Wax Poetics - Brazil Edition - Tim Maia

Not a lot of time here today, but wanted to let everyone know that the new Wax Poetics is out and includes my newest feature on legendary Brazilian Soul Godfather, Tim Maia. I culled some awesome video clips together of the legend that you can peep over at Soul Spectrum Videos. I also found a download to one of my favorite Tim Maia albums, his 1976 album on Poydor. You can find it here on the Bossa Blog and check out Loronix for some other Tim Maia albums 1970 & 1973.

Tim Maia Mania - Raridades, Part 2

Back with some more Tim Maia rareness, this time from a little later in his career and again limited to "covers" or guest vocal spots for the Brazilian Soul Brother Number One. At the end of last "episode" our hero was on the verge of becoming one of Brazil's biggest pop stars. His first four albums sold extremely well and he was regularly sending singles into the Brazilian top-40 orbit. So much so that his style and even his songs were getting play from other established and up and coming artists.

Brazilian Boys - Nossa Senhora do Tim
The Brazilian Boys were a group of mostly white dudes playing portuguese language cover versions of Simon & Garfunkel and Johnny Nash and dabbling in the dancable "Samba Rock" style coming out of Sao Paulo. Their best song from this album (I believe their first, though they do have another one) is a cover/adaptation of Tim Maia's "Salve Nossa Senhora" from his second album. They basically cover the song but add the line "que Tim Maia falou" which means "what Tim Maia said."

During Tim's golden years he declined nearly every offer to guest on other people's a semi-official position based on two factors: 1) Tim's ego was too large to play second-fiddle to anyone, and 2) Tim had his own style that no one else really came close to and he was notoriously difficult to work with. So it was only at the beginning of his career, when he needed the boost, and as his career started losing steam that he teamed up with other artists for some notable duets or collaborations.

Rosana - Chegou a Hora (with Tim Maia)
Thanks to Elan aka DJ E-Zinho for this one. I had never even heard of this 1979 collaboration and the otherwise exhaustive Nelson Motta book makes no mention of it either. This was from Rosana's first album and despite being a fairly major recording artist, this album is poorly documented online, hence the poor cover image. It makes some sense that Tim would be on this recording as the players, producers and song-writers on her album were basically the same people on his albums from the period: Lincoln Olivetti, Robson Jorge, Tiberio Gaspar, etc. And the sound is pure Lincoln Olivetti & Robson Jorge - the Quincy Jones of late 70s and early 80s R&B. What is strange about this is that initially Tim only agreed to guest on songs of his close friends, first Fabio and Hyldon and then (as we shall see below) Erasmo Carlos . . . but, Rosana?!? He must have had the hots for Rosana, or was financially in pinch, which was usually the reason for any collaboration during the second half of his career (1980 and on . . .)

Erasmo Carlos - Alem do Horizonte (with Tim Maia)
Erasmo's last decent album features the Brazilian king of rock dueting on every track with a veritable who's who of Brazilian superstars. Tim joins Erasmo on a classic Roberto & Erasmo composition that once again shows obvious signs of Olivettiana. The sounds might be a bit dated, but I love the horns and Tim really does wonders on this track, making Erasmo sound like the guest vocalist.

Check back soon for some deep cuts from the man himself.

Tim Maia Mania - Raridades, Part 1

I'm in full Tim Maia Mania. I'm finishing up Nelson Motta's excellent biography of the man, the myth, the legend aka Tiao Marmiteiro, Tiao Maconheiro, Jimmy the Brazilian, O Rei do Samba Soul - Tim Maia. I decided to take this mania public and I'll be posting some classics and some obscurities for as long as I can stand it, which could be awhile.

Also, I IMPLORE you to check out this clip I posted over at Soul Spectrum Videos that features some ridiculously rare Tim Maia footage from his Racional phase as well as from his excellent post-Racional 1976 album. Jaw-dropping stuff here.

In researching Tim's life its interesting to note that his success was almost single-handedly attributable to his own charisma and single-minded vision of becoming a rock n' roll star. Unlike today where an iota of talent and millions in marketing dollars can make a star, Tim was about as pure a star as you can imagine. He fought every known stereotype and triumphed to become one of Brazil's biggest pop stars of all time. He was fat, black, irresponsible, a stoner, a coke-head, a philanderer, was momentarily a cult-member, he was imprisoned in the US and Brazil multiple times and yet he still managed to stay in the limelight for over two decades.

