from 16 he moved on to learning the tenor saxophone. In Forte dei Marmi, he finished his technical high school studies, and moved again, this time to the city of Carrara. Career 1970–1986: Early career and first albums His musical career began in 1970, with several small bands such as I Duca, Le nuove luci, I Decals, Sugar & Daniel, Sugar & Candies. At that time, he was studying veterinary medicine; although he liked animals and the course (taking 39 out of the 51 exams), he wanted to be different from his parents and withdrew from the course in order to pursue his aspirations. In 1975, he went to San Francisco, and there met the then-young Corrado Rustici from Naples, his future record producer. They talked about a future collaboration on a project with Afro-American influences which was then unusual for Italy In 1979, Zucchero wrote "Tutto di te" by Fred Bongusto, and the hit "Te ne vai" by Michele Pecora. He found initial success with a band named Taxi, with whom he won the Castrocaro Music Festival in 1981. He made his first appearance in the famous Sanremo Music Festival in 1982 with the song "Una notte che vola via" but without success. However, he wrote and produced the festival hit song "Lisa" by Stefano Sani. In the 1983 festival, he had a similar success with "Nuvola", and went on to write four other festival songs, including "Volevo dirti", sung by Donatella Milani, which was placed second. His first album, Un po' di Zucchero, was released the same year with moderate success. Although as a young songwriter, he had great success, his solo career did not initially reach the same level of success that he and producers had expected. Disappointed with his solo career, in 1984 he temporarily moved to San Francisco in California, where he collaborated with his old friend Corrado Rustici. The result of these sessions, with a backing band that included bassist Randy Jackson, was the 1985 album Zucchero & The Randy Jackson Band, and the song "Donne" (in English, "Women"). He again played at the Sanremo festival and, although the song "Donne" ended up in a disappointing penultimate place (due to the festival critics), it became a hit single and one of the classic Italian songs. After the relative success of Zucchero & The Randy Jackson Band, Fornaciari joined Rustici again in California to work