Lisa Dalbello

Lisa Dalbello (born 1958 as "Lisa Dal Bello" in Toronto (Weston)) is a Canadian recording artist and songwriter. She released three albums in the pop and pop/rock genre in her late teens, from 1977 through 1981 under her full name. In 1984 she re-emerged as Dalbello, with an edgier brand of alternative rock. (Alanis Morissette, a Dalbello fan, followed a similar career path and musical transformation 10 years later in the 1990s.)

Recording career

Signing with Capitol Records out of L.A. when she was 17, her self-titled debut album in 1977, produced by David Foster, won her a Juno Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist. Strangely, she was nominated for the same award a second time, for her 1979 second album "Pretty Girls", although she did not win.

After Dalbello's third album, in 1981, she took a break from recording to re-evaluate her creative and personal priorities. However, David Bowie's former Spiders From Mars guitarist Mick Ronson saw a CBC Television documentary on her while working at a recording studio in Toronto and convinced her to record another album.

That album, "whomanfoursays" (a homophone for "human forces"), was co-produced by Dalbello and Ronson. It was also her first album recorded as Dalbello, and marked her transformation into an edgy rock artist. The transformation worked -- the album was even more successful on the Canadian pop charts than her earlier albums had been. The album spawned the hit singles "Gonna Get Close to You", later covered by Queensrÿche, and "Animal" that was covered by Heavens Gate.

Ronson and Dalbello planned to record a second album, however, Ronson was passed over by both her record label, and her manager at that time, Roger Davies, over Dalbello's strong objections. Disappointed, and in an attempt to ensure the creative integrity of the Ronson/Dalbello production follow up, Dalbello submitted 4 "self"-produced song demos to her U.S. label and manager, only to have them rejected because they wanted a "real" producer.

Partly out of frustration and partly as a practical joke, Dalbello re-submitted the song demos under a pseudonym, "Bill Da Salleo", which was nothing more than a simple anagram of her name. To her surprise, her label and manager excitedly called her up saying that they loved the "new" demos and believed "Bill" was the perfect producer for the project.

Dalbello continued to produce the album under the pseudonym, managing to keep both her label and manager from visiting the sessions by booking the studio time late at night, and only broke the "news" of "Bill's premature death" to her Canadian A&R person Deane Cameron, just prior to delivering the album to the label, and shortly after Cameron called her out of concern that the label had no signed production agreement between Bill Da Salleo and themselves. Cameron, a maverick in Canadian music circles who was the first record label A & R person to have signing autonomy from his U.S. label counterpart out of L.A., reportedly laughed out loud, proclaiming that Dalbello had truly kicked the L.A. A&R offices' asses.

EMI released the album "She" in 1987. That album's singles, "Tango" and "Black on Black", were Dalbello's biggest hits. "Black on Black" was also featured on the "9 1/2 Weeks" soundtrack. The success of "She" allowed her to tour extensively, particularly through Europe.

In 1991, not long after she moved from Toronto to L.A., Ronson and Dalbello discussed collaborating again. However, everything was put on hold because of a downturn in Ronson's health. Ronson died of liver failure in 1993.

Three years later, Dalbello released "whore" in 1996 for EMI in Europe where she returned to tour for the rest of that year.

Recording guest appearances

In addition to having appeared on Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson's solo album "Victor", contributing the lead vocal to the song "Start Today", and having recorded duets with Duran Duran’s John Taylor and Boz Scaggs ("Miss Sun" from his 1980 album "Hits"), her vocals have appeared on records for Cher, Heart, Alice Cooper, Patti LaBelle, Toto, Nena (for whom she wrote an entire translation album) and Canadian artists Rough Trade, Kim Mitchell and Glass Tiger.

Cover versions of her music

Melissa Manchester successfully took "Pretty Girls" into the US and Canadian Top 40 in 1979. Heart covered "Wait For An Answer" and did a version of "Black on Black" called "Black on Black II". Queensrÿche covered "Gonna Get Close to You". Hauteville covered "Immaculate Eyes". Julie Masse covered "Devious Nature". Heaven's Gate covered "Animal".Her song Dont Get Mad Get Even was recorded in 1983 by the Canadian Metal band Helix for their 3rd album "No Rest for the Wicked".

ongwriter & producer for other artists

She has not released another album since 1996 and has primarily focused on producing and writing for other artists such as Heart, Julian Lennon, Nena, as well as Patti LaBelle, whom she also produced. Some of the artists and writers she has co-written with are her friends Bryan Adams, Julian Lennon and Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart, as well as David Foster, Carole Bayer-Sager, Holly Knight, Chaka Khan, Branford Marsalis, Damhnait Doyle and Dan Hill.

Television commercials and documentary voice work

From the age of 14 and throughout the span of her recording career, Dalbello has been an A-list session vocalist and voiceover artist on some of the most well known TV and radio commercials in North America, for which she now also writes and arranges music. Her voice work also expanded into areas of documentary work as well as character voices for the TV anime cartoon series ["Sailor Moon] ". She performed the song "Always" for the Cheer detergent commercial "Coming Home" that aired in 2003, which was so popular and garnered so many inquires, that Cheer commissioned her to do a full length version which they made available for download from their website. Her song "Faith In You (With All Your Heart)" was used to promote the launch of the Ford Focus automobile in North America; commercials featuring it played in movie theatres and on television.

Since 2002, she has been the brand announcer voice for the Canadian cable news network, "CBC Newsworld" and additionally, her voice can be heard introducing CBC News anchor Peter Mansbridge on the network's flagship nightly news and current affairs program, "The National".

She also was featured on ', the theme song for the first three seasons of the television series '.

She also voiced Queen Nehellenia in the English-dubbed version Sailor Moon.

Discography

* "Lisa Dal Bello" (1977)
* "Pretty Girls" (1979)
* "Drastic Measures" (1981)
* "whomanfoursays" (1984)
* "she" (1987)
* "whore" (1996)

External links

* [http://www.myspace.com/dalbellomusic Official MySpace of Dalbello]
* [http://dalbello.4x2.net "Behind The Veil - a Dalbello fan site"] contains more information and links - dalbello.4x2.net