Veloso first became known for his participation in the Brazilian musical movement Tropicalismo, which encompassed theatre, poetry and music in the 1960s, at the beginning of the Brazilian military dictatorship.He has remained a constant creative influence and best-selling performing artist and composer ever since.
Veloso has won nine Latin Grammy Awards and two Grammy Awards. On November 14, 2012, Veloso was honored as the Latin Recording Academy Person of the Year. He was born in the city of Santo Amaro da Purificao, in Bahia, a state in the northeastern area of Brazil, but moved to Salvador, the state capital, as a college student in the mid-1960s. Soon after the move, Veloso won a music contest and was signed to his first label. He became one of the founders of Tropicalismo with a group of several other musicians and artistsincluding his sister Maria Bethniain the same period. However the Brazilian government at the time viewed Velosos music and political action as threatening, and he was arrested, along with fellow musician Gilberto Gil, in 1969. The two eventually were exiled from Brazil, and went to London, where they lived for two years. After he moved back to his home country, in 1972, Veloso once again began recording and performing, becoming popular outside of Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s. A lovely glimpse at their early personas, and a very sweet record. CAETANO VELOSO is one of Brazils greatest contemporary songwriters, and perhaps the most stylistically consistent artist to come out of the late 60s tropicalia movement, which blended rock and roll, pop kitsch and North American youth culture into the already potent musical stew of Brazilian pop. From the start, Velosos work has radiated confidence and originality. Caetano Veloso 1969 Rar Series Of SongwritingCaetanos first national success came in a series of songwriting competitions and television appearances. In 1967, his growing notoriety led to a recording contract with the Philips label, a PolyGram subsidiary which more or less cornered the market on the new musical style. In addition to his fame as a performer and songwriter, Veloso became a Brazilian political and cultural icon. Tropicalia, a musical and socio-artistic movement which he had helped found, was a thorn in the side of the military junta which had taken over the country in 1964. Although it was explicitly not a part of the traditional Brazilian Left, tropicalia challenged the dictatorship either directly (by its flamboyant, carefree stylishness) or indirectly, in elliptical poetic imagery which held unmistakeably subversive meaning for its popular audience. Few writers were more skillful or as popular as Caetano Veloso, and in 1968, both he and his friend Gilberto Gil were briefly imprisoned by the military dictatorship. Following their release from prison, Veloso and Gil went into exile for several years, and Veloso settled mostly in London. During their exile, both artists continued to release albums in Brazil and provided new material for other MPB stars (especially Maria Bethania, Elis Regina, and Gal Costa) to record. When they returned to Brazil in 1972, they were even bigger celebrities than when they had left. Caetano Velosos artistic brilliance partly lays in his ability to appropriate popular sounds, such as mainstream rock and jazz fusion instrumentation, without letting contemporary technique overwhelm his own personal style. His albums embrace successive waves of pop music, from bossa nova to blues, acid rock and folk balladry, to blatant AOR. Veloso skillfully uses each style to frame his calm, conversational vocals (which in turn owe a huge debt to the cool, suave delivery of bossa nova legend, Joao Gilberto.) Finally, his lyrics are complex and allusive -- along with Ary Barroso and Chico Buarque, Caetano Veloso is considered one of the great songwriter-poets of the Portuguese language. His records are almost always very listenable, very classy and very innovative. This CD collection, long overdue, gathers many of the early singles by Veloso, Gil, Gal Costa (then called Maria Gracia), Tom Ze and Velosos sister, Maria Bethania. Of the group, Bethania and Gil were clearly the most confident -- he had several years of performing experience under his belt by the time of his 1965 recordings of Roda and Procissao, and she was a rising star in the Brazilian theatre. Even so, Bethanias husky vocals, though powerful and distinctive, were slightly overwhelmed by the clattersome arrangements, particularly on her hit, Cacara, and most of these tracks -- Gils being the exception -- suffer from relatively poor engineering and musical accompaniment that was a hangover from the early 60s bossa-jazz scene. This 12-song collection is lamentably short, only covering their recordings from 1965, but its an invaluable (and quite charming) glimpse at the earliest work from one of Brazils most influential groups of musicians. Beautiful bossa nova balladry, clearly under the spell of Joao Gilberto. The arrangements, with gentle percussion and lush strings and breezy flutes are standard late-model Philips-label bossa, produced under the guidance of the young Dori Caymmi. Considering her later, more brazen style, Costas somewhat tame, blase Astrud Gilberto-ish vocals stand out as an anomaly, though they are completely enjoyable. For his part, Veloso sounds tentative and unsure, not yet possessed of the cool confidence which pervades his later work. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |