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Reinvents the Fab Four |
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By Ernest Barteldes
Aqui, Ali e Em Qualquer Lugar (Here, There and Everywhere) by Rita Lee World Music stores. $ 18.00
Rita Lee has always been one of my favorite Brazilian
rock performers, and I have admired her work ever
since I was a kid.
Her career, which began with her participation in the Caetano Veloso-led Tropicalia movement (which was Brazil's response to psychedelics) in the late Sixties has spanned through decades, great moments (in the late Seventies and early Eighties), a downward phase (the early Nineties) and a successful comeback.
Aqui... contains fourteen tracks in which she remade several Fab Four tracks in a very personal manner - she blended the pop feel of the songs with Brazilian sounds in a very unique, personal way. Four of the tracks are sung in Portuguese - versions penned by Rita herself after difficult negotiations in which the songs' editors (Northern Songs/Sony/ATV) only let her remake four of the songs in that language, which forced her to record the remaining tracks in the original language. The album opens with "A Hard Day's Night" - the song that gave the Beatles' first movie its title. In Rita's version, the song reminds us of the kind of sounds developed by Brazilian guitarist Jorge Benjor (known in the U.S. for his plagiarism lawsuit against Rod Stewart) in the 1970s - a mixture of Samba and electric sounds which takes the song to a complete new direction.
The Portuguese versions to "If I Fell" (Para Você Eu Digo Sim), "Can't Buy Me Love" (Tudo Por Amor) Minha Vida ("In My Life") and "Here There And Everywhere" (Aqui, Ali e Em Qualquer Lugar) do not sound too far from the original, but also with her own trademark, which includes a noticeable sense of humor - something that was never absent with the Beatles. "I Want To Hold Your Hand" was the track that amused me the most. In that remake, Rita Lee took on forró, which is a traditional rhythm from the Northeastern part of Brazil. Its quite weird to listen to that kind of beat with English lyrics. However, the naiveté of the words blends well with the beat that moves many weekend nightclubs in the Brazilian states of Ceará, Pernambuco and others.
The most impressive track on the album is, however,
one of the Beatles' most controversial, "Lucy In The
Sky With Diamonds."
The song begins very much like the other Bossa-Nova-styled tracks until it gets to the refrain, which then is transformed to an Enya-styled tune, with all the backward instruments and that New Age feel. Aqui, Ali e Em Qualquer Lugar is a great listening experience, which I recommend to all fans of Brazilian pop music or to anyone interested in new versions of classics of one of the world's favorite bands. Ernest Barteldes is an ESL and Portuguese teacher. In addition to that, he is a freelance writer who has been weekly contributing to theGreenwich Village Gazette since September 1999. His work has also been published by The Staten Island Advance, The Staten Island Register, The SI Muse,The Villager, Brazzil magazine, GLSSite and other publications. He lives on Staten Island, NY. He can be reached at ebarteldes@nycny.net |
Her latest album, Aqui, Ali e Em Qualquer Lugar (Here,
There and Everywhere), is a tribute to the band which
inspired her musically and drove her into her long,
fruitful musical career: The Beatles.
© 1997-2002 BEI