Charlie Rapino

Charlie started in the music industry as a freshly minted lawyer, promoting gigs by bringing the likes of Iggy Pop and Patti Smith to a radical Italian university crowd.

After working at the notorious Record Plant NYC and soaking up the house scene, he formed the Rapino Brothers with Marco Sabiu, moved to London in 1990 and never looked back. There they took the decade by storm, producing and recording records. After their first hit with Kym Mazelle's Love Me The Right Way, they masterminded Take That's first hit and produced, mixed and fixed many major pop acts during the 1990s, from Kylie to Primal Scream.

In 1997, Charlie was the "on air" producer for BBC's "Get Your Act Together", followed by "Full Frontal" on Channel 4. From 1999 to 2004 he was A&R Director for Sony Music International.

His energy never lets up. Over the years he has divided his time between management consultancy for Ennio Morricone, consultancy for Rolling Stone magazine, soundtrack work and production consultancy for movies and games (including fixing Iggy Pop to do the voice-overs on the Driver 3 video game), and signing and managing acts through his joint venture label with Sony, Stud Records.

In Get signed!, Charlie pulls back the curtain on decades of production and A&R experience to show you exactly what labels listen for, how to shape and present your act, and what it really takes to get noticed and land a deal.