Caetano Veloso

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Caetano Emanuel Viana Teles Veloso (born 7 August, 1942), known as Caetano Veloso, is a Grammy Award-winning Brazilian composer and singer, called "One of the greatest songwriters of the century" , whose voice "carries an abiding tenderness and is sometimes considered the Bob Dylan of Brazil.

Biography

Veloso was born in Santo Amaro da Purificação, Bahia, the fifth of the seven children born to José Teles Veloso ("Seu Zeca") (1901-1983) and Claudionor Viana Teles Veloso ("Dona Canô") (1907-). He chose the name for his baby sister, Maria Bethânia (Veloso's parents's sixth child), named after a famous song of the time (18 June, 1946) by Nelson Gonçalves. Maria Bethânia preceded him to fame as an important singer in the mid-1960s and she was the first to present Veloso's compositions to the public.

Veloso’s homeland, Bahia, has a decisive role in Veloso’s music. He praises Bahia for its importance in Brazil’s colonial period—when the Portuguese first came— as well as for Bahia’s contribution to Brazilian music. This place is influenced by African rhythms and has a unique way to perform carnival.

He began his career singing Latin pop with a bossa nova edge, and he has cited his greatest musical influences from his early period as João Gilberto and Dorival Caymmi. (João Gilberto would say later about Caetano's contribution that it added an intellectual dimension to Brazilian popular music.) With such musical collaborators Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Tom Zé, and Os Mutantes, and a strong influence of the later work of The Beatles, Veloso developed Tropicalismo, which fused Brazilian pop with rock and roll and avant garde music resulting in a more international, psychedelic, and socially aware sound. Even though Tropicalismo was controversial among traditional critics, this album introduced to “MPB (Música Popular Brasileira)” new elements for making music with an eclectic style .

As a youth, Caetano Veloso studied philosophy, which influenced both his artistic expression and his life’s viewpoint. Two of his favorite philosophers were Sartre and Heidegger. Veloso's politically active stance, unapologetically leftist, earned him the enmity of Brazil's military dictatorship which ruled until 1985; his songs were frequently censored, and some were banned. Veloso was also alienated from the socialist left in Brazil because of his acceptance and integration of non-nationalist influences (like rock and roll) in his music. Veloso and Gilberto Gil spent several months in jail for "anti-government activity" in 1968 and faced exile. The federal police detained them and flew them to an unknown destination. Finally, Veloso and Gilberto Gil lived out their exile in London. When Caetano is asked about his experience there he says “London felt dark, and I felt far away from myself.” Nevertheless, they improved their music there and they were asked to make a musical production for with the producer Ralph Mace. Along with many other artists Caetano was living each verse of Geraldo Vandre´s political hymn: : Yet they make of a flower their strongest refrain, And believe flowers to defeat guns.

Caetano Veloso's work upon his return in 1972 was often characterized by frequent merger not only of international styles, but of half-forgotten Brazilian folkloric styles and rhythms as well. In particular, his celebration of the Afro-Brazilian culture of Bahia can be seen as the precursor of such Afro-centric groups as Timbalada.

Veloso is most known for the Brazilian musical movement Tropicalismo, which included theatre, poetry and music in the 1960s, at the beggining of the military dictatorship in Brazil. Veloso and Gilberto Gill, inspired by Jimi Hendrix and Chuck Berry, introduced a new sound to Brazil, which included traditional Brazilian rhythms with electric guitars and psychedelic flourishes. In the 1980s, Veloso's popularity outside Brazil grew, especially in Israel, Greece, Portugal, France and Africa. In the United States, his records, such as O estrangeiro, produced by Arto Lindsay helped gain him a larger audience. To celebrate twenty five years of Tropicalismo, Veloso and Gilberto Gil released a CD called Tropicalia 2 in 1993. A song, "Haiti", attracted people's attention during the time, especially because it included powerful statement about sociopolitical issues, which was present in Haiti, but also in Brazil. "Think of Haiti, pray for Haiti/ Haiti is here, Haiti isnt't there". Issues sang in this song included from ethnical issues, poverty, collective murder of homeless children who were called "supernumerary" or "excess" kids, who were children of impoverished and often single or abandoned women, capital corruption to HIV/AIDS epidemics. By 2004, he was one of the most respected and prolific international pop stars, with more than fifty recordings available, including songs in soundtracks of movies such as Michelangelo Antonioni's Eros, Pedro Almodóvar's Hable con Ella (Talk to Her), and Frida, for which he performed at the 75th Academy Awards but did not win. In 2002 Veloso published an account of his early years and the Tropicália movement, Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil. In his albums he has included surprising personal versions of well-known Latin-American songs, among them some by Venezuelan folk songwriter Simón Díaz.