This success did not come easy. He was deported from the US back to Brazil in 1964 after being caught in a stolen car with weed in his possession. Back in Brazil, he hit the ground running and immediately tried to get in contact with his old friends from Barra de Tijuca who had miraculously become huge teen idols: Roberto and Erasmo Carlos (no relation). Leveraging their fame and access to benefit Tim was easier said than done as these two "safe", white pop stars were hesitant about promoting an unkempt, mostly homeless, fat, black soul singer on their shows, even if he had taught them both how to play guitar. First off, nobody in Brazil knew what soul music was . . . at least at that time.

Tim managed to put out two singles in 1968 and 1969 and neither did very well and both are extremely rare. Part of their failure had to do with the incongruence of Tim's vision for Brazilian soul music and the record label's inability to properly reproduce that beat-heavy, funky sound. Tim's initial success was going to have come through writing for and producing other artists, those less black and fat than he.

Roberto Carlos - Não Vou Ficar
Tim managed to sneak into Roberto Carlos' swanky apartment building and waited for the "King" of Jovem Guarda to come home. He demanded Roberto put him on his show. Roberto compromised and agreed to record a song of Tim's, but not the one that Tim was pitching that day. He wanted something a little rougher, something with some teeth and that contagious funky soul sound that Tim knew better than anyone in Brazil. Tim came up with this song and it became a huge hit for Roberto. When you compare it with Tim's version, from his second solo album from two years later, Roberto's version sounds like muzak, but for the time, and for Roberto, this was cutting edge. Roberto's soul shouts kinda sound more like soul whimpers.

Eduardo Araujo - Você
Around the same time Tim connected with another Jovem Guarda star, Eduardo Araujo, who was taken by the soul sounds emanating from the US and together with Tim Maia's album put together one of the very first Brazilian soul albums. Tim arranged all the songs, translated all the lyrics from English to Portuguese, sang back-up and even contributed one of his songs, "Voce". The song would be a hit when Tim recorded it, again for his second solo album from 1971. This version also pales in comparison, but I think it's worth a listen.

Eduardo Araujo - A Mulher
This is Eduardo and Tim's version of one of my all time favorite soul songs, James Brown's "Cold Sweat". Enough said.

Elis Regina with Tim Maia - These Are the Songs
This is the one that put Tim on the map, because it was the first BIG record that actually had his voice on it. This duet with Elis Regina also introduced him to his future record label, Polydor and his future producer, good friend and ultimate biographer, Nelson Motta. Unlike the other songs here, THIS is the best version. Tim redid this song solo on his third album, but the later version lacks the chemistry of this recording.

Trio Esperança - Primavera
This cover version of one of Tim's big hits from his first album must have been recorded right after his version came out, because this one is also from 1970. The song was recorded by one of the best known family groups from the Jovem Guada and later, the Brazilian soul scene, Trio Esperanca. The song was written by Tim's friend and soul parter Cassiano.

Tim Maia in the 80s

Tim had a bad habit of releasing nearly every album as self-titled, which makes it a bit difficult for fans and collectors to know what's what. He also released albums on handful of labels during his career, but the ones to really look for are the releases on SEROMA, based on his birth name SEbastiao ROrigues MAia. This is the label that put out his two Racional albums, the first pressing of his Ela Partiu/Meus Inimigos single, his highly sought-after 1977 all English-language album and the album that we're gonna listen to today, Seroma.

By most counts Tim's quality output begins to suffer as soon as the dreaded 80s arrive with his albums for Odeon (Reecontro, 1979) and Polydor (S/T, 1980) keeping up the disco pace, but overall they're weaker than everything that preceded them. The story goes that Tim was upset about the direction is career was taking and the pressure to produce big hits, likely a result of his top-selling album from 1977 "Tim Maia Disco Club" which was on another label, Atlantic. In between his 1980 and 1983 Polydor albums, he decided to record an album on his time, with his own money and with his select group of friends and musicians. The album is called "Nuvens" and is the last great Tim Maia album.

What prompted me to post these songs was that: 1) I have a CD-rip of the album courtesy of DJ Greg Caz (seeing as most of my music is currently in storage until I move into my new apartment), and 2) my good friend Bradley sent me a copy of Nelson Motta's biography of Tim Maia. You can find the book here for purchase on eBay. The picture above is of Tim and Nelson soon before Tim's passing.

Tim Maia - Nuvens
A classic Maia ballad. Those outro horn lines just kill me.

