The first two parts of this series followed six women through Fun Fun, Radiorama, Blue Russell, and a handful of other names built around their voices. This closing chapter looks at three more, including two who recorded under so many aliases that even dedicated collectors are still piecing their full catalogs back together.
Rossana Casale: Credited Once, Hidden Twice
Born in New York in 1959, Rossana Casale moved to Italy and spent the years between 1979 and 1984 building a career as a backing singer for established Italian artists like Mina and Al Bano before stepping into Italo disco. On Klein + M.B.O.'s "Dirty Talk," released in Milan in 1982 and later licensed by Atlantic Records in the United States, she was credited by name alongside producers Mario Boncaldo and Tony Carrasco, a rare case of a woman's voice and name appearing together on one of the genre's defining club records.
That same period, Casale also recorded under names that carried no trace back to her. As Annette Hillmann, she sang the theme used for the 1979 television series "Mille Non Più Mille," composed by Detto Mariano. Under the name Miss Mystery, her voice appeared on further dance productions. She also sang on records credited to Eva Eva Eva, Casanova, Bizzy & Co., Kano, and N.O.I.A., moving between full credit and complete anonymity from one session to the next, sometimes within the same year.
The American born Rossana Casale, who started out as a backup singer for the likes of Mina and Al Bano, made a name for herself in the Italo disco scene between 1979 and 1984.
Klein + M.B.O.
Formed by Mario Boncaldo and Tony Carrasco around vocalist Rossana Casale, one of the few Italo disco records where the singer's real name appeared on the sleeve.
Dora Carofiglio: A Catalog of Aliases
Born on 15 September 1962 in Bari, Dora Carofiglio became the lead voice of Novecento and the singer behind Valerie Dore, two projects produced largely by the Nicolosi family. Her clear, distinctive voice has been called by some collectors the single best vocal instrument the genre produced, but Valerie Dore and Novecento were only the visible tip of a much larger body of work recorded under names that gave no hint of who was actually singing.
Across the Nicolosi production network, Carofiglio recorded as Shirley Ross, Annie Addams, Gloria Addams, Ester B, Princess Rose, Mindy Love, and well over a dozen further aliases, lending her voice to groups including Angie, Domina, Jasmine, Jessica Jay, and P.R.D. She married producer Lino Nicolosi in the early 1990s and took his surname, but the bulk of her 1980s catalog remains scattered across names that only collectors and Discogs contributors have since traced back to her.
Stefania Dal Pino: From Incantations to Primadonna
Stefania Dal Pino began her recording career in 1983 with "Incantations" under the project name G.A.N.G. Her voice found wider attention the following year through "Magic Carillon," released under the name Rose, a project name later shared with at least one other singer from the Time Records circle. The success of that single led her into a longer running role as the vocalist of Primadonna, working closely with producer Roberto Zanetti, better known under his own stage name Savage.
Beyond her credited work with Primadonna, Dal Pino sang uncredited backing vocals on Savage's "I'm Losing You" and recorded as Mela, Laurie, Ross, and Bellissima, among other names tied to producers working out of the same Milan studio circles as Zanetti. Like so many of the women in this series, her recognizable voice carried records for years before fans began connecting the dots between one alias and the next.
Stefania Dal Pino debuted in 1983 with the single "G.A.N.G. - Incantations," and her fame grew considerably through her performance of "Magic Carillon" for the project Rose.
Primadonna
The longest running credited home for Stefania Dal Pino's voice, after a 1983 debut and a breakout single recorded under the name Rose.
Nine women, well over fifty names between them, and a genre that rarely bothered to match a voice to a face unless the marketing called for it. Some of these singers, like Spagna and Dal Pino's collaborator Zanetti, eventually stepped into the light under their own names. Others remain known today mostly through Discogs credits, fan research, and the patient work of collectors who kept asking who was really singing. That work is most of what makes it possible to write a series like this one at all.
