FORNACIARI
Adelmo
(Zucchero)

• 1. Early life
• 2. Career
• 2.1. 2015–present

Adelmo Fornaciari, more commonly known by his stage name Zucchero Fornaciari or simply Zucchero, is an Italian singer, musician and songwriter. His stage name is the Italian word for "sugar", as his elementary teacher used to call him. His music is largely inspired by gospel, soul, blues and rock music, and alternates between Italian ballads and more rhythmic R&B-boogie-like pieces. He is credited as the "father of Italian blues", introducing blues to the big stage in Italy. He is one of the few European blues artists who still enjoys great international success.

In his career, spanning more than three decades, Fornaciari has sold over 60 million records around the world, and internationally his most successful singles are "Diamante", "Il Volo/My Love", "Baila (Sexy Thing)/Baila morena", and the duet "Senza una donna (Without a Woman)" with Paul Young. He has won numerous awards, including four Festivalbar, nine Wind Music Awards, two World Music Awards (1993, 1996), six IFPI Europe Platinum Awards, and a Grammy Award nomination. He has collaborated and performed with many famous artists, including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Brian May, Miles Davis, Ray Charles, B. B. King, Sting, Bono, Dolores O'Riordan, Paul Young, Peter Gabriel, Luciano Pavarotti, and Andrea Bocelli.

Early life

Adelmo Fornaciari was born 25 September 1955 in Roncocesi, a frazione (small village) near Reggio Emilia. His father, Giuseppe Fornaciari, and mother, Rina Bondavalli, came from rural families. At a young age, he was the goalkeeper of A.C. Reggiana 1919. He spent most of his childhood in the seaside town of Forte dei Marmi (Province of Lucca, Tuscany). There, he sang in the choir and played an organ in the local church. At the age of 12 or 13, he discovered American soul and blues music thanks to an African-American friend who was studying in Bologna and lived near his home. The first song he played to Fornaciari was (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding, and this immediately inspired his interest in soul music. The friend taught Fornaciari how to play on the guitar songs by Redding, Marvin Gaye, and Sam & Dave. Fornaciari then got together with friends to play rhythm and blues, finding his own way to fuse black music and Mediterranean music. He started writing his own songs when he was 13 or 14 years old, and after learning basic instruments, from 16 he moved on to learning the tenor saxophone. In Forte dei Marmi, he finished his technical high school studies, and moved again, this time to the city of Carrara.

Career

2015–present

Zucchero and Alejandro Sanz recorded the Italian duet version of Sanz's single "Un Zombie a la Intemperie", and Zucchero performed at his concert in Madrid. For U2's 5 September show in Turin, Zucchero was the special guest and played "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". In October 2015, Fornaciari performed at the Voices for Refugees de concert in Vienna, the Europe's first solidarity concert for refugees, in front of an audience of 120,000. He performed "Love Is All Around", and covered "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime" and "Va pensiero", the latter with the children choir.

In April 2016 new studio album Black Cat was released: it marks a music comeback to soul & blues roots and sound of Oro Incenso & Birra. On CNN it was announced that the album will include a new song Streets of Surrender (S.O.S) which lyrics written by Bono, dedicated to the victims of November 2015 Paris attacks.

It was presented at a series of 11 consecutive concerts at the Arena in Verona in September, and a subsequent world tour. The Arena concerts, held between 16 and 28 September, were his only concerts in Italy in 2016, and they were characterized by a vast and diverse repertoire of old and new songs, and some special guests. After guesting at Sanremo Music Festival 2017, the Black Cat Word Tour continued during 2017 reaching 137 events in thirteen months, 22 of them at the Arena di Verona. At the end of 2017, in order to celebrate the thirty-five years old career, Wanted (The Best Collection) was released.

In 2018 the Italian bluesman continued touring around Europe. The most important concerts were held in Piazza San Marco and in Hyde Park, London, for the British Summer Time Festival. In October he won his first "Premio Tenco", one of the most important Italian music award.

In 2019 his fourteenth studio album D.O.C. was released while a new acoustic version of the album was released in 2021. Being the subsequent world tour postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic just few weeks after being guest at Sanremo Music Festival 2020, a short reduced capacity acoustic tour was held in Italy and some European festivals during summer 2021. At the end of 2021 the first cover album in Zucchero's career was released, called Discover, and followed by the Word Wild Tour during 2022.