Queen of Screamers (1958–1961) While on a summer holiday in
Versilia on 8 August 1958, Mazzini gave an improvised performance of the song "Un'anima tra le mani" to amuse her family after a concert at the
La Bussola night club. In September, she started her solo career with the backing of the band Happy Boys. She soon signed with Davide Matalon, owner of the small record company Italdisc. Her first single, "Non partir"/"Malatia", was produced under the stage name Mina for the Italian audience. Simultaneously, "
Be Bop A Lula"/"When" was issued under the name
Baby Gate for the international audience.
Baby was chosen as a contrast to her 178 cm height (5 ft 10 in) – exceptionally tall for an Italian woman – and
Gate as a tribute to
The Golden Gate Quartet. In December, her performance at the
Sei giorni della canzone festival of Milan was described by the
La Notte newspaper as the "birth of a star". It was Mina's last performance with the Happy Boys, as her family refused to let her skip college for a scheduled tour of Turkey. Less than a month after the breakup with her previous band, Mina co-founded a new group called Solitari, which consisted of a singer, a saxophonist, a pianist, a contrabassist, and a guitarist. Her first hit with the band featured Mina performing an extra-loud, syncopated version of the popular song "
Nessuno" ("Nobody"), which she performed at the first rock festival in the Milan Ice Palace in February 1959. Performances of the song on the TV game shows
Lascia o raddoppia? and
Il musichiere on 1 March and 4 April were hailed by Italian critics. The starlet signed with Elio Gigante, an experienced artist manager. In the following years, he organized her performances in the grand ballrooms of Italy. The idea for the song "Love can grow at any moment at any place" had come to Paoli while lying on a bed and looking at the purple ceiling. The single topped the list of annual sales in Italy and reached the
Billboard Hot 100 as "This World We Love In". At the 1961 Sanremo Song Festival, Mina performed two songs. "Io amo, tu ami" ("I Love, You Love") finished fourth and "
Le mille bolle blu" ("A Thousand Blue Bubbles") placed fifth. Greatly disappointed by this, Mina declared her intention of never performing at the Sanremo song festival again. As her songs and movies were already popular abroad, Mina started to tour Spain and Japan, and performed on Venezuelan TV in 1961. Mina performed on Spanish TV and at the
Paris Olympia hall at the beginning of 1962. The presentation of her German single "
Heißer Sand" on 12 March 1962 on
Peter Kraus's TV show caused a boom of 40,000 record sales in ten days in Germany. The record went to No. 1 and spent over half the year on the German charts in 1962. Mina had six more singles on the German chart in the next two years. In May 1962, she performed in Buenos Aires. Meanwhile, her version of the
mambo rhythm "
Moliendo cafe" and the
surf pop "
Renato" peaked at No. 1 and No. 4 respectively on the Italian charts. Mina refused to cover up her relationship and resulting pregnancy with the married actor
Corrado Pani, so her TV and radio career was interrupted by the Italian public broadcasting service
RAI in 1963, as at the time divorce was not yet legal in Italy. Mina's record sales were unaffected and due to public demand, RAI ended the ban. On 10 January 1964 she returned to the TV screen on the program
La fiera dei sogni, and performed the song "
Città vuota", a cover of
Gene McDaniels' "It's a Lonely Town (Lonely Without You)", which was her first release on the RiFi label. was demonstrated again on the 11 December 1964 TV programme
Il macchiettario, where she performed "Io sono quel che sono" ("I Am What I Am"). A reminder of her previous adolescent image, her single "Suna ni kieta namida" ("Tears Disappear in the Sand"), sung in Japanese, peaked at No. 1 on the Japanese singles chart and earned Mina the title of Best International Artist in Japan. The first episode of the
Studio Uno live Saturday night series showcased Mina's new blonde look with shaved eyebrows. The shows included the brooding songs "Un bacio è troppo poco" ("One Kiss is Not Enough") and "
Un anno d'amore" ("A Year of Love"), a cover of
Nino Ferrer's "C'est irreparable". In the same series she performed "
Brava" ("Good"), a rhythmic jazz number specially written by Bruno Canfora to demonstrate Mina's vocal range and performing skills.
Independence (1966–1968) on
Studio Uno, 1966
Maurizio Costanzo and Ghigo De Chiara wrote the lyrics of "
Se telefonando" ("If Over the Phone") as the theme for the TV program
Aria condizionata in spring 1966. The lyrics were composed in a dark,
Hal David mode. on an upright piano. He had copied the snippet of melody from the siren of a police car in Marseilles. After a few bars, Mina grabbed the lyrics sheet and started to sing as if she had known the tune before. Composed in this way, "Se telefonando" is a pop song with eight transitions of
tonality that builds tension throughout the chorus. In 1966, Mina started working with the
Swiss Broadcasting Service and the Orchestra Radiosa in Lugano. She founded the
independent record label PDU in collaboration with her father. The first record issued under the label was
Dedicato a mio padre (Dedicated to My Father). Mina's growing interest in Brazilian music resulted in "
La banda" ("The Band"), a
Chico Buarque song, which reached No. 2 in Italy. Mina continued to perform on Italian TV, and presented "
Zum zum zum" on the spring 1967 variety series
Sabato sera, accompanied by the
NATO naval band. The series also included "La coppia più bella del mondo" ("The Most Beautiful Couple in the World"), a duet with
Adriano Celentano. The title of the song "
Sono come tu mi vuoi" ("I Am, as You Want Me to Be") was taken from
Luigi Pirandello's play
Come tu mi vuoi. The lyrics talk about the manic attention of the press on an artist's private life. Another hit from
Sabato sera was "
L'immensità" ("Immensity"), which was re-scored by
Augusto Martelli and released as "La inmensidad" in Spain and Latin American countries. RAI broadcast the third episode of
Senza Rete ("Without Safety Net") live on 18 July 1968 from the Auditorio A of the corporation's regional headquarters in
Naples. The program presented Mina's homage to
Luigi Tenco, who had recently died. She turned his song "Se stasera sono qui" ("If I Stay Here Tonight") into a rigorous piece of
soul music in the score of
Pino Calvi. She celebrated the 10th anniversary of her career with a concert at La Bussola, backed by the Orchestra Augusto Martelli. The concert was recorded and issued as
Mina alla Bussola dal vivo.
