Anna Oxa

Biography

The career of Anna Oxa (born in Bari, 28 April 1961) has been inextricably linked to the Sanremo music festival. One of the most gifted Italian vocalists, her twenty-year long career has brought many successes but has been centred mainly around her participation at Sanremo. It was here that she made her debut in 1978 with RCA Italiana. When just 17, she gained enormous popularity singing Un'emozione da poco. The next four years brought a number of hits (Pagliaccio azzurro, Controllo totale and Fatelo con me) but it was also a period of consolidation and experimentation, and in 1982 she moved to the record company CBS. She immediately returned to the Sanremo Festival (with Io no). A year later she was again at Sanremo with the song Non scendo. Then with the song Eclissi totale she achieved success at another festival, Azzurro '84. In 1985 she released the album Oxa (containing A lei and Parlami). È tutto un attimo again brought her success at Sanremo in 1986. Between 1986 and 1987 she spent a period in television hosting Fantastico 9, but in 1988 she was back at Sanremo with Quando nasce un amore. In 1989 she won Sanremo together with Fausto Leali (Ti lascerò). She went back to presenting Fantastico (together with Massimo Ranieri) and in 1990 returned to the Festival with Donna con te. A tour with the New Trolls provided material for the album Live. In 1991 she took time off work to devote herself to her daughter Francesca and in 1992 released a new album entitled Di questa vita. This was followed in 1993 and 1994 by the collections Cantautori and Cantautori Vol.2, containing the finest songs of the singer-songwriters. In 1996 she released Anna non si lascia, produced by Gianni Belleno and Danilo Madonia (containing Spot). In 1997 she narrowly missed winning the Festival with Storie. In 1999 she released the CD Senza Pietà, produced by Fio Zanotti, featuring the song of the same name with which she won the 1999 Sanremo Festival.