodies: “Gli altri siamo noi”, “Le Mie Canzoni”, “Equivocando”, “Il Grido”, “Aria e cielo”, “Bagaglio a mano”. The 2000 Sanremo Festival saw Tozzi return with the piece “Un’altra vita”, taken from the album of the same name just released. Confirming his great success, in 2001 “Grandes Exitos” was released in Spain, an album of his successes in Spanish which remained in the charts for 8 months and sold over 150,000 copies. In August 2001, in France, Tozzi sang “Ti amo” in duet with Monica Bellucci, recorded as the soundtrack to the film “Asterix and Obelix”. This same song, in its original version, returned to the charts reaching the No. 2 spot for sales of singles and in the top ten of albums with “Le mie canzoni”. In 2002, “Ti amo” was released again but in a duet with Lena Ka, and resulted in sales in French countries totalling 800,000 singles, while the album “Le mie canzoni” sold another 400,000 copies, reaching a total of almost 2 million copies in the world. In 2002 he released “The Best of Umberto Tozzi”, a double CD containing all his main hits, the English versions of “Ti amo”, “Gloria” and “Gli altri siamo noi”, and two previously unpublished songs “E non volo” and “Angelita”. In 2003, by popular demand from his French public, Tozzi sang “Tu” as a duet with Cerena, resulting in more than 200,000 copies of the single being sold. In 2004 he produced “Le parole”, an album of new songs which was released the following year to coincide with his participation at the 55th Sanremo Song Festival. On 3 February 2006, a production of LOUNGE/CHILL OUT music was released under the MBO HETEROGENE label, which was created and produced by Umberto Tozzi. On 15 February 2006, Tozzi was in concert at the Olympia in Paris to celebrate a 30 year career of countless successes in Italy and abroad. On 24 November 2006, again under the MBO label distributed by Universal Music Italy, the new CD was released, a prestigious production sung together with Marco Masini. The first single CD titled “Come si Fa…?” was released on 10 November.

Written by the MBO Press Office