Caetano Veloso

Caetano Veloso

Caetano Emanuel Viana Teles Veloso (born August 7, 1942), better known as Caetano Veloso, is a Grammy Award-winning composer, singer, guitarist, writer, and political activist. He has been called "one of the greatest songwriters of the century" and is sometimes considered to be the Bob Dylan of Brazil. Veloso is most known for the Brazilian musical movement Tropicalismo which encompassed theatre, poetry and music in the 1960s, at the beginning of the military dictatorship in Brazil.

Veloso was born in Bahia, a state in the northeastern area of Brazil, but moved to Rio de Janeiro 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 was one of the founders of Tropicalismo with several other musicians and artists, notably including his sister Maria Bethânia, in the same period. However the Brazilian government at the time viewed Veloso's music and political action as threatening, and he was arrested, along with fellow musician Gilberto Gil, in 1969. The two eventually left Brazil for London but returned in 1972. After he moved back to his home country, Veloso once again began recording and performing, becoming popular outside of Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s. He has so far won five Latin Grammy Awards.

Biography

Early years (1942–1969)

Veloso was born in Santo Amaro da Purificação, Bahia, the fifth of seven children of José Teles Veloso and Claudionor Viana Teles Veloso. He moved to Rio de Janeiro in the early 1960s, won a lyrics contest for his composition "Um Dia", and was signed to Philips Records soon after. Beginning in 1967, with collaborators as Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, Tom Zé, and Os Mutantes, 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, it introduced Música Popular Brasileira, new elements for making music with an eclectic style. Veloso's home, Bahia, has had a decisive role in his 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. He began his career singing Latin pop with a bossa nova edge and has cited his greatest early musical influences as João Gilberto and Dorival Caymmi.

Veloso studied philosophy at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, which influenced both his artistic expression and viewpoint on life. Two of his favorite philosophers were Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger. Veloso's political stance, unapologetically leftist, earned him the enmity of Brazil's military dictatorship which ruled until 1985; his songs were frequently censored and some 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 Gil spent several months in prison for "anti-government activity" in 1969 and faced exile. The federal police detained the two and flew them to an unknown destination. Finally, Veloso and Gil lived out their exile in London, England. When Caetano was asked about his experience there he says, "London felt dark, and I felt far away from myself." Nevertheless, the two improved their music there and were asked to make a musical production with the producer Ralph Mace.

Musical career (1972–present)

Veloso performs in Lisbon, Portugal in 2007

Caetano Veloso's work upon his return in 1972 was often characterized by frequent merging not only of international styles but of Brazilian folkloric styles and rhythms as well. In the 1980s Veloso's popularity grew outside Brazil, especially in Israel, Greece, Portugal, France, and Africa. His records released in the United States, such as O estrangeiro, helped gain him a larger audience.

To celebrate 25 years of Tropicalismo, Veloso and Gilberto Gil released a CD called Tropicalia 2 in 1993. One song, "Haiti", attracted people's attention during the time, especially because it included powerful statements about sociopolitical issues present in Haiti and also in Brazil. Issues addressed in the song included ethnicity, poverty, homelessness, and capital corruption in the AIDS pandemic. By 2004, he was one of the most respected and prolific international pop stars, with more than 50 recordings available including songs in film soundtracks of Michelangelo Antonioni's Eros, Pedro Almodóvar's Hable con ella, 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 Tropicalismo movement, Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil.

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 United States. It won two Latin Grammy Awards, one for best singer-songwriter (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.

Personal life

Veloso's first marriage in 1969 was to a dance 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 (born 1992) and Tom (born 1997). Veloso and Lavigne divorced in 2004.

Discography

Studio albums

• 1967: Domingo
• 1968: Caetano Veloso
• 1968: Tropicália: ou Panis et Circenses
• 1968: Veloso, Gil e Bethania
• 1969: Caetano Veloso
• 1971: Caetano Veloso
• 1972: Transa
• 1973: Araçá Azul
• 1975: Jóia
• 1975: Qualquer Coisa
• 1976: Doces Bárbaros
• 1977: Muitos Carnavais
• 1978: Muito (dentro da estrela azulada)
• 1979: Cinema Transcendental
• 1981: Outras Palavras
• 1981: Brasil
• 1982: Cores, Nomes

• 1983: Uns
• 1984: Velô
• 1986: Caetano Veloso
• 1987: Caetano
• 1989: Estrangeiro
• 1991: Circuladô
• 1993: Tropicália 2 (with Gilberto Gil)
• 1994: Fina Estampa
• 1995: O Quatrilho (film soundtrack)
• 1996: Tieta do Agreste (film soundtrack)
• 1997: Livro
• 1999: Orfeu (film soundtrack)
• 2000: Noites do Norte
• 2002: Eu não peço desculpas (with Jorge Mautner)
• 2002: Todo Caetano (box set)
• 2004: A Foreign Sound
• 2005: Onqotô
• 2006: Cê

Live albums

• 1968: Ao Vivo
• 1972: Barra 69 ao vivo na Bahia
• 1972: Caetano e Chico - Juntos ao Vivo
• 1974: Temporada de Verão - ao vivo na Bahia
• 1977: Bicho
• 1978: Maria Bethânia e Caetano Veloso ao Vivo
• 1986: Totalmente Demais
• 1992: Circuladô Vivo
• 1994: Fina Estampa ao Vivo
• 1999: Prenda Minha
• 1999: Omaggio a Federico e Giulietta
• 2001: Noites do Norte ao vivo
• 2007: Cê ao vivo

Further reading

• Veloso, Caetano (2003). Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil. New York City, New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
• Mei, Giancarlo (2004). Canto Latino: Origine, Evoluzione e Protagonisti della Musica Popolare del Brasile (in Italian). Stampa Alternativa-Nuovi Equilibri. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)

External links

• Official site
• Template:MySpace