Michele Torpedine

Michele Torpedine (Minervino Murge, 1952) is an Italian record producer, television personality, drummer and music manager. He has been the producer of many renowned Italian artists such as Andrea Bocelli, Zucchero, and Il Volo, among many others.

Biography

Also known internationally as Michael Torpedine, he began his career as a drummer for Orietta Berti, Iva Zanicchi and Gino Paoli.

In the eighties, through an entertainment agency based in Bologna, he looked after the image of artists Lucio Dalla, Loredana Bertè and Francesco De Gregori and planned the stages of Gianna Nannini's America tour. As a record producer, he brought success and, in some cases, revived the fortunes of numerous Italian artists such as Zucchero Fornaciari, Luca Carboni, Gino Paoli, Pino Daniele, Lucio Dalla, Fabrizio De André, Biagio Antonacci, Ornella Vanoni, Andrea Bocelli, Giorgia, Vittorio Grigolo and Il Volo. He is also occasionally involved in forming duets between Italian and international artists; the latter include Barbra Streisand, Joe Cocker, Miles Davis, Eric Clapton, Paul Young and Ray Charles. His idea of bringing the duet of Italian artists Gino Paoli and Ornella Vanoni to theatres on the Insieme tour has received much public acclaim.

He is the executive producer of several of Zucchero's albums, including Rispetto, Blue's, Oro incenso e birra and Miserere; the first three alone have sold 3,200,000 copies in Italy. In 1989 he joined Zucchero in a supergroup, formed in Cortina d'Ampezzo and called Adelmo e i suoi Sorapis, which included Dodi Battaglia, Maurizio Vandelli, Fio Zanotti and Umberto Maggi. In 1990 he organised an extraordinary musical event inside the Kremlin, broadcast by RAI in several countries around the world, which saw Zucchero as the first artist ever to perform in the main seat of the Russian government. A VHS video and a double album entitled Live at the Kremlin were made of the concert in Moscow. Since 1994 he has been Zucchero's representative for Italy and privileged consultant for the rest of the world, working alongside the American record producer Miles Copeland III for the rest of the world; he therefore follows him behind the scenes of the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. With Zucchero the relationship will end in the following years.

Torpedine also produced Andrea Bocelli's albums, who sold more than 2,500,000 copies of records in Europe in 1996 with the Romanza collection alone, which reached the top of all the charts. During the years of managing the image of the Tuscan artist, aimed at ensuring him a high-profile career, he was responsible for the organisation of numerous national and international events, including the Michael Jackson & Friends benefit concert held in Munich in 1999.

He produced albums for Gerardina Trovato and Luca Carboni and was the artistic director of the first two editions of Pavarotti & Friends.

In 2007 he accused Zucchero, when the association with the artist had been over for some time, of plagiarism; in particular, he contested the fact that he credited himself with songs and music written or composed by others.

On 16 July 2010, he presided over the jury at the final of the Castrocaro Music Festival hosted by Fabrizio Frizzi.

In January 2012 he is hired as a consultant by the company that takes care of the affairs for Eros Ramazzotti.

At the 2015 Sanremo Festival, he consolidates also in Italy, through the victory of the singing competition, the success of the young boys that form the trio called Il Volo and that, together with Tony Renis, he made famous in the world and in particular in the United States of America.