Canzonissima 1968 was a Saturday night prime-time variety show that aired on
Rai Uno from September 1968 to January 1969. It was hosted by Mina,
Walter Chiari and
Paolo Panelli. The orchestrations were scored by the conductors Bruno Canfora and Augusto Martelli. "Sacumdì Sacumdà", Mina's talking and laughing version of Carlos Imperial's
bossa nova "Nem Vem Que Não Tem", narrowly escaped a ban by RAI because of its irreverent lyrics. The song was performed as part of a musical fantasy, back to back with "Quelli che hanno un cuore", her intense version of "
Anyone Who Had a Heart". Another interpretation of a
Dionne Warwick song was "La voce del silenzio" ("Silent Voices") by Paolo Limiti and Elio Isola, presented in a live session during the show. Each show was closed by Mina singing "
Vorrei che fosse amore" ("Wish It Was Love"), a piece of atmospheric music by
Bruno Canfora that was No. 50 on the best-selling singles chart for 1968 in Italy. The single became the third biggest-selling record of the year in Italy. Mogol and his fellow composer
Lucio Battisti, along with the
Premiata Forneria Marconi on backup instrumentals, worked with Mina on several songs as a result of the success of "Non credere". The team produced a set of songs including "
Io e te da soli" ("You and Me Alone"), "
Insieme" ("Together"), "
Amor mio" ("Love of Mine"), "Io vivrò senza te" ("I'll Live without You"). " One of the first introductions of the new repertoire was the
Senza Rete live televised concert from the Auditorio A in Naples on 20 January 1970. The material provided by Mogol–Battisti was the core for five albums. Among them,
...bugiardo più che mai... più incosciente che mai... was Mina's first independent album to reach No. 1 of the weekly Italian charts and was the biggest-selling album of 1969 in Italy.
...quando tu mi spiavi in cima a un batticuore... was seventh on the annual record chart of 1970.
Del mio meglio... (
My Best...) was second in 1971.
Mina was the biggest seller of 1972. The latter two albums were recorded during a break from live performances to give birth to her daughter Benedetta. Mina's comeback took place at RAI's variety series
Teatro 10 in the spring of 1972. One of the highlights of the series was a selection of Battisti's songs performed in duet with the composer. The shows also included "Balada para mi muerte" ("Ode to My Death"), a
nuevo tango duet with
Ástor Piazzolla at the
bandoneón, backed by the Argentinian group
Conjunto 9. "
Grande grande grande", arranged by
Pino Presti, was the second biggest-selling single of the year in Italy. The successes pushed Enrico Riccardi to take inspiration from Battisti's style in Riccardi's composition "
Fiume azzurro", which earned another place in the top 100 of annual record sales in Italy. The final number of the eight
Teatro 10 episodes was "
Parole parole" ("Words Words"), a duet with
Alberto Lupo. The song is an
easy listening dialogue between Mina's singing and Lupo's declamation. The lyrics' theme is hollow words. These intertwine the lady's lamentation of the end of love and the lies she has to hear with the male protagonist's recitation. In the dialogue she scoffs at the compliments he gives her, calling them
parole – just words. The single was released in April 1972 and topped the Italian charts. It was covered by numerous Italian and French duets. Mina said she would be retiring from public appearances after an exclusive concert at the La Bussola Club on 16 September. Thousands of people turned up at the nightclub's doorstep.
Gianni Ferrio's Orchestra featured
Gianni Basso on tenor saxophone and
Oscar Valdambrini on trumpet. During the series, she explored different musical styles in the songs "
Everything's Alright", "
Mack the Knife", "
Night and Day", and "
Someday (You'll Want Me to Want You)". After "
Non gioco più" ("The Game Is Over"), a blues duet with the
harmonica player
Toots Thielemans, Mina announced her withdrawal from public performances. Her last appearance on TV was her performance of "
Ancora ancora ancora". The video was the final number of the "Mille e una luce" show on 1 July 1978. Her last concert appearances, a series of thirteen fully booked concerts at La Bussola in 1978, were cut short due to her illness. Mina gave her last public performance on 23 August 1978 at the Bussoladomani theatre. It was recorded and issued as ''
Mina Live '78''. ==Musical style and public image==