By HELCIO HERBERT NETO*
1974 album, in partnership with Arnaud Rodrigues, is not limited to satire, but associates traits of popular culture such as football, music and irony with politics
Delirious from laughing so much – with Baiano & the New Caetanos Comedian Chico Anysio tested the boundaries between humor and song with his conceptual debut in 1974. From his experience in partnership with fellow actor Arnaud Rodrigues, an album emerged with an unclassifiable sound and an inconvenient lucidity against the Brazilian authorities. Experienced musicians were brought together to achieve the atmosphere, which was, to say the least, eccentric: typical of the period in which the project's first album was released.
The songs mock a backward hippism, it's true. It was in the distant end of the 1960s that John Lennon had made a statement with the composition of “God”: the dream is over. In Brazil of records New Bahians FC from 1974 e Blue Araçá, launched by Caetano Veloso the previous year, the tropical was still in force flower power – ambiguously present in the aesthetics of the set formed by the comedian. But the atmosphere of Baiano & the New Caetanos is friendly, with greetings to Gal Costa, Maria Bethânia and even to your brother.
The show is formed from the cast. The opening song “I’m going to hit you” bears the signatures of Rodrigues and Orlandivo, simply the greatest symbol of sambalanço. The genre, contemporary to bossa nova, was hotter and conquered the suburbs with mischief: a fundamental component for Baiano & the New Caetanos. The group even included musician Renato Piau, who throughout his life accompanied Luiz Gonzaga, Tim Maia and, for many decades, his friend Luiz Melodia.
The album's impact is due to the artists' creativity, but it is no exaggeration to attribute the repercussion to Chico Anysio's attention to popular culture. A radio broadcaster, as a comedian he created characters that communicated directly with the public. Sometimes through exaggerated or not characterizations, sometimes through a deep connection with everyday life. Before helping to shape television comedy in Brazil, he had been a radio host and worked in different sectors of the broadcasting industry, including sports.
Above all in an authoritarian period. It was the year of the release of Baiano & the New Caetanos that the attempt to remove the military from power by force in Araguaia was crushed. Members of the movement were murdered – many of whose bodies were hidden by the perpetrators. According to National Truth Commission, around 60 victims remain unaccounted for. Information about those missing in the Amazon region is still being sought by families. Right in the forest: the setting for the lysergic sound of Chico Anysio.
Before environmentalism became an urgent issue, the group complained about the destruction of ecosystems, in contrast to the policies of the dictators who occupied the Planalto Palace from 1964 to 1985. The megalomaniac expansionist policies for the north of the country had nothing to do with the bucolic talk of the album, which combined percussion, rural rock and even ciranda in a mood that at all times resembles a hammock in the shade of any tree.
When you walked into a record store in 1974, you would come across shelves with Cuban Soul 18K of Cassian; Those who know know, those who don't know don't need to know. by Zé Rodrix; Everything Was Made By The Sun of the Mutants; Tim Maia Rational Vol. 1; Sing, Sing My People from Martinho da Vila; Trip by Raul Seixas; The Emerald Tablet by Jorge Ben; Motto and Gloss by Belchior; the second LP by Secos & Molhados; or the homonymous album by Jorge Mautner. Although under the label of different genres, experimentalism connected them to Baiano & the New Caetanos.
In this particular case, the indiscipline as an aesthetic still caused laughter. After other releases and a long hiatus, the music industry approached Chico Anysio about the possibility of returning to the musical project in the 2000s. The reason was the sales success of Tiririca. Taking advantage of the trend seemed commercially attractive, but it had nothing to do with the vinyl that is now half a century old. When he remembered the idea of emulating “Florentina”, the comedian just laughed at the off-key joke.
*Helcio Herbert Neto is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Cultural and Media Studies at UFF. Book author Words at stake [https://amzn.to/4aaGzfF]
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