Tim Maia - Ar Puro
Tim's environmental plea for "Pure Air" . . . kinda ironic given how much grass this guy smoked!

Tim Maia - Apesar Dos Poucos Anos
This is my jam! I love how the song cuts out for a bit longer than you think it would before picking up right where it left off.

All three of these songs are from Side 1 of the album and there were plenty more to choose from. Never on CD . . . cop the LP if you see it. It shouldn't set you back more than $30.

Discovered: Holy Grail of Brazilian Funk!

More than a year ago a little bird told me that someone had turned up some lost tapes of Tim Maia during his "Racional" phase. Now, if you don't read Portuguese it's difficult to find any information about Tim's "Racional" phase aside from how its really lauded as his best work, his most funky, etc. As a Tim Maia fanatic, I can agree with all of that, so the recent confirmation of some unreleased "Racional" tapes is indeed a revelation. To give you an idea of the context of this discovery, I've pasted the text from an article I wrote for Fader magazine a few years back. The photos here are courtesy of Paulinho Guitarra, guitarist for Tim Maia for most of his classic albums. Paulinho can be seen in the band pictures - he's the skinny white dude next to Tim when they're holding up the book and the one playing guitar in the band photo.













ReHeaters: Tim Maia Racional, vol. 1 (originally published in The Fader magazine, Issue ?)

The Beatles got spiritual in India, Bob Dylan was born again, Cat Stevens traded in his guitar for a Qu’ran, but none of these compare to the spiritual detour that Tim Maia, the godfather of Brazilian soul music, took in the mid-1970s.

Before sliding into a 12-minute, heavy-funk vamp extolling the virtues of “rational culture,” Tim Maia drops some the following knowledge acapella style, still the best explanation this author has found describing the pseudo-religious, existential doo-doo that Tim stepped in:



“You don’t know what I know, because I know where we came from. We came from a super-world, a world of rational energy. And we live in an anti-world, a world of animal’s energy. Read the book, the only book, the book of God: Universe in Disenchantment and you’re gonna know the truth.”

Tim Maia never did anything halfway, so when he decided to join the Brazilian sect of Rational Culture, he dove in headfirst and took his music with him. Already armed with four chart-topping albums, Tim’s next two albums were the strangest and most personal of his career.

Serginho Trombone, a band member at the time, recalls that, “It was a really crazy phase. Tim was constantly staring to the sky looking for flying saucers. The worst of all was that he convinced the entire band to join the cult. We painted all of our instruments white, even the drum set.”

Tim also gave up his personal possessions, cut his Afro, and gave up drugs and booze—a bold move considering he was a world-class druggie. Maybe it was the absence of alcohol and cocaine surging through his veins or the lack of smoke in his throat, but Tim’s racional recordings are easily the best of his career.

Originally released in 1975, Tim Maia Racional vol. 1 kicks off with the sublime slow funk burner “Imunização Racional (Que Beleza)” (Rational Immunization (What Beauty)). “Bom Senso” heats up the proceedings with a heavy dose of Isely funk, before “Contato Com O Mundo Racional” slows it down to an Al Green pace, as Tim pleads in a falsetto for just one chance to make contact with the “rational world.” The album ends with Tim attempting to spread the gospel of racional to the English-speaking world through the epic “Rational Culture,” which grooves endlessly on a wave of clavinet and wah-wah guitars.

Following a blowout with the cult’s founder, he never spoke of racional again, forbade the reissue of these songs and even discouraged other artists from covering them. Thankfully, the Maia Estate relented. Widely bootlegged in Brazil, Tim Maia Racional vol. 1 (yes, there’s another album and even rumors of an unreleased third), finally received an official reissue earlier this year thanks to the Brazilian label, Trama. Trama plans to release volume two shortly and Luaka Bop is wrapping up a Tim Maia compilation that will feature many of the songs from Racional 1 & 2, along with other rarities.

Tim Maia - You Gotta Be Rational
So, the story goes that a producer by the name of Dudu Marote was working on the first Afroreggae album in 2000 with the studio engenenier of Somil studios, William Junior. William mentioned to Dudu that he worked with Tim Maia on some of his final albums, which promoted Dudu to ask William if he had ever listened to Tim's "Racional" albums. William hadn't and when Dudu brought in the albums to play for him, William said that he had something like these albums at home on the ORIGINAL TAPES!

