Gabriella Ferri (18 September 1942 – 3 April 2004) was an Italian pop-folk singer and actor. Her career was one of the richest and most varied of Italian music, although many remember only the great interpreter of dialect songs.
Gabriella was born Maria Gabriella Ferri in the Roman quarter
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Testaccio. Her father, Vittorio, was a merchant for sweets and a lover of traditional Roman folk songs. One day Gabriella met Luisa De Santis and the two girls became close friends. They both enjoyed singing and formed a duo Luisa & Gabriella, singers of Roman folk songs.
In 1963 during a performance in the Intra’s Derby Club in Milan, they were noted by Walter Guertler, who gave them a recoding deal and helped them release their first single “Joly.” After a tv appearance in Mike Boingiomo’s Show, the single sold over 500.000 copies. It was followed by other singles with minor success. After which the duo decided to quit.
In 1969 she signed with RCA Italy and participated in the San Remo festival together with Stevie Wonder. She sang “Se Tu ragazzo mio.” But the song was eliminated in the first round. She never sang in the festival again. However the song became a reasonable commercial success and was followed by the album “Gabriella Ferri.” With this record she innovated traditional Italian folk music into a modern style. One of her biggest hits was "Sempre" ("Always").
During the 1970s, she not only performed as a singer but also starred in several popular TV shows. In 1981 she released the album “Gabriella” containing mostly of songs written by Paolo Conte after which she moved to America, but by 1987 she returned to Italy where she appeared in more TV shows.
In the second half of the 1990’s she had her last relevant appearances: first the Tenco Prize, in Sanremo, then a concert in front of thousands of people in Rome, at Villa Celimontana. In 1997 she released a personal album “Ritomo al futuro” but by this time she was suffering from severe depression and disappeared from the public eye. However the album “Canti DiVersi” released in 2000 was considered her spiritual legacy as it contained a collection of classic songs with influence from jazz, tango and calypso.
She died in Corchiano, province of Viterbo, after falling from a third-floor balcony in an apparent suicide. Family members dispute this, saying she may have fallen ill after taking anti-depression medication and lost her balance.
(Edited from Wikipedia and Europopmusic)