Various

★★★★ Bellissima! More 1960s She-Pop From Italy

ACE. CD/DL/LP Second volume of beat ballads courtesy of Italy’s greatest donne.

Dusty’s style owed much to the Italian girls (You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me, her sole Number 1, is an English language take on an Italian ballad). Yet until this Ace label series, her counterparts were rarely celebrated. Mina, born Anna Maria Mazzini, is undoubtedly the queen, placing high emotion and dramatic rhetoric at the centre whether singing demonstrative pop (1964’s Non Piangero) or belting it out in a big band setting (the previously unissued Cartoline). Patty Pravo is another with a powerful voice: here she turns Il Paradiso Della Vita – covered by Amen Corner as (If Paradise Is) Half As Nice – into opulent gothic pop. La Ragazza 77, who sung the original of Il Paradiso, meanwhile, reads Sonny & Cher’s The Beat Goes On as beatnik jazz, her sultry vocal prowling across Hammond and slinky brass.