His best-known singles include "People Gotta Move" (1974), "I Just Wanna Stop" (1978), "Living Inside Myself" (1981) and "Wild Horses" (1987).

His father, (Joseph) Russ Vannelli, sang with the Montreal dance bands of trumpeters Bix Belair and Maynard Ferguson.

When Herb Alpert, the co-owner of A&M Records, finally emerged, Vannelli ran toward him and gave him a demo tape while being chased by security guards.

Departing from the jazz-pop idiom, Vannelli released two mostly acoustic jazz discs, Yonder Tree (1995) and Slow Love (1997).

Canto, released by BMG in 2003, features songs sung in English, Italian, Spanish, and French, and is considered by fans and Vannelli himself to be one of his strongest musical accomplishments.

After each blowout home victory during the 2008 season, the video crew at the TD Banknorth Garden played a clip from Dick Clark's American Bandstand that featured a bearded disco dancer clad in a tight Gino Vannelli T-shirt.

[13] The Wall Street Journal reported in 2008 that the dancer in the Gino shirt was a young man named Joseph R. Massoni, and that he died of pneumonia in 1990.

[14] "People Gotta Move" became a small hit again in the Netherlands in 2008 after this song was used in a commercial on TV and radio of the ANWB (Dutch road assistance).