Still on the turntables: Giorgio Moroder, the man with the click

His name is Giovanni Giorgio. But everyone calls him Giorgio. For several years now, people who are too young to know discotheques (today: clubs) from their own experience. The Giorgio Moroder, one of the biggest HISCHRIPER of the disco pop, has to owe the electrical music band daft punk. The two French published the nine-minute synthesizer anthem « Giorgio by Moroder » in 2013, with which they got the model from forgetting.

To do this, let the South Tyrolean to tell Los Angeles in the monologue with residence Los Angeles. As he drove over the Brenner in 1969/70, in Germany through the discotheques tinngelte and sometimes even overnight in the car. Before the song goes off correctly, Moroder introduces herself in his German -colored English: « My name is giovanni Giorgio. But everybody calls me Giorgio. » This Saturday, April 26th, he will be 85.

Initially also hits for Michael Holm and Mary Roos

Moroder will spend the birthday in Los Angeles, his adopted home for 45 years. This summer, he comes back to South Tyrol, in his birthplace St. Ulrich, a 5,000-soul village in the Grödnertal. There he wanted to become a ski instructor after school. The mother would have liked to see him as a surveying technician in the community. It became the music.

What Moroder in his Daft-Punk narrative failed: that he ended up in the hit parade in 1967 as a Giorgio-the first name only-with a song called « Looky Looky » in Germany, lived in West Berlin for some time and wrote hits for people like Mary Roos and Michael Holm. The big career only started in Munich with the establishment of his “Musicland” studio.

In Bavaria, the Italian met the American Donna Summer, who came to Germany as a singer for the hippie musical « Hair ». In the 1970s he wrote world hits in series such as « I Feel Love » or « Hot Stuff » -and also the permanent wet « Love to Love You Baby », which dragged on in his maximum version for over 17 minutes. Many radios put the song on the index. So it was even more world success.

Donna Summer, who died in 2002, was considered a « disco queen ». Moroder with his synthesizer was the great master behind it. He himself says: « The computer is the only instrument that I really master. » When Summer went back to the USA from Europe at the end of the 1970s, he also moved there to California, and began to write film music. In addition to a lot of money, this brought him three Oscars, three Grammys and four Golden Globes.

British daily newspaper called him a « hit factory »

Moroder composed the soundtracks for « Midnight Express » by Alan Parker and « The Infinite History » by Wolfgang Petersen. For Irene Cara, he wrote the title song « What a Feeling » from « Flashdance », for the group Berlin « Take My Breath Away » from « Top Gun », for Blondie « Call Me » from « American Gigolo ». In addition, he was responsible for the hymns for the 1990 World Cup in Italy (« Un Estate Italiana ») and responsible for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles (« Reach Out »).

The British daily « Guardian » called him a « hit factory » consisting of a single man. Towards the end of the 1980s, however, it became quieter around him. In addition to the music, Moroder designed her own sports car, which he said « burned a lot of money », and produced short films. « Otherwise I played a lot of golf and solved crossword puzzles, » he said later the « taz ». « Actually, I often didn’t do anything. »

Until Daft punk came up and simply let the old master of electronic pop music told. How he discovered the synthesizer for himself and then put a « click on the 24th track ». « I knew that this could be a sound for the future. But I didn’t guess how big the effect would be, » he says in his monologue. « Once you’ve loosened from the concept of harmony and that music has to be correct: Then you can do everything you want. »

So Moroder has been holding it since he was rediscovered. At more than 75 years old, he went on tour again as a DJ. He also had some appearances in Germany. At the Berlinale, he put on records for a party in the « Borchardt » promirant. In between he also published some new songs without hits from it. Now, in the weeks before his birthday, he was back in the studio.