Alice -

Carla Bissi (born Sept. 26, 1954), known professionally as Alice, is an Italian singer. She released two albums as Alice Visconti during the 1970s, then signed with EMI and reached the Italian charts with “Il vento caldo dell’estate” from Capo Nord (1980) and the No. 1 “Per Elisa,” winner of the 1981 Sanremo Music Festival.

Alice followed with Azimut (1982), Gioielli rubati (1985), Park Hotel (1986), and Il sole nella pioggia (1989), which features Peter Hammill on the self-written duet “Now and Forever,” alongside the Franco Battiato collaborations “Chanson egocentrique” and “I treni di Tozeur.”

Background

Alice was born Carla Bissi on Sept. 26, 1954, in Forlì, Italy. Her father sang and played guitar and bass in a big band prior to leaving music for construction work, while an older sister studied piano. At age eight, Bissi entered a children’s singing contest in San Marino, where pianist and conductor Maestro Bocca urged her parents to arrange formal singing and piano lessons. She subsequently studied piano and voice with Forlì pianist Rosa Nisi. Bissi attended an istituto magistrale in Forlì but chose not to sit the university preparatory examination.

Bissi placed second at the July 1965 V Festival Internazionale dei Ragazzi in Sanremo and entered the August 1967 Fuori la voce competition in Cesenatico. By 1970, she sang in dance halls along the Adriatic coast. At age 16, Bissi traveled with her mother to the Fonit Cetra auditorium in Turin and won the La strada del successo competition. She won the 1971 Festival di Castrocaro with an interpretation of the Pooh song “Tanta voglia di lei,” which secured entry to the following Sanremo festival.

Bissi performed “Il mio cuore se ne va” in February 1972 at Sanremo, issued on Carosello as her debut single (b/w “Un giorno nuovo”). Six months later, she won the Gondola d’Argento at the Venice Mostra Internazionale di Musica Leggera with “La festa mia,” written by Franco Califano and Maurizio Fabrizio. Carosello issued “La festa mia” as her September 1972 second single (b/w “Fai tutto tu”), followed in May 1973 with “Il giorno dopo” (b/w “Vivere un po’, morire un po’”).

In 1975, producer Giancarlo Lucariello brought Bissi to CBS and proposed the stage name Alice Visconti. Lucariello produced the sessions for La mia poca grande età, with lyrics by Stefano D’Orazio and music by Renato Brioschi, Salvatore Fabrizio, Roberto Soffici, Massimo Guantini, and Dodi Battaglia.

Discography: