Who recorded it first
Gloria
Not a Laura Branigan original — a 1979 Umberto Tozzi single on CGD, and not Them’s 1964 “Gloria”
In Britain and America “Gloria” is Laura Branigan’s song — her signature record, her Grammy nomination, the track a hockey arena still shouts for. It is a cover. The song was written by Umberto Tozzi with Giancarlo Bigazzi and first recorded by Tozzi in Italian, issued on CGD in 1979, where it went to number one in Switzerland and number two in Italy before any English-language version existed; a Spanish-language rendition took it to number one in Spain. Branigan’s Atlantic version followed in June 1982 with a new English lyric by Trevor Veitch, and reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released Issued by CGD as a 7-inch single, catalogue 10171, with “Aria di lei” on the B-side, and as the opening track of Tozzi’s fourth studio album Gloria (CGD 20144), recorded at Union-Studios in Munich. The two Wikipedia entries date the single a month apart — May 1979 on the Italian record, June 1979 on the English — so the year is firm and the month is not.
Charted Emphatically, and that is the point. Tozzi’s Italian-language original spent four weeks at number one in Switzerland, reached number two in Italy, number four in Austria, number five in Belgium and number eight in West Germany across 1979 and 1980; in Spain the four weeks at number one were taken by a Spanish-language rendition rather than the Italian record. This is not an obscure original rescued by a famous cover — it is a large European hit that simply never crossed into English-language radio.
How the record is documented
The Italian entry for the single ↗ gives CGD catalogue 10171, “Gloria” at 4:25 backed with “Aria di lei” at 4:10, words by Bigazzi and music by Tozzi, published by Edizioni Musicali Melodi.
The parent album ↗ was Tozzi’s fourth, CGD 20144, recorded at Union-Studios in Munich and his first made with mostly American musicians — among them the arranger Greg Mathieson.
The song’s recording history ↗ runs in order: Tozzi’s 1979 Italian original, Jonathan King’s English version that November, then Branigan’s 1982 rewrite with a lyric by Trevor Veitch.
Wikidata ↗ catalogues the composition as a 1979 song performed by Umberto Tozzi, in Italian, with the ISWC T0050008779.
Gloria: the 1979 original and every version that followedKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
What’s actually on the record
The confusion is reasonable, and it runs in one direction only: hardly anyone in Britain or America who loves this record has heard the one it came from, while in Italy the question barely arises.
Laura Branigan
Her Atlantic single went to number two on the Hot 100, drew a Grammy nomination and became her signature song, so it is routinely treated as hers outright. It is a cover of a record that was already three years old.
Umberto Tozzi
Tozzi recorded “Gloria” in Italian and CGD released it in 1979, backed with “Aria di lei”. It reached number one in Switzerland and number two in Italy before any English-language version existed; the number one in Spain was a Spanish-language rendition. No earlier recording of the song has been documented.
Umberto Tozzi and Giancarlo Bigazzi
Tozzi and his long-time collaborator Bigazzi wrote it — Bigazzi the words, Tozzi the music — and both remain credited on Branigan’s release.
Jonathan King, then Trevor Veitch
There are two separate English lyrics and they are often collapsed into one. Jonathan King wrote the first, for his own November 1979 UK single. Trevor Veitch wrote the different lyric Branigan sings, and it is Veitch — not King — who is credited on the 1982 Atlantic record.
“Gloria” is a 1979 Italian single by Umberto Tozzi, written by Tozzi and Giancarlo Bigazzi and released on CGD. Laura Branigan’s 1982 recording is a cover with a new English lyric — and one of the great ones.
Context
Why the cover swallowed the original
The usual shape of these stories is that a fine song sat unheard until somebody famous found it. That is not what happened here. Tozzi’s “Gloria” was a continental smash in 1979 — four weeks at number one in Switzerland, four more in Spain in a Spanish-language rendition, number two at home in Italy — and it already sounded a good deal like an American record, because in some measure it was one. He made the album at Union-Studios in Munich, his first cut with mostly American players, and the man arranging it was Greg Mathieson, a Los Angeles session keyboardist. What the record did not have was English.
Mathieson is the hinge. He had played keyboards and written the arrangement on Tozzi’s record, and by Songfacts’ account it was he who suggested Branigan cover it — she was sceptical until an English version existed. Wikipedia tells the next step differently, crediting Atlantic’s Doug Morris with pairing her with the producer Jack White; on either telling Trevor Veitch then wrote a new English lyric that recast Tozzi’s love song as a character study, and White produced it for Atlantic. The result was less a translation than a second original, and it did the one thing the Italian record could not — 36 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100. Today a crowd in St Louis shouting for “Gloria” is calling for Branigan’s record; a crowd in Milan is often calling for Tozzi’s.
The chronology, step by step
- 1979 — Umberto Tozzi and Giancarlo Bigazzi write “Gloria”. Tozzi records it in Italian at Union-Studios in Munich, arranged by the American keyboardist Greg Mathieson, for his fourth studio album Gloria.
- 1979 — CGD issues it as a 7-inch single, catalogue 10171, backed with “Aria di lei”. It reaches number one in Switzerland, number two in Italy, number four in Austria, number five in Belgium and number eight in West Germany; in Spain, number one goes to a Spanish-language rendition.
- November 1979 — Jonathan King records the first English-language version, using a lyric of his own, and reaches number 65 on the UK singles chart.
- 1981 — Laura Branigan records the song at Rusk Sound in Hollywood, produced by Jack White on the recommendation of Atlantic’s Doug Morris, with a fresh English lyric by Trevor Veitch. Greg Mathieson, who had arranged Tozzi’s version, is again on keyboards.
- June 1982 — Atlantic releases Branigan’s version from her debut album Branigan. On 27 November it peaks at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, the first of three weeks there, held off by Lionel Richie’s “Truly” and then by Toni Basil’s “Mickey”.
- 2013 — Tozzi’s original recording surfaces on the soundtracks of The Wolf of Wall Street and Gloria.
The original already had American musicians on it. What it lacked was English.