Later that year Jonathan King, a songwriter, musician, producer (he is credited with discovering and nurturing Genesis, and was the first to add “Ooga Chaka”s to “ Hooked on a Feeling”), and – the world later learned – a child sexual abuser, translated the song into English, releasing his own version: Umberto Tozzi is an Italian singer-songwriter and producer who began his career at 16, and achieved success as a songwriter, composer, producer, and performer in the mid-1970s. He released the original version of “Gloria,” a fairly conventional pop love song (although addressed to an imaginary woman) in 1979, and it was a hit across Europe:
And that the original was sung by a man, in Italian. But what I didn’t know at the time was that “Gloria” was a cover. We were remarkably successful in our endeavors, with the song topping various charts, and earning Branigan a Grammy nomination. Doug Morris, the big boss at Atlantic then, had helped persuade Branigan to cover “Gloria,” which may explain why it was promoted so heavily. It didn’t hurt that Branigan came by the office a few times that summer, and she was both beautiful and pleasant, even to the grunts like me working the phones. It was clear in the office that it was a priority, and we worked hard to promote the hell out of the song. That being said, it was catchy for its genre, and Branigan had an excellent voice. Hearing “Gloria” for the first time, I dismissed it as a piece of fluffy dance-pop that never would have gotten played once on my college station. I even tried to convince Rafael to remix one of Adrian Belew’s songs for the dance floor, which he briefly considered before thinking better of it.
As a result, I ended up working with him a lot, despite my lack of knowledge about – and general contempt for – dance music. That summer, a number of albums I liked were being promoted to some degree by my department, including Adrian Belew’s Lone Rhino, Genesis’ Three Sides Live, Steve Winwood’s Talking Back To The Night, Jon Anderson’s Animation, and CSN’s Daylight Again. But there were offices filled with men and women promoting these rock releases, and only one guy, Rafael, promoting the dance music. Like any good former college radio program director at that time, I had strong opinions about what was “good” music, and what “sucked.” And clearly, disco/dance music sucked. Mostly because it seemed like the senior execs were unhappy, divorced men who smoked and drank too much. Instead, I ended up in law school while another guy my age there became a very major record executive. It was a fascinating and fun summer, but it also confirmed that I didn’t want to spend my career trying to figure out what kind of music teenagers would buy.
Fresh out of college, I landed a paid summer job working in the Atlantic Records promotions department. I spent the summer doing things like going to record stores and hanging up posters. I played a tiny part in unleashing Laura Branigan’s “Gloria” on the world in 1982.
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