Valente

Her career as an internationally known vocalist began in 1953 when she joined Kurt Edelhagen's band in Germany. She was soon signed to Polydor and made her recording debut for them the same year. Her first big hits came soon after that. Two songs written for her by Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona charted in Europe and eventually England and the U.S. "Malaguena" was her first big hit, followed by "Analucia" which when re-released in an English version as "The Breeze and I" became a top ten hit in both the U.K. and the U.S. Valente by this time had become a truly multi-lingual artist, performing her cabaret act and issuing recordings in six languages: French, German, Italian, English, Spanish and Swedish.

When Caterina Valente was elaborating the concept for her new international album in 1968, the radio speakers were still blasting out Scott McKenzie's 1967 hymn of praise for the flower generation of San Francisco: "Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair". The new "swinging London" became the place of birth of new recordings by artists such as The Beatles, The Kinks and Petula Clark. And so, Caterina Valente and Eric van Aro, who was her husband and manager at that time, decided to do a tribute to sixties pop. They called the LP "Sweet Beat", centred around four successful songs by British artists plus four more hits that were actually performed by American artists in their original version.