Johnson Righeira

Stefano Righi was born in Turin on 9 September 1960, and the name he picked for the stage, Johnson Righeira, became attached to some of the most playful pop Italy produced in the 1980s. He works as a singer, songwriter, musician, record producer and occasional actor, but the role that defines him is lead vocalist and main lyricist of the Italo disco duo Righeira. Before the duo existed, he put out a solo single called "Bianca Surf" in 1980, a surf-flavored curiosity that hinted at the beach-and-sunshine obsessions he would later push to their logical extreme. In 1983 he teamed up with Stefano Rota, and the two of them turned a shared sense of humor and a stack of synthesizers into a brief, bright run of hits. Their biggest, "Vamos a la playa," spread across Europe and beyond, and its mix of deadpan delivery and holiday euphoria made Righeira a fixture of Italian summer radio. The duo split, reunited, and split again; when they called it quits for the second time in 2016, Righi did not retreat. He launched a solo career and started his own imprint, Kottolengo Recordings, which gave him a place to release music on his own terms. Across a career that includes dozens of singles, a handful of albums and scattered film and television appearances, he has stayed recognizably himself: a Turin kid with a taste for absurdity and a knack for a chorus that refuses to leave your head.[edit]