It turns out that William's dad was the owner of the same studio back in the 1970s when Tim Maia recorded his "Racional" albums and when he abruptly left the cult, he never returned to the studio to pick up the tapes, so William's dad just took them home and sat on them until only recently. Dudu then offered the tapes to some record labels, but no one took him up on the offer. William also provided copies of the tapes to multi-instrumentalist and producer, Kassin, who began working on releasing the unreleased album. Kassin claims that there are three additional songs beyond the five available for download now.

Once the download was posted the proverbial "dudu" hit the fan and the Tim Maia family started trying to get involved. Tim's only legitimate son, Carmelo, who has commented on this very blog, claims that famed 1980s producer of his father's and many others' hits, Lincoln Olivetti, will be assembling the unreleased album, but no more information has leaked. The songs that have been leaked are the following:

1. Escrituração Racional: a slow-jam and weaker of the songs, in my opinion

2. Escrituração Racional, take 2: the second take features some trippy echo effects on the vocals.

3. You Gotta Be Rational: The song I've posted here. This one is much like some of Tim's slower funk joints and speaking of "joints" his lyrics to this one claim that "I don't need no dope, I am rational. And when you read the book Universe in Disenchantment", you won't need no dope, you'll be rational."

4. Universo Em Desencanto Disco: This is a great little stepping soul-funk tune with a great Philly vibe and bounce to it. Others have commented that this song clearly indicates that these sessions were recorded later than the earlier released "Racional" albums. I can definitely hear that mid-70s disco influence on this tune.

5. Brasil Racional: On this one Tim literally reads from the cult's bible, Universe In Disenchantment over a killer funk groove.

Listening to these songs you can tell that there are some elements missing like horn or string embellishments, back-up vocals, or even more verses. It's hard to say what the maestro had in mind, but this fan is happy with these nuggets even as they are. I say, release the beast!

In respect for those planning on releasing the whole thing, I've only posted one song, but if you want to hear them all the download site is not too hard to find.

Tim Maia, Roger Bruno and The Ideals, part II

Last Thursday I drove up to Tarrytown after work to meet with Roger Bruno, musician, songwriter and former friend and band-mate of Tim Maia. Roger and his partner, Ellen, met me at a really chill coffee shop on Main Street Tarrytown, called Coffee Labs. I was happy to see that it's a hard-core coffee roaster, with a roasting machine in the middle of the room and they also are also fellow travelers on the Fair Trade bandwagon.


















I recognized Roger and Ellen from their website. We talked for over an hour and a half about Tim and the music scene in Westchester, NY in the early sixties. I'm gonna save the good quotes for the Wax Poetics article I'm scraping together, but I will share the best part about the meeting . . . seeing this photo:

from L-R: Roger Bruno, Felix DeMasi, Tim, Paul Mitranga, Bill Adair

This photo was taken during one of The Ideals' recording sessions in New York City, most likely for the song "New Love." This brings me back to the original motivation for contacting Roger Bruno. This is what Roger told me in an email recently, "I tracked down the original acetate of the Ideals recording of "New Love," although I don't have it in hand yet." Turns out a past girlfriend of Roger's is in possession of the acetate and is happy to share it with Roger along with some other photos and memorabilia from the time. The song was never released commercially. The Ideals were planning on shopping it around to different labels, but Tim got arrested and deported before they had a chance! Roger confirmed that the famous Brazilian drummer Milton Banana played on the session as did well-known jazz and rock bassist Don Payne. Roger said that the song was an attempt to explore the then burgeoning Bossa Nova sound and sweetening it with some soulful five-part vocal harmony.

The craziest thing about this whole adventure is that Roger was not aware of his former song-writing partner's history after being deported from the U.S. It was my email to him a few weeks ago that started this whole process of rediscovery and excavation of long-forgotten memories. I'm so thrilled that Roger is up for the journey down memory road.

A curious side-note to all of this is that some friends of Roger & Ellen's from when they lived in Boston in the early seventies also have a connection with Tim Maia that Roger and Ellen only just recently found out about. After Paul and Sheila Smith left Boston they wound their way to Brazil, where they stayed for seven months and somehow ended up meeting Tim Maia and even singing back-up vocals on the song "Reu Confesso" (see this earlier post on Soul Spectrum to listen to this song) from the very same album that features the re-recording of "New Love." Neither Roger, nor Paul or Sheila knew that the other had ever known Tim and all three of their names appear on the back of the same album! Paul agreed to talk with me about his and Sheila's time in Brazil, so more updates to come!

