The woman who would later be affectionately called La Tigre di Cremona (The Tiger from Cremona), Mina, one of the most popular and influential postwar Italian artists, was born in the province of Lombardy in 1940. Her first performance came in 1958 at a club called La Bussola, near Lucca, where Italdisc-Broadway producer David Matalon was impressed with the young singer and soon recorded four songs with her, two in English, "Be Bop a Lula" and "When," under the name Baby Gate, and two in Italian, "Non Partir" and "Malatia," as Mina. It was the latter name that she chose, and stuck with, for her debut album, Tintarella di Luna, which was released in 1960.Mina’s first TV appearances broke the rule of the motionless artist in Italy. Using her whole body to visualize the beat, she was the first Italian female rocker on air. Her energetic act earned her the nicknames "Tiger of Cremona" and "Queen of Screamers".
Mina introduced her new sensual maner with the song "Il cielo in una stanza" (the biggest seller of year 1960 in Italy and a Billboard Hot 100 hit). In 1963 Mina got a ban from performing on the channels of the Italian Broadcasting Service (RAI) by refusing to hide her relationship with, and pregnancy from a married actor. The audience forced RAI to call her back.The Italian Broadcasting Service kept blocking some of her songs that dealt boldly with secularity ("Sacumdì Sacumdà "), smoking ("Ta-ra-ta-ta") or sex ("La canzone di Marinella" and "L'importante è finire"). To the ’bad girl’ image, Mina added her sexy appeal and the cool act including public smoking, dyed blond hair and shaved eyebrows.
Admired for her voice and performing talent, she was a star attraction of Italian television variety shows from early sixties to mid seventies. During the years, Mina was a dominant figure of Italian charts and reached an unsurpassed level of popularity in Italy. She has recorded over 1000 songs, 110 albums, sold 76 million records, and scored 70 singles in Italian charts. Mina was the only artist to land an album at the 1st place of the Italian chart in each of the five decades starting from the 1960s. She gave up public appearances in 1978, but continues to release albums on a yearly basis to date. In 2008 she will celebrate the 50th anniversary of her singing career.
