Inspired by the productions of Italo-disco producer and mixer DJ Pierre, Gianfranco Bortolotti began mixing around Italy while at school in the late '70s. The Cappella Project had already debuted as a production team by the end of the decade, though Bortolotti did little more than mix in the music industry until the mid-'80s. In 1987, he produced Cappella's "Bauhaus (Push the Beat)," a club hit throughout Europe and the UK. The following year brought the contintent-wide Top 10 hit "Heylom Halib," which presaged a wave of similar-sounding Italian house tracks during 1989-90. Bortolotti recorded a Cappella album (the cash-in heavy Heylom Halib), and scored again with the singles "Be Master in One's Own House" and "House of Energy Revenge." To his credit, he did recruit seminal diva Loleatta Holloway for the single "Take Me Away," less successful than the chart-entries but much better.
After several additional 1992-93 hits ("U Got 2 Know"), Bortolotti decided to make an act of Cappella with the addition of two Brits -- Rodney Bishop (formerly with Positive Gang) and Kelly Overett (a vocalist who had worked with SL2). The singles "U Got 2 Let the Music" and "Move on Baby" became Cappella's biggest hits, hitting number one in several countries during 1994. The album U Got 2 Know did appreciably well, though Overett left by 1995 (to be replaced by Allison Jordan). Soon however, Cappella appeared to be running on steam. The 1995-96 singles like "Tell Me the Way" and "I Need Your Love" barely made the European charts, and their 1996 album War in Heaven fared poorly (though it was released in America). ~ John Bush, Rovi