Giorgio Moroder
Giovanni Giorgio Moroder (Italian: [dʒoˈvanni ˈdʒordʒo moˈrɔːder], German: [mɔˈʁoːdɐ]; born 26 April 1940)[3][4] is an Italian composer and music producer. Dubbed the "Father of Disco",[5][6][7] Moroder is credited with pioneering euro disco and electronic dance music.[2][8] His work with synthesizers had a large influence on several music genres such as hi-NRG, Italo disco, synth-pop, new wave, house and techno music.[8][9][10]
Giorgio Moroder
Giovanni Giorgio Moroder
26 April 1940
Urtijëi, South Tyrol, Italy
- Composer
- record producer
- 1958–1993
- 2012–present
When in Munich in the 1970s, Moroder started his own record label called Oasis Records, which several years later became a subdivision of Casablanca Records. He is the founder of the former Musicland Studios in Munich, a recording studio used by many artists including the Rolling Stones, Electric Light Orchestra, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Queen and Elton John.[11] He produced singles for Donna Summer during the mid-to-late 1970s disco era, including "Love to Love You Baby", "I Feel Love", "Last Dance", "MacArthur Park", "Hot Stuff", "Bad Girls", "Dim All the Lights", "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)", and "On the Radio". During this period, he also released many albums, including the synthesizer-driven From Here to Eternity (1977) and E=MC2 (1979).[12]
Moroder produced the recording artist Suzi Lane and her disco album and charting number one single "Ooh La La". She had a second minor classic single "Harmony" on Elektra Records in 1979. He began to compose film soundtracks and scores, including Midnight Express, American Gigolo, Superman III, Scarface, The NeverEnding Story, and the 1984 restoration of Metropolis. Moroder's work on the film Midnight Express (1978), which contained the international hit "Chase", won him the Academy Award for Best Original Score and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score. He also produced a number of electronic disco songs for the Three Degrees, two albums for Sparks, and a handful of songs on Bonnie Tyler's album Bitterblue as well as her 1985 single "Here She Comes". In 1990, he composed "Un'estate italiana", the official theme song of the 1990 FIFA World Cup.
Moroder has created songs for many performers including David Bowie, Falco, Kylie Minogue, Irene Cara, Janet Jackson, Madleen Kane, Melissa Manchester, Blondie, Japan and France Joli. Moroder has stated that the work of which he is most proud is Berlin's "Take My Breath Away",[13] which earned him the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song after appearing in the film Top Gun in 1986; he had earned the same awards in 1983 for "Flashdance... What a Feeling" (as well as the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score for all of his work on Flashdance). In addition to the three Academy Awards and four Golden Globes, Moroder has also received four Grammy Awards, two People's Choice Awards, and more than 100 Golden and Platinum discs. In 2004, he was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame.[14]
Early life[edit]
Giovanni Giorgio Moroder was born on 26 April 1940 in Urtijëi (Urtijëi in Ladin, known in Italian as Ortisei and in German as St. Ulrich in Gröden) to Ladin parents in South Tyrol in what was then the Kingdom of Italy.[15] Although he goes by Giorgio, his birth name is Giovanni Giorgio Moroder.[16] While he was growing up, the family lived in a mixed Ladin-, German- and Italian-speaking environment in South Tyrol in northern Italy, and his mother used to call him Hansjörg (pronounced [ˈhansjœʁk]), a German version of his two first names.[17][18] Artist Ulrich Moroder is one of his three brothers.[19] His father was a hotel concierge.[19]
Personal life[edit]
Moroder currently lives in Los Angeles, California. He was married to Francisca Gutierrez from 1990 until her death in 2022.[74][75] Their son Alessandro was born in 1989.[76][74]
He is a friend of Michael Holm, with whom he composed the 1973 album Spinach 1 under the moniker "Spinach". Holm's song Giorgio und ich is dedicated to Moroder.