'Shaddap You Face' singer Joe Dolce returns to roots with new cookbook
It took 30 minutes to write and just three minutes to record, but Joe Dolce's '80s hit Shaddap You Face has traversed generations.
The 1980 track went number one in nine countries and made top five in seven others, selling six million copies worldwide.
Versions of the tune have been recorded by 37 different artists in 15 different languages.
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Even Sir Elton John wanted a piece of the pie, with his record label Rocket Records suggesting Andrew Sachs, who played Manuel in Fawlty Towers, to record the song in Spanish.
But Joe took out an injunction in the UK courts and won.
"I think this was the first really, truly authentic Italian doing an Italian, right?" Dolce said.
"I apologised to everyone I knew in Lygon Street before it came out because I was worried that they was thinking I was taking the mickey out of them.
"Then they all said, 'Nah, it's cool' and then later they loved it and I got free cappuccinos for the next year."
Joe said he wrote Shaddap You Face based on memories of his childhood, when his family members would speak in broken English.
More than four decades on, he is returning to the memories of his Italian upbringing, releasing a cookbook filled with family recipes from the heart.
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Joe Dolce Cooks: My Most Loved Recipes taps into his Sicilian and Calabrian roots.
"(My) first inspiration was my grandmother because she taught me nose-to-tail cooking, when I was five," he said.
"They grew everything, they killed their own chickens and I would sit down there and at the table and eat peppers and stuffed with anchovies, five and six years old."
Dolce decided to dedicate the book to his daughter Blaise, who died last year.
A book publisher by trade, she loved her father's cooking and encouraged him to share his recipes with the world.
A Current Affair reporter Martin King joined Joe in his Carlton home to get a taste of the singer's cooking.
Joe Dolce Cooks: My Most Loved Recipes can be purchased here.