Lydia Macdonald (5 March, 1923** - 1998) was a Scottish bilingual singer who contributed to various Italian film soundtracks from the 50’s to the 70’s.
Born as Lydia De Domenico in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1923, to an Welsh-born mother and Italian father. She studied and learned to play the piano at the St George's school in Edinburgh. In 1939, when she was 15, her father took the family on holiday abroad to Italy to visit their relatives. Obliged to remain in Italy she completed her education in Rome due to the outbreak of War. After leaving school in 1942, Lydia made friends with several young leaders of the emerging Italian jazz scene, including Armando Trovajoli, Piero Umiliani and (especially) Piero Piccioni with whose Orchestra 013 she participated as principal vocalist.
During Rome's liberation by the allies in 1944, she broadcast on both the British and American Forces networks. Frank Sinatra performed in Rome for the allied troops and Lydia was invited to the concert and later joined Sinatra for a city jeep tour. He had heard her sing on the American Forces radio, congratulated her on her ability and encouraged her to pursue her singing career.
Returning home to Scotland immediately after the War she was soon spotted and auditioned by bandleader Ted Heath who recruited her as his first female vocalist and thereby one of the first female popular singers to perform before mass peacetime audiences between 1946 and 1949. Ted Heath managed to persuade her to record an album with him ("Will Ye No' Come Back Again" - 1958).
During the period between 1946 and 1949, she travelled extensively throughout the UK with his band, performing in many major concerts and ballrooms. However, she found life on the road rather exhausting and after a couple of years he left the band on good terms to return to Edinburgh. Fate again played its part, since its mother, whose health conditions were poor, was advised by doctors to move possibly in a warmer climate. At that time, there was, of course, no central heating at home, so the decision was made that Lydia would accompany her mother to Rome, where in 1950 they rented an apartment. The transfer proved to be a great benefit to the mother's health and also allowed Lydia to resume relations with friends she had known during the war years.
Soon, as a bilingual singer and lyricist, she found herself in demand to contribute the blossoming Italian film industry, where she worked extensively - singing on soundtracks to Italian New Wave Cinema, Spy Movies and Spaghetti Westerns. Her ability to sing in Italian and English allowed her to establish herself as a singer of "international stature", according to the Italian music historian Arrigo Zoli in the book Il Canto Nero.
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She collaborated throughout the 1950s/60s and early 70s with the leading composers and arrangers of the day, including Piero Piccioni, Ennio Morricone, Piero Umiliani, Armando Trovajoli and numerous others. This was notable for its cultural significance; by contrast with the rich flow of Italian immigrants to Scotland in the early and mid 20th Century, there was minimal migration the other way, so Lydia's move from Scotland to Italy to build a career is all the more notable for that. In the early 1970s, she returned to live quietly in Edinburgh where she enjoyed listening to Jazz and walking her dog during her retirement. Lydia MacDonald died in 1998 in Edinburgh.
(Edited mainly from Wikipedia) **(Some sources give year of birth as 1926 also her name was often written as McDonald)