THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,960) Os Jovens — “Nunca Mais Quero Amar”/”I Never Want to Love Again”
After love lost comes the question “Mas não sei porque me desprezou”/”But I don’t know why she cast me aside” in a beautiful, wistful pop rock classic written by Genival Cassiano, one of the originators of the Black music scene in Brazil. A classic in any language.
Slipcue.com Guide to Brazilian Music tells us of Os Jovens (The Young People):
These guys get name-checked in relation to Brazil’s tiny garage-rock scene of the late 1960s . . . . Although th[eir sole LP] album is tamer and closer to the mainstream of . . . pop, than their more raucous singles, it still shows a hipness and toughness that a lot of their [Jovem Guarda] JG contemporaries didn’t quite have. Includes covers of Dave Clark Five and P.F. Sloan songs, as well as homegrown Brazilian rock by the likes of Renato Barros and Luiz Ayrao… Worth a spin!
https://www.slipcue.com/music/brazil/aa_styles_jovemguarda/B_01.html
Dicionário Cravo Albin da musica Popular Brasileira/Cravo Albin Dictionary of Brazilian Popular Music adds (courtesy of Google Translate):
A vocal duo comprised of singers and composers Francisco Fraga, known as Puruca, and João José Loureiro. Influenced by rock, they began their career in the first half of the 1960s. Signed to CBS, they released their first record in 1965, a double EP titled Apresentando Os Jovens (Introducing the Young Ones) in which, accompanied by the group Renato and Seu Blue Caps [see #1,011, 1,815, 1,959], they performed . . . rock ballads . . . . The following year, they recorded a single . . . . In 1967, they released a double single . . . . Also in that year, the duo released their only LP . . . . In 1968, Puruca left the duo and was replaced by Paulo Ribeiro, and the two recorded a single . . . . Following this, the duo left CBS, joined Polydor, and in 1969 released a single . . . .
As to Genival Cassiano, Wikipedia writes (courtesy of Google Translate):
Genival Cassiano dos Santos . . . better known simply as Cassiano, was a Brazilian singer, composer, and guitarist. He is recognized . . . as one of the three great forerunners in establishing a black music scene – influenced by American funk and soul — in Brazilian popular music. . . . He began his musical career in 1964 as a guitarist for Bossa Trio, a group that emerged in the wake of the proliferation of samba jazz ensembