Jacques Fred Petrus
Jacques Fred Petrus (French pronunciation: [ʒak fʁɛd pɛtrys]; born February 22, 1948 in Guadeloupe, French West Indies - June 8, 1987 in Saint-Felix, Guadeloupe, French West Indies) was a French-Italian businessman and a pioneer of Italian Disco music.
He worked as a diesel-engine mechanic on a cargo ship aged only 15 before his early interest for R&B and Soul music brought him to Paris where he worked as a DJ at different clubs, including the legendary jet-set nightclub "Club Saint-Hilaire".
In the early 70s, he moved to Milan, Italy and continued his career as a DJ for several famous local clubs like "Good Mood". After a crucial meeting with music student Mauro Malavasi (°1958) in Bologna, who became his working partner and main song writer and producer, they formed a disco production company called Goody Music Productions (GMP), invested in a recording studio at Bologna and created the Goody Music record label.
In 1978 the associates released their first studio project called Macho which was followed by more or less commercially successful disco productions like Revanche and Peter Jacques band. But it wasn't until 1980, when their latest creation called Change was revealed, that Petrus and Malavasi established their own signature sound and reached their goal of world wide success. In 1979 Fred Petrus gathered his international music activities under the company name Little Macho Music.
When Change hit the market in 1980 with their debut album The Glow of Love Petrus and Malavasi didn't realise the magnitude of the success that was to come. Petrus used two other Italian musicians besides Malavasi on this album, bassist Davide Romani (°1959) and guitarist Paolo Gianolio. Romani, who not only wrote the No 1 hits "A Lover's Holiday" and "The Glow of Love" (vocals by Luther Vandross, who was hired by Petrus to perform together with Jocelyn Brown), but also arranged and conducted the entire set in conjunction with Gianolio. Besides "A Lover's Holiday" which reached the No 1 spot on Billboards Hot Dance Club Play for nine weeks, the album also received 7 Grammy Award nominations.
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