Corrado Rustici's adventure began in his native Naples. Born into a musical and artistic family, at the age of 5, Corrado was taught to play the mandolin by his grandmother. At age 9 he started to study the guitar, practicing with his older brother Danilo's instruments in secret.
The turning point in his creative development came when, at the age of 15, Corrado heard John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra for the first time: an experience which opened the doors to a whole new musical dimension for the guitarist living inside him.
At 17, Corrado joined the rock band "Cervello" and released the album "Melos" , produced by his brother Danilo, on the Ricordi label. Even though he occasionally wrote for and sang with his brother's band, it wasn't long before he formed a new Rock-Fusion group of his own, Nova.
After moving to England, Nova were signed to the Arista label, with which they released four albums between 1975 and 1978. Phil Collins played in one of the albums as did Narada Michael Walden, who invited Corrado to work with him in California. After the success of one of their albums in the US, Nova decided to relocate once again, and moved to Los Angeles in 1977.
Around mid 1978, Corrado decided to accept Walden's invitation and go to San Francisco. Although he had always worked in the studio, his first chance to try his hand as a producer only came in 1985, when the jazz drummer Tullio De Piscopo asked him to produce the album "Eastern passage". This album caught the attention of the Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari. The result was a working relations which spawned 8 albums over 17 years, including: "Oro, incenso e birra", "Miserere", which sold a million copies after its release in 1992, and the 1995 album, "Spirito di vino", which sold over 2 million copies, reaching the number one spot in the European Billboard charts.
The Zucchero album "Blue's" from 1987 earned Corrado recognition as Italy's Best producer; one of the songs from that album, "Senza una donna", was recorded again as a duet with Paul Young and became a number 1 hit throughout Europe.
In 1994 Corrado performed with Zucchero at Woodstock '94. This was the realization of a dream for Corrado who, since adolescence, had been inspired by Michael Wadleigh's film. 25 years later, he was to share the stage with Michael Shrieve, who had played at the original Woodstock as a member of the Santana Band.
Through Zucchero, Corrado was also given the opportunity to work with one of the world's most famous tenors, the legendary Luciano Pavarotti. Zucchero had written a song for "Big Luciano" and, when Pavarotti agreed to perform it as a duet on "Miserere", it was produced by Corrado (with a 50 piece orchestra directed by Michael Kamen).
Corrado began to dabble with electronics in 1984. He first used the computer as a means for both musical and spiritual exploration. His studies on the effect of different sound frequencies on the human body and mind helped him formulate the innovative and now widely acknowledged production method "Push & Pull", which combines the irreverent approach of rock and pop with the softer and more evocative effect of ambient music. His technical expertise led him to work together with Opcode in the programming of their music software for years.
Some of his projects that also went on to become considerable commercial successes include: "Prendere e lasciare", the album by singer songwriter Francesco de Gregori and "The best of Zucchero", which sold over 3 million copies.
In September 1997, "Pipes and flowers",, the debut album for the singer Elisa, was released, which was produced and arranged by Corrado. The album sold over 300,000 copies. Elisa won the Italian Music Prize (PIM) for best New Italian act of the year, and the prestigious Tenco Prize for Best debut album. In 1998, Corrado produced "Blue sugar" by Zucchero, which sold over a million copies in Italy and was listed in charts all over Europe, and later produced 4 tracks on the album "Leia" by the group Corso I Muvrini for EMI France.
Corrado's producing career began to branch out into different genres, with the albums "Viaggiatore sulla coda del tempo" by Claudio Baglioni and "Time for peace", by the Israeli singer Rita, which included tracks composed by Corrado together with one of Israel's top writers, Rami Kleinstein. In 2000, Corrado produced the album "Serendipity" for the legendary band PFM .
Corrado began the year 2001 by producing the track "Luce" with which Elisa won the Sanremo Festival, and which took her to number one in the Italian charts. "Luce" earned Elisa the "MTV Europe Award" for "Best Italian artist" and the "Italian Music Award (PIM)" for "Best female artist" and "Best song".
Corrado then focused his energies on producing Zucchero's latest album "Shake", which has already sold 2 million copies throughout Europe, and produced the single "Baila", which was number 1 in Italy for 16 weeks and also a number 1 in Spain. He then produced "Then comes the sun" by Elisa, also composing two of the tracks for the album ("Heaven out of hell" and "Fever").
Corrado's third project in 2001 was "Virus", the debut album for Vicenza based rock band Mistonocivo, which also the first product his new label "Flood Records".
During the first half of 2003, Corrado produced the album by Cristina Marocco for EMI France, also contributing by writing the music for "Tous ces peut-etre". He also produced 5 songs for the new album by "Alessandro Safina". That summer, he produced a cover of "Nessuno mi può giudicare" for the young band "Gazosa", and later produced a new track for the rock band "Negramaro".
In 2005 he produced "Mentre tutto scorre" by Negramaro, which went multiple platinum in just a year. That same year he also produced an album for the upcoming band ameba4.
Corrado spent the first half of 2006 composing and recording his album "Deconstruction of a postmodern musician". The project involved the participation of numerous well known artists, including Allan Holdsworth, Elisa, Negramaro, Paul McCandless, Steve Smith, and Michael Manring, to mention a few. "Deconstruction" is also the soundtrack for the movie by Renato Pozzetto " Un amore su misura", which will be released in January 2007. In September he teamed up with Elisa again, producing three all new tracks - including the smash hit "Gli ostacoli del cuore" - for the artist's first greatest hits collection "Soundtrack 96 - 06". The album soared up the Italian charts, reaching diamond status in just a year.
In January 2007, he went back to the studio with Negramaro to produce their new project "La finestra". The first single from the album, "Parlami d'amore", immediately went to number 1, where it stayed for an incredible 15 weeks.
That same year he produced the album " Ferro e cartone" for Francesco Renga . The album – which immediately went to number 1 – spawned three singles, "Cambio direzione", "Ferro e cartone" and "Dimmi", which remained in the top three for over six months.
In May he produced three new tracks for the international version of Elisa's "Best of" album. The album, titled "Caterpillar", was released in Japan and the US.
August saw him in the studio for the first time with Luciano Ligabue. He produced two original new tracks for the artist's first "best of" album. The album, titled "Primo tempo", was released in November and went multiple platinum is just two weeks, buoyed by the success of the two singles "Niente paura" (number 1 for an astonishing 15 weeks) and "Buonanotte all'Italia".
On November 9th, 2007, he became the first producer in history to simultaneously detain the first top three spots in the Nielsen charts with three different artists.
#1 Niente paura (Ligabue)
#2 L'immenso (Negramaro)
#3 Ferro e cartone (Renga)
That year also saw him explore a new and exciting musical direction, assuming the role of "artistic producer" for the live performances of Francesco Renga and Luciano Ligabue, creating new arrangements and perfecting the sound.
In 2008, Corrado produced "Il centro del mondo" - the first single from the second "best of" album for Luciano Ligabue. The album, titled "Secondo tempo", was released on May 30th 2008.
In spite of his consolidated success as a musician, writer, producer and arranger, Corrado is actively engaged in finding new ways to help today's emerging generations of artists realize their dreams, while continuing to explore and define a new musical form that expresses a "Transmodern and Integral Embodiment of the Art of Music".
