A few weeks ago I talked about Brazilian reggae, and before that I had mentioned Brazilian post-punk, Brazilian rock etc. Indeed, alongside with traditional local styles such as samba, frevo, forró (but which are also usually local interpretations and mixtures of foreign styles), in Brazil we also like to ‘import’ music genres from elsewhere, but it always ends up sounding quite different from their original sources; the mixture with Brazilian rhythms and sounds is simply inevitable.
Another example is Brazilian soul music. (When I was in Brazil last July I bought a cd called ‘Soul do Brasil’, a collection of Brazilian soul songs, which offers a good overview of the genre; and here is an informative text in Portuguese about Brazilian soul.) The absolute king of Brazilian soul is Tim Maia; basically, he single-handedly initiated the genre. He released his first record in 1970, which was immediately a huge success with its novel combination of American soul with Brazilian rhythms. Besides his music, his iconoclastic, outspoken attitude did not go unnoticed, and he was famous in particular for missing appointments and concerts. But most importantly, his husky voice and his vocal range of lower register were put to good use not only for soul but also for other rhythms and styles.
Tim Maia died in 1998; he had struggled with all kinds of health conditions over the years, and after feeling ill during a concert, he was hospitalized and died a few days later. Again, a great loss for Brazilian music. (I should really blog about Brazilian musicians who are not dead for a change!)
I’m posting three songs by Tim Maia: ‘Primavera’, from his first record, because it was one of my late father’s favorite songs; ‘O caminho do bem’ (1976), for my friend Victor Tsu who turns 34 today; and ‘Descobridor dos sete mares’ (1983), which represents Tim Maia’s more poppish turn in the 1980s, and is one of the best Brazilian dancing songs of all times!
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