This Just In . . .

Just a few minutes ago I got this email from a guy I emailed in the off chance that he was the same Roger Bruno that knew and played with Tim Maia, then known as "Jimmy" or "Jimmy the Brazilian."











Hi Allen,

This is really something. Yes, I'm the same Roger Bruno who wrote and performed with Tim Maia (aka Sebastian Maia, aka "Jimmy the Brazilian") in the early 60's as "The Ideals."

Jimmy was pretty amazing both as a musician and as a person. I pretty much lost track of him after his deportation, but I'd like to discuss him and that time period with you and hopefully fill in some of the blank spaces for both of us.

If you're interested, and want to send your phone info, I'll give you a call. Thanks for getting in touch.

Best.

Roger

More updates to follow after talking to Roger . . .

Tim Maia Investigation Update

The Tim Maia investigation is proceeding with a few new leads, but nothing solid resulting yet. Hop over to Soul Detective to see the updates that Red and I have been posting there.

I've removed the version of "Gostava Tanto de Voce" that was here, as I didn't realize that it was Tim's 80s remake of the song. Ewww. Sorry about that. Here's another great song from Tim's 4th self-titled album from 1973


Download:Reu Confesso

To summarize, we deduced that the recording was made in or around November of 1962, because the legendary Brazilian drummer Milton Banana supposedly played on the record and he would have been in New York City for the historical Bossa Nova concert that year at Carnegie hall. Next, we identified the second song-writer, a one Roger Bruno, who was probably another member of the group, The Ideals. We're hoping to get a hold of Roger and see if he can shed any light on this situation.

One of the most interesting things that came out of this little excersize is that Tim Maia's only legitimate, blood son, Carmelo Maia contacted me to chime in. He didn't have much to say about the Ideals single, but he did mention two other interesting tidbits, which have yet to be confirmed by yours truly.

The first is a mythological meeting of Tim Maia and James Brown . . . well at least James Brown's band. Supposedly the President of Philips Brasil wanted to thank Tim for his impressive record sales by arranging a recording session for Tim with James Brown's band (also on Philips/Polygram). As the story goes, there was a recording session somewhere in the U.S., but no one seems to know when, where or what happened to the tapes . . . But not to worry, I'm on the case.


Download: Do Your Thing, Behave Yourself

The second bit of information is something that I had heard about, but now that I'm hearing about it from a second source, I'm feeling like it might actually be true. So, if you watched the little Tim Maia video on the Luaka Bop site you know about Tim's stint in an extraterrestrial cult. Well, he made two incredible albums during this phase and then supposedly destroyed everything associated with the cult once he left the cult. Evidently he made some more recordings that were not destroyed, which would have become Tim Maia Racional Volume Three. Carmelo claims to have seven or eight of these recordings that he plans to release at some point.

The two songs I have posted here are two more from Tim's excellent 1973 album that "New Love" came from. This was the last album before he joined the cult. Its my single favorite album of his, because it has such incredible songs and great arrangements that really bridge the gap between soul and samba in a way that had never been done yet. Gostava Tanto de Voce was a major hit and still brings a smile to my face every time I hear it. The other track, "Do Your Thing, Behave Yourself" is a groovy little tune that shows that Tim was keeping tabs on the sounds and the vocab of his north American soul brothers.

Soul Spectrum visits the Soul Detective

Sherlock Holmes: I've heard of a long lost 45 rpm single recorded by the Brazilian Soul Brother, Tim Maia, that he recorded in the U.S. as a member of the vocal group "The Ideals" before he got deported back to Brazil for marijuana possession. Watson, any idea where I can find this mysterious record or learn more about it?

Watson: How about asking over at Soul Detective . . .

I chanced upon Red's blog when looking up a great old-school southern soul singer by the name of Roscoe Robinson. He played a dynamite show at South Paw in Park Slope, Brooklyn over the summer and his name came up in the liner notes to the Sam Cooke SAR Records box-set . . . but I digress. I found Red's other site, the Soul Detective and thought where better to ask this lingering question I had about the earliest known Tim Maia release. If you don't know who Tim Maia is, best to watch the video on the link above.

Here is the later version of the song "New Love" from Tim Maia's 4th solo album, released in Brazil in 1973


Download: New Love

If readers here know anything about the mysterious "New Love" 45rpm by "The Ideals" please drop a note over at the Soul Detective site.