Caetano Veloso, a key figure of Brazilian culture, with a creativity that continues to surprise at every album and concert. Photo: Mono Gomez
Caetano Veloso, one of the most universal voices of Brazilian music and key figure of culture of the country, celebrates its 80th anniversary today and continues to be an inexhaustible source of creativity.
The Brazilian singer-songwriter, winner of two Grammy Awards and ten Latin Grammys, is one of the most present voices in Brazilian music in recent decades, since the rise of bossa nova in the 1960s.
Caetano has been compared to the Nobel Prize for Literature Bob Dylan, for the lyrics and the intellectual level of their songs. He shared the stage with greats like Pavarotti and was revered by Madonna and Almodóvar, who have carried his voice in many of his films of him.
Caetano Veloso during the recent Cantares Fiesta de Trova and Canción Urbana festival, in the University City of Mexico City. Photo: EFE
After eight decades of life and more than 50 years of artistic work, the tributes were not long in coming: from a compilation of his songs to an “unconventional” biography are part of the party that was launched in his honor, something that the ‘artist will complete today Sunday with an “intimate” and familiar live concert for all of Brazilattended by his three children and the famous Maria Bethânia, his sister.
More than five decades of music
the songwriter began his professional career in 1965 with the single Cavaleiro / Samba in peace and in 1967 with the album Sundaywhose success allowed him to meet his idol and father of the bossa nova, João Gilberto, with whom he worked on various projects.
Known for a repertoire of high lyrical and intellectual value, Caetano has released more than 50 albums. the last one is my coconutreleased in 2021, and the pinnacle was the album in Spanish Nice postage stampwith which it strengthened its presence in Latin America.
At the age of 79 Caetano Veloso released Meu coco, an album in which he once again shows a time-tested creative elegance. Photo courtesy of the press
In recent years the composer has collaborated with his sons Moreno, Zeca and Tom, who have inherited the passion for music, a collaboration that gave birth to Offertory in 2018.
Caetano Veloso and his sons Moreno, Tom and Zeca at the Gran Rex in the first of his two presentations in September 2019. Photo: Mono Gómez
The beginnings
Music flows in Caetano’s veins to the cadenza of the region of Bahia, where the African heritage resounds in the drums that honor the “orixás” (gods) of candomblé and umbanda.
The cultural syncretism that has been in force for centuries and that has lived since the early years in the small town of Santo Amaro da Purificaçao, has had a strong influence for the singer-songwriter, as well as Fellini’s cinema, the texts of Clarice Lispector and Sartre existentialism.
Although he had already played the first chords at the age of 5 and recorded his first song at the age of 10 – only for his family – Caetano did not consider himself a musician due to his poor guitar skills, so he even thought of devoting himself to painting or becoming a teacher.
Caetano Veloso at the age of 79, when he released his latest album. Photo courtesy of the press / Fernando Young
“Unlike all the artists of his generation, he was impressed Chega de saudade by João Gilberto, but did not immediately enter music (…) due to that insecurity of not being able to dominate any instrument and even less that of his idol: the guitar “, said Tom Cardoso, author of Other words: six times Caetanoone of the works launched this month in his honor.
It was the year 1965, the military dictatorship had just prevailed in Brazil and the times of psychedelia, peace and love have had to face repression.
Caetano Veloso in the late 1960s. Photo: official site
In this situation he met Gilberto Gil, who, according to Cardoso, already distinguished himself at the time for his guitar skills and was the protagonist of Caetano’s leap into music after having taught him to defend himself with the instrument.
From there would be born an indestructible friendship that shared prison and even exile in London, which shaped Brazilian Popular Music (MPB) and led Tropicalism, a cultural movement that went beyond music and integrated styles. different and avant-garde. , but always with Brazilian roots present.
Caetano Veloso in 1997, in a tribute concert to Fellini in Italy. Photo: AP
a key artist
For Cardoso, Caetano is “a fundamental figure” of Brazilian culture who “went beyond” the musical sphere and characterized himself as controversial and contradictory, a character who has raised dust in the country.
“Caetano always contradicts himself”, because “he knows that things change”, that “not everything is absolute truth”, assures the author.
Caetano Veloso in 1998, time of the tour “Fina estampa en vivo”.
Critic of the dictatorship, but also of the left, he has now clearly positioned himself against the policies of President Jair Bolsonaro and even in his latest album “he leaves a message of the setback that is being experienced in Brazil”.
source EFE
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Source: Clarin