His first all-English CD was A Foreign Sound (2004), which covers Nirvana's Come as You Are and compositions from the Great American Songbook. Five of the six songs on his third eponymous album, released in 1971, were also in English.

His January 2007 album, Cê was released by Nonesuch Records' in the US. It won two Latin Grammys, one for best singer-songwriter (the cantautor in the Spanish terminology of the Latin Grammys) , and one for Best Portuguese Song, "Não me arrependo" . With a total of five Latin Grammys, Veloso has received more than any other Brazilian performer.

Charity

On July 18, 2005 Caetano Veloso held a concert at the Villa dei Quintili (along the Via Appia Antica in Rome) in favor of the association "Regina Viarum" headed by Venezuelan-born philanthropist and socialite Marisela Federici Rivas y Cardona whose aim is to provide funds for the restoration of archaeological sites on the Via Appia Antica in Rome.

Marriages

Veloso's first marriage in 1969 was with a dancing student named Andréa Gadelha, known as Dedé, who was the sister of Gilberto Gil's ex-wife Sandra Gadelha. With Dedé, he had his first son Moreno born in 1972. In 1982, Veloso started a relationship with Paula Lavigne. Veloso's marriage with Gadelha ended in 1983 and he married Lavigne in 1986 when she was 17. The couple had two sons Zeca (b. 1992) and Tom (b. 1997). Veloso and Lavigne divorced in 2004.

Discography

Studio

1967 - Domingo (with Gal Costa) Philips
1968 - Caetano Veloso Philips
1968 - Tropicália ou Panis et Circensis (with Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes, Nara Leão, and Gal Costa) Philips
1968 - "Veloso, Gil e Bethania" RCA Victor
1969 - Caetano Veloso Philips
1971 - Caetano Veloso Philips
1972 - Transa Philips
1973 - Araçá Azul Phonogram/Philips
1975 - Jóia Philips
1975 - Qualquer Coisa Philips
1976 - Doces Bárbaros (with Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil and Maria Bethânia) Philips
1977 - Muitos Carnavais Phonogram/Philips
1978 - Muito (dentro da estrela azulada) Philips
1979 - Cinema Transcendental Polygram/Philips
1981 - Outras Palavras Philips
1981 - Brasil (with João Gilberto, Gilberto Gil and Maria Bethânia) WEA
1982 - Cores, Nomes Philips
1983 - Uns Philips
1984 - Velô Philips
1986 - Caetano Veloso Nonesuch
1987 - Caetano Philips
1989 - Estrangeiro Philips
1991 - Circuladô Polygram
1993 - Tropicália 2 (with Gilberto Gil) Polygram/Philips
1994 - Fina Estampa Polygram
1995 - O Quatrilho Natasha/Blue Jackel (film soundtrack)
1996 - Tieta do Agreste Natasha/Blue Jackel (film soundtrack)
1997 - Livro Polygram
1999 - Orfeu Natasha (film soundtrack)
2000 - Noites do Norte Universal Music
2002 - Eu não peço desculpas (with Jorge Mautner) Universal Music
2002 - Todo Caetano (40 CD boxed set) Universal Music
2004 - A Foreign Sound Universal Music
2005 - Onqotô Independent
2006 - Cê Universal Music

Live

1968 - Ao Vivo (with Os Mutantes) Philips [live]
1972 - Barra 69 ao vivo na Bahia (with Gilberto Gil) Philips [live]
1972 - Caetano e Chico - Juntos ao Vivo (with Chico Buarque) Phonogram [live]
1974 - Temporada de Verão - ao vivo na Bahia (with Gilberto Gil and Gal Costa) Phonogram [live]
1977 - Bicho Philips
1978 - Maria Bethânia e Caetano Veloso ao Vivo Phonogram
1986 - Totalmente Demais Polygram/Philips [live]
1992 - Circuladô Vivo Polygram [live]
1994 - Fina Estampa ao Vivo Polygram [live]
1999 - Prenda Minha Polygram [live]
1999 - Omaggio a Federico e Giulietta Universal Music [live]
2001 - Noites do Norte ao vivo Universal Music [live]
2007 - Cê ao vivo Universal Music

References

External links

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