Carmélia Alves (14 February 1923 – 3 November 2012), a Brazilian singer known as the "Queen of Baião", was one of the country's best-known performers of
baião,
a folk rhythm popular in
Northeast Brazil
The Northeast Region of Brazil ( ) is one of the five official and political regions of Brazil, regions of the country according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Of Brazil's twenty-six states, it comprises nine: Maranhão, ...
.
Carmélia Alves was born in the
Bangu neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. Her family moved to Areal in Petrópolis while she was very young, and she was raised there. Her father was from Ceara, and her mother was from Bahia, and her father was very interested in parties. He formed dance groups and organized blocos for Carnaval and
festas juninas. Her father also sang Northeastern songs as lullabies for Carmélia Alves.
When Carmélia was 17 years old, she returned to Rio de Janeiro to study and began taking an interest in music. She was very interested in Carmen Miranda and listened to her music on Rádio Tupi.
Alves gained success in the 1950s with the hit "Sabiá na gaiola." She began her career at the Hotel Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro, where she performed covers of hits by
Carmen Miranda
Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha (9 February 1909 – 5 August 1955), known professionally as Carmen Miranda (), was a Portuguese-born Brazilian singer, dancer, and actress. Nicknamed "The Brazilian Bombshell", she was known for her signature ...
. Her friend, baião and
accordionist
Accordions (from 19th-century German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed in a frame). The es ...
Luiz Gonzaga, exposed her to the music of Northeast Brazil
and inspired her to devote the rest of her career to baião.
Alves was married for 50 years to singer Jimmy Lester, who died in 1998.
[ They had no children. They performed together throughout the world, including ]Argentina
Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...
, Germany and Mexico. Their success in Argentina prompted Alves to open a branch of her recording company in Buenos Aires. In 2000, she formed a group of professional singers from the 1950s.[
]
Death
Alves died from cancer and Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease and the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems wit ...
at the Jacarepagua Hospital in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...
on 3 November 2012, at the age of 89.[
]
Greatest Hits
''Chronological Order''
* 1943 - Deixei de Sofrer
* 1944 - Quem Dorme no Ponto é Chofer
* 1949 - Me Leva (with Ivon Curi)
* 1950 - Coração Magoado
* 1950 - Trepa no Coqueiro
* 1951 - Sabiá na Gaiola
* 1951 - Pé de Manacá (with o Trio Madrigal)
* 1951 - Esta Noite Serenou
* 1951 - Cabeça Inchada
* 1956 - Cevando o Amargo
References
1923 births
2012 deaths
20th-century Brazilian women singers
20th-century Brazilian singers
Singers from Rio de Janeiro (city)
Deaths from cancer in Rio de Janeiro (state)
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