Full disclosure, I know I’ve been writing tracts that stretch much longer than most people have the time for. Know that, a lot of this information I add not out of a hate towards concise prose, but because a lot of this info you’ll probably won’t ever know unless you can understand Portuguese, and I believe in doing due diligence for that person who actually is interested in the albums I’m highlighting. In some way, it might the only English description that exists out there for it, sadly enough! Its with this in mind that the album I’m bringing to light today is a Godsend. Os Novos Baiano’s “Acabou Chorare”, released in 1972, is such an important and popular album in Brazil, usually it winds up in the top spot of all time great Brazilian albums by a lot of critics. So much so, that it actually has a pretty good Wikipedia page that outlines its place in Brazilian music history and its creation.
My favorite tidbits that aren’t in the English wikipedia page:
– Joao Gilberto’s actual role in the creation of the album. How he took a group that was lost, thinking that they had to rock out more to become popular and appeared one late night at their commune to play unheard of, or forgotten sambas for them. One of these “Brazil Pandeiro” by Assis Valente, flipped their lid and it became the first song they chose to cover, and also their biggest hit.
– The band itself was dead poor. They only had money for two things: marijuana and futebol gear.
– They reintroduced to popular Brazilian music the use of cavaquinhos (ukuleles of a sort) and craviolas (a gift by the older sambista great Paulinho Nogueira) who realized they didn’t have enough guitars to record all their parts.
– They only had a 4-track recorder to lay down the album. Isn’t that amazing?
– The name of the album itself comes from a saying Joao would tell his daughter, Bebel Gilberto, when she would cry “Nao, Nao, Acabou Chorare” — now, now, finish crying.
– The title track was really difficult to finish, they didn’t know to wrap it up. They gave Joao a call, and then he starts to relate a story about how he was speaking to the poet Capinan, and the poet related how the sound a bee makes goes “zun-zun”, they just “E ainda faz zun-zun” all day. That became the lyric that drove this beautiful song.
– The track “Tinino Trincando” has a distorted/fuzzed out guitar. However, they didn’t have the money for any pedals. What they did was take the television tube, of their only working tv, and placed it in one of their amps. Luckily, the amp didn’t take their tube with it.
– The album remained on the top of the Brazilian charts immediately after its released for 30 weeks straight.
– Just the initial creation of it is brilliant. As you can see with my previous highlighted album selections, a lot of the albums coming out before this album were sadder, or more sober, but with Joao’s insistence he challenged Novos Baianos to make an album the would be brighter and happier. This was the first album to start a new trend that celebrated the brighter side of Brazil.
– This album influence Joao himself, to go for the more experimental, ambient sound found in my favorite album of his, Joao Gilberto 1973.
– Finally, for their next album with the proceeds of this album, they were able to upgrade their commune into an actual futebol club complex/commune…
Anyways, I’ll stop there, (I know, somehow I turned this into another long tract, right!) and say that my favorite album of theirs is actually “Novos Baianos FC”, their next album, but I can’t ignore Brazilian history and negate y’all the experience of knowing this rightful masterpiece of an album (even 40 years afterwards!).
Further Listening:
1972: Acabou Chorare (Som Livre)
1973: Novos Baianos F. C. (Continental)
1974: Linguagem do Alunte (Continental)
1974: Vamos pro Mundo (Som Livre)
1976: Caia na Estrada e Perigas Ver (Tapecar)
1978: Farol da Barra (CBS)
World Cup Prediction of the Day:
England v. Costa Rica: Costa Rica (Winner)
Italy v. Uruguay: Italy (Winner)
Greece v. Ivory Coast: Greece (Winner)
Japan v. Colombia: Japan (Winner)