Zucchero’s worldwide success seems unstoppable! After working his way up charts all over Europe, the album “Zucchero & Co.” entered the Billboard Top 200 at an astonishing nr. 85!!!
This is extremely important because it’s well known that the European musicians find it extremely difficult to be noticed by the American public particularly if they don’t sing in English/American.
Many years have gone by since an Italian pop artist made it into the Top 100 of the most important chart in the world!
This is an historic event because no Italian pop artist has managed this feat only one week after the release of the album. The album came out in the U.S. on the 12th of July on Concord Records and has already sold 200,000 copies.
“Zucchero & Co.”, as well as being sold in normal music shops, can be found in all Starbucks cafes, a method which has been used for some of the most important artists in the world like Coldplay, Norah Jones and Ray Charles.
In-fact, an article appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal Europe on the 19th of July that focuses on Zucchero.
“Zucchero & Co.’s” grand entrance into the Top 100 is certainly good news for Zucchero and may help other Italian artists to break through into the Anglo-saxon market.
This the article that appeared in the L.A. Times on the 18th of July.

SINGER STORMS U.S. WITH LOTS OF BACKUP

By Randy Lewis, Times Staff Writer

The same folks who helped turn Ray Charles' final album into the biggest seller of his career with assistance from a raft of superstar duet partners will put out a new album Tuesday featuring Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Sheryl Crow, Sting and other pop music celebs all singing with Zucchero.
No, that's not an Italian superlative meaning "extreme zest." It means "sugar," and it's the stage name of Adelmo Fornaciari, a star in Europe for some two decades who has yet to gain a significant foothold in the United States. The vehicle that could help change that situation is "Zucchero & Co.," the latest collaboration between Starbucks' Hear Music division and Concord Records, which catapulted Charles' posthumous "Genius Loves Company" album to platinum-plus sales and multiple Grammy wins.
"Zucchero & Co." is being released nationally — in retail music stores as well as at Starbucks. Despite Zucchero's low stateside profile to date, as well as the historic difficulty international artists have had winning over American audiences, "we're very excited about the potential of this album," says Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment. "Our customers make up a huge component of music consumers, but they have become disconnected and are constantly attempting to say that to us. They love being exposed to new music."
The album consists of duets Zucchero recorded over a number of years, most previously unreleased. The oldest is a 1988 track with jazz trumpeter Miles Davis, the most recent a 2003 number pairing him with soul singer Solomon Burke.
He also collaborated with rock en español band Maná, with whom he did his most recent U.S. tour, two years ago, as well as Algerian raï singer Cheb Mami, British rock-soul singer Paul Young and two of Zucchero's countrymen, Luciano Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli, the latter of whom he discovered. Zucchero shepherded Bocelli's debut album and gave him his first major European concert tour.
Possibly the biggest thrill for Zucchero is the leadoff track, "I Lay Down," on which he sang with John Lee Hooker just two months before the veteran bluesman's death in 2001.
"That was a dream for me — he was one of my heroes," Zucchero, 49, said from Italy last week.
"I love American music, black music…. I also love Italian opera and romanza [romance songs]. They are the two parts in me. One is the blues and the other is the music of Puccini and Verdi."
Rather than simply assemble various recorded duets into a single collection, Zucchero revisited the original recordings and reproduced most to bring a greater sense of sonic and stylistic cohesion. The album was released last year in Europe.