Romantic balladeer, Drupi (born: Giam Piero Anelli) became one of the few Italian artists to have a hit a hit in the United Kingdom when his song, Vado Via, reached the seventeenth slot on the British pop charts in 1974. The winner of the San Remo Festival song competition, the tune remained in the British top fifty for three months and was subsequently covered by the Loud Family, the New Seekers and Frida. Born in the northern Italian city of Pavia, Drupi found his early inspiration in the music of the Beatles. In the mid-1960s, he performed with an Italian rock band, the Magnets. Launching a solo career, in the early-1970s, Drupi scored with a hit in his homeland, "Rimani, that reached the second position on the Italian music charts in early-1974. He followed with a chart-topping hit, "Piccola e Fragile, a few months later. ~ Craig Harris