Zucchero paints Italy in music. He gives vivid colours to blues music, flirts with the contours of bel canto and takes on the forms of refined rock. Aknowledged by his peers, including Eric Clapton and Miles Davis, the transalpine prodigy is the greatest Italian star of modern rhythm'n' blues. His sincerity and authenticity have earned him a passport to the very exclusive club of talented musicians of this world, generally reserved to Anglo-Saxons. Like Eros Ramazzotti, his pop songs left a mark on the airwaves of the 80s and 90s.

"With my face and a voice like mine, I would never have imagined that I would one day signed a recording contract. A story like this with such unprobable outcome seems like a movie script. But Zucchero's story is real. His work is his life, and his life is a crazy synopsis. For nothing predestined the child of Reggio Emilia, born into a humble family of communist peasants, to beat the odds with his husky voice, his audacious creativity and his free dreamer's spirit. Who would have thought that this gentleman would earn the respect of the greats?

Yet Zucchero has succeeded where so many others have failed. His secret: grafting Italian romance to Mississippi blues and seductive British pop . His solar energy warms our hearts, his moving ballads travel down memory lane. It is a certainty: if Joe Cocker, Ray Charles, Pavarotti or Sting fell under his spell, it is because the Italian rocker has talent to spare. Because music is his driving force, so, in his own way, he might as well take advantage of it to propel his hits with a Mediterranean style!

He pampers the souls of the world with his tracks exuding the aroma of a joyful, peaceful and romantic Italy. Under blue skies of Tuscany, where he spends his spare time in his farm, cultivating the soil and cosseting the olive trees, the songwriter sows a wind of sweetness to harvest a storm of emotions. His voice takes our breath away as much as it makes us dance. He almost defines beauty on his own, with sincerity, modesty and utopia. He may have nothing left to prove, but the man with the hat is far from putting an end to his career!