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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.)
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".
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 Saleo 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 throughout 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. Sadly, 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.
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