Good afternoon Mr. Grittani,
Don’t know where to start without sounding too confusing, but I am a great fan. I just found out about your email address in a forum where you posted a comment and thought to myself that if I am lucky you might actually receive my email here. You just gotta be lucky sometimes and give things a shot, right?
I was born in Berlin 1976, my mother is from Paris. Today I am a film maker and co-founder of production company Parasol Island in Germany. I have started as graphic designer and DOP, then went into advertising with my three best friends as partners. We shoot car commercials for german brands such as Porsche and Audi, do fashion films, special effects and a few documentaries that won us a great reputation. My wife is fashion designer, we live a very creative life and I hope to be able to pass my records on to our son one day.
I bought my first Donna Feltman LP about 5 years ago now and was lucky enough to find another three copies on ebay, that I played so much that they became unplayable. That’s how much this album means to me. I am not kidding. It has a place ranking above the rest of my very, very deep collection.
How did this start? In 1982, when I was 6, my french grandfather had sent me to buy his records across the street, as he wasn’t able to walk anymore. I had to pick up his orders of Amanda Lear, Cerrone and Jarre, haha. Sure you heard these names before - at least in Paris they were common. That was pretty when I first got infected with a passion for disco sound.
Ever since the age of 15 I re-started to collect a lot of 1970s disco, made it my hobby next to film. First the obvious material by some of the standards like Moroder, Midney, Costandinos, John Davis, Montana and their likes. Later on I got interested in side projects and smaller attempts, didn’t want to scratch just on the surface anymore. Instead of looking any further within the US material I became interested in the European disco and funk - untapped material, really. I built up some knowledge on underground disco, that is so below the ground that you actually wouldn’t find any of it listed or discussed the web yet, most coming from Italy. I made smaller trips and found crazy material there, in Neaples and near Milan. Really, really weird stuff ;) bands that shouldn’t have recorded any of this ;) probably were under the impression that recording a disco track could make them instantly famous. I found a privately pressed 7“ record that sounds like a trashier version of Donna Feltman, very mysterious, see what I mean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K20eVlgc5XI
Five years ago I win an auction on ebay for a record called MY GREATEST LOVE by Donna Marie Feltman. That record nailed everything I like - unknown territory, obscure concept, sexy voice, long tracks with great use of effects, synths and a few border tropical elements. I really became obsessed with this release and was sure the name Frank Grittano was nothing but a pseudo/cover of another name, as no other informations seemed to exist on this mysterious producer. Yesterday evening I walk back in home, my wife does sushi, kid in bed, I walk to the shelves where I store my thousands of records treasures and pull out Donna’s LP once more, while thinking to myself „I should look up this name again, see if I find anything on the man behind this music.
And there we go, you must have written a comment not too long ago on a site called
discomusic.com. Weirdly nobody there seems to get too excited, when you commented. Do they know Donna’s LP at all and what they are missing? I doubt it.
In case you ever read this, I just want to let you know that on the other side of the planet there is a person, quite influential within a certain frame and scene, that knows almost everything there is to obscure unknown disco music, but never has had any music-related wish that was bigger than finding out who the person was behind Donna Feltman. I have so many questions and if you are still doing well, who knows, maybe I am allowed to find out more about you. Did you ever record anything else? Was Golden Fleece a label for just one release or did you record singles as I am obsessed with singles. To me you are nothing less than one of the true masters of this time. I could drown in the sounds of „over the rainbow“.
kind regards,
Charles Bals
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Charles Bals
Creative Director. Founder.
Managing Directors: Charles Bals, Sebastian Druschel, Philip Hansen, Moritz von Schrötter | AG Düsseldorf - HRB 47736
