Severo Lombardoni

Severino "Severo" Lombardoni (7 March 1949 in Pedrengo at Bergamo - 13 February 2012 in Milan) was a music producer in Italy. He was founder and owner of Discomagic S.r.l and is known as a pioneer of Italo disco and Italo Dance music.

Severo was the oldest child of Francesco Lombardoni and his wife Francesca, née Nava. He has had three younger siblings; his sisters Anna and Ornella, and a brother Vittorio, who are all involved in the music industry. Severo attended technical college in Seriate from 1960 to 1963 and graduated at the Conservatorio “Giuseppe Verdi” di Milano in 1969.

As a teenager Severo was a keen cyclist and regularly took part in local cycle races. He played several instruments; including the trombone, the piano, the accordion and the guitar during his time at the Conservatory in Milan, and for some years after he played in several local bands. He also worked for a year as a music teacher at a junior school.

In 1974 Lombardoni opened a record shop in his home town of Seriate. In 1977 he moved to Milan and set up a record-wholesale business.

In 1981 Lombardoni established the record company DiscoMagic and the publishing company Lombardoni Edizioni Musicali. He was one of the pioneers of Italo disco music in the early 1980s and DiscoMagic was hugely successful, becoming one of the major Italo disco producers in Italy. As well as the major label Disco Magic Severo created several sub-labels to promote different music genres. In addition, DiscoMagic distributed Italian, European and worldwide titles on behalf of labels such as “Time Records”, “DWA”, “RARE” and “GGM”.

DiscoMagic had its headquarters in Via Mecenate in Milan which subsequently became the centre for music wholesalers and producers. In the late 1980s he was extremely successful with his compilations and was the first Italian music producer to make use of TV advertising.

With Lombardoni Publishing Srl Severo acted as music publisher too. Some of the composers he has collaborated with include Pierluigi Giombini, Paolo Pelandri, Domenico Ricchini, Manuel Curry and Luis Garcia Perez. His major successes included “Dolce vita” by Ryan Paris, “Happy children” by P. Lion, “Don't cry tonight” by Savage, "Shanghai", "Sayonara" by Lee Marrow ; all released in 1983 and “Ride on Time” by Black Box released in 1989 . “Ride on time” from the record “Dreamland” became a huge success throughout Europe, and the United States as well, although the success was somewhat marred by copyright disputes.

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