Franco Battiato & Sepideh Raisadat

Longtime Italian superstar Franco Battiato developed from a prog-psych singer/songwriter of the early '70s to one of the biggest pop stars in Europe, even as he pursued his recording interests in a variety of genres. Born in 1945 in the village of Jonio, Battiato's initial stabs into musical work in the 1960s didn't go anywhere beyond a single or two, leaving his first real break to occur in the early '70s when he began recording a series of albums for the underground label Bla Bla. Starting with Fetus in 1971 and concluding with L'Egitto Prima Delle Sabbie (Egypt Before the ...