Marina (song)
Marina is a song composed and sung by Rocco Granata in 1959 , which has become an international million seller and evergreen .
History of origin
The Italian-born auto mechanic Granata, who lives in Genk , Belgium , came up with the idea of writing an Italian text for a samba melody that had already been improvised with his band through a poster with a cigarette advertisement for his favorite brand "Marina" . An impresario discovered the group with the song and got her an appointment in July 1959 at the Decca recording studio in Brussels with sound engineer Eddy "Achilles" Palmans, who was also music director of Decca Records Belgium.
The Belgian record label Tonalty decided in August 1959 to publish the song as the A-side (Tonalty # 1018) and had 300 singles pressed against payment, with which jukeboxes were filled. This increased its popularity, so that the Dutch record company Delahay (DS 1012) decided to publish the record with the Italian lyrics in the Netherlands.
Publication and Success
One of these 300 demo recordings came to EMI Columbia in Cologne. The hit fit into the category of the current southern hit trend in Germany and received a German text from Lilibert . Marina / Manuela (Columbia C 21 284) was released in Germany in September 1959 and hit the German charts in October 1959 , where the single stayed at number one for three months . Granata has made one million records of these in Germany, Will Brandes sold another 500,000 with his cover version . Granata was awarded a gold record for this and received the in-house “Golden Dog” from Electrola for more than a million copies. In the Bravo annual charts in 1960 , the single ranked second with 453 points.
After that, the success spread worldwide. In her home country Belgium it stayed in first place for five months (now on the Moonglow label). In January 1960, 300,000 copies were sold in the Netherlands, 1 million copies in Italy followed by the end of 1960. It also advanced to number one in Norway -Hit . In France, Barclay Records took over the marketing. Accompanied by an English text by Ray Maxwell, Granata managed to move up to 31st place in the USA after Marina was featured on the Billboard . He performed on November 22, 1959 with the song in New York's Carnegie Hall . In August 1960 the piece was used in the soundtrack of the hit film Marina . It is estimated that around ten million copies of all versions have been sold worldwide by Marina . Composer Granata sees Marina as his old-age security.
Cover versions
Only rarely does a cover version succeed again in close proximity to the original. On Columbia's sister label Electrola, of all places, Will Brandes was able to record an enormous success in November 1959, rewarded with 7th place in the charts. There are at least 75 cover versions. Three in the US alone, including Tony Martin (recorded October 19, 1959; RCA 47-7633). There are also versions by the Gipsy Kings , Toots Thielemans , Marino Marini , Claudio Villa , Peppino di Capri , Caterina Valente , Willy Alberti , Siro Marcellini , Renato Carosone , Gianni Morandi and Dalida . Phil & John released a German version of the song produced by Tony Hendrik in April 1973 . In June 1989 a new recording with Rocco Granata & The Carnations reached number one in the Belgian charts.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Billboard magazine of May 9, 1960, Munich Newsnotes , p. 13
- ↑ Der Musikmarkt, 30 years of the single hit parade , 1989, p. 10
- ^ Günter Ehnert: Hit balance sheet - German chart singles 1956-1980 . 1st edition. Verlag popular music-literature, Norderstedt 2000, ISBN 3-922542-24-7 , p. 444 .
- ↑ List of number one hits in Belgium (1960)
- ↑ List of number one hits in Italy (1960)
- ↑ Billboard Magazine, October 26, 1959, p. 29
- ^ Rocco Granata, Mijn leven , 2013, o. P.
- ↑ Stern Magazine, Volume 57, 2004, p. 158
- ↑ The star of August 2, 2004, What is actually doing ... Rocco Granata ( Memento of the original of April 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ List of number one hits in Belgium (1989)
