Better known under the pseudonym Alice, Italian singer Carla Bissi was born in Forlì (Emilia-Romagna) on September 26, 1954. Since her debut in the 1970s, she has performed in a wide range of musical genres, from pop and rock to progressive (on her first two albums), synthpop, new age, electronic music, classical melody and experimental pop, making her a distinctive artist on the Italian scene. She began performing at an early age, winning the Castrocaro Festival in 1971 and the Sanremo Festival in 1972 as a non-finalist with "Il mio cuore se ne va", under her real name, before adopting the stage name Alice Visconti for her first two albums, La mia poca grande età (1975) and Cosa resta... un fiore (1978), on which she began penning her first lyrics. Her career took a decisive turn in 1980 with the album Capo Nord and the hit "Il vento caldo dell'estate" in collaboration with Franco Battiato (no. 8), then in 1981 she won the Sanremo Festival with "Per Elisa" (no. 1), a song that became a huge international success and was taken from the album Alice (no. 21 in Italy, no. 16 in Germany). From the same album, "Una notte speciale " reached no. 7 in Germany. In 1982, the following album Azimut reached no. 15 in Italy, with the hits "Messagio" (no. 6), "Una cosa pensano" (no. 11 in Switzerland) and "Chan-son egocentrique " (no. 23). Further successes followed during the decade with the album Falsi allarmi (No. 18 in 1983) and her hit "Il profumo del silencio " (No. 18). In 1984, Alice sang a duet with Stefan Waggershausen on "Zu nah am Feuer", which reached No. 1 in Germany and Switzerland. The same year saw a duet with Franco Battiato, "I treni di Tozeur", a song entered in the Eurovision Song Contest and ranked No. 3 in Italy. In 1985, the album Gioielli rubati was a tribute to Battiato's songs, including "Prospettiva Nevski " (no. 20). Although she had only two other hits as a single, with "Nomadi" on the 1987 album Par Hotel and "Il giorno dell'indipendenza " (no. 28), on Personal Juke Box in 2000, Alice remains a popular singer, Her albums, including Elisir (1987), Mélodie passagère (1988), Il sole nella pioggia (1989), Mezzogiorno sulle Alpi (1992), Charade (1995) and Exit (1998), are still popular with audiences. In 1999, she launched an experimental project with God Is My DJ (1999), followed by reinterpretations of Personal Juke Box (2000), then Viaggio in Italia (2003), Samsara (2012), Weekend (2014) and the Battiato tribute Eri con me (2022).
