Giovanni Giorgio Moroder
BY
Graham Sclater
Giovanni Giorgio Moroder was born in Italy on 26th April 1940. But he is better known by his shortened
name of Giorgio Moroder. When you mention his name to anyone many will know him as the Father of
Disco and for discovering artists such as Boney M and Donna Summer. But he has done to much more and
has been incredibly innovative across all areas and genres of music. Over the past thirty years the artists
that Moroder has worked with, and touched, is incredible and is a who’s who of those in the music
industry, and I make no apologies for listing so many of them in this article.
At the age of fifteen he taught himself guitar and three years later he toured Europe as a professional
musician and began to record music using two Revox tape recorders where he no doubt learned the basics
of production and recording. That gave him an insight into the recording process and put him in good
stead for future his production work. He moved to Berlin and when he was twenty-five worked as a
sound engineer resulting in him achieving several hit records in Germany. Two years later he moved to Munich where he soon set up his own record label, Oasis records.
However, he is better known for setting up his Musicland Studios in a basement, in Munich, which has been used by artists such as, The Rolling Stones, ELO, Led Zeppelin, Queen and Freddie Mercury, for his solo album, Elton John and so many more.
His success as a record producer really took off with recording of all the huge hits for Donna Summer while at the same time he recorded and released his own albums of synthesizer-driven music under the name, Music Machine.
This evolved into him writing and recording film soundtrack for Midnight Express, for which he won the Academy Award for Best original Score, and Golden Globe for Best original Score. His success continued with the scores for Superman III, Scarface, Top Gun and so many more, He also had hit singles, Never-Ending Story, which featured the voice of Limahl, from UK band, Kajagoogoo and Phil Oakey from Human League, with his hit, Electric Dreams.
His success continued with electronic based hits for Cher, Sparks, Bonnie Tyler and the Three Degrees, and once again so manty more. His work on film scores led him to work with so many artists including: David Bowie, Kylie Minogue, Janet Jackson, Blondie, Berlin, Japan and so many more.
Many of the hits he wrote and produced were co-written with Pete Bellotte, which spawned the UK Number One, hit single, Son of My Father, for Chicory Tip.
Understandably, he was totally committed to music for so many years and in the early nineties, he decided to take a step back from music. But in 2012 he returned and the following year he contributed to Daft Punk’s album, Random Access Memories and wrote and, or, produced the music for promo videos of major organisations including Volkswagen. He followed this with his own album, Déjà vu, when he collaborated with Kylie, Britney Spears and other artists.
In 2021 he returned to the studio, co-writing and producing two tracks with Duran Duran, Tonight United and Beautiful Lies for their album, Future Past.
Giorgio Moroder continues to enjoy his music and to date he has
received so many accolades and in addition to three Academy
Awards and four Golden Globes he has also received four Grammy
Awards and more than 100 Golden and Platinum discs. In 2004 he
was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame.
Giorgio Moroder has certainly had a huge impact on music since
his early years and long may it continue.