Day 8: Caetano Veloso and Chico Buarque – Juntos e ao vivo

 

Today’s disc is Juntos e ao vivo, a 1972 live album by Brazilian musicians Caetano Veloso and Chico Buarque. I bought it when I lived in Madrid in 1986 (aged 19) and I’m not quite clear how I got it back in one piece when I all I came back with is a rucksack but somehow I did.

I learned about lots of new music that year – pretty much all by Spanish or Latin American artists. Many of the friends I made there were Latin Americans, most of them in some kind of exile, and so I listened to a lot of music from that part of the world. I can’t speak a word of Portuguese but Brazilian Chico Buarque, in particular, was one of the artists that was played and spoken of often (along with Cubans Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés). Knowing Spanish I can have a good guess at many of the words but there is still a lot of mystery in this particular listening and somehow that does make it all the more enjoyable (for me anyway). I suppose that’s how some people feel about Italian opera. Here is a taste of the album:

I probably bought this album because it was the only Buarque one in the shop and I listened to loads, especially when I came back to England. I did always think the audience were very loud on the recording but Wikipedia tells me why:

 

It was recorded in Salvador's Teatro Castro Alves shortly after Veloso returned from his exile in London, imposed by the ruling Brazilian military dictatorship. Because of the political connotation of the songs and the repressive nature of the regime at the time, audience shouts and clapping were made intentionally louder in some parts of the album which contained verses that the censors had vetoed.

 

Both Buarque and Veloso were born in the early 1940s so they are both pretty senior these days. After David Soul passed away a day after the post that mentioned him last week I’m a little nervous to draw any attention to them at all. Both have long Wikipedia entries if you want all the life stories but the music speaks another language and this is a great album so seek it out. Here’s another track.

Back tomorrow with something made closer to (my old) home.

For the first intro post to this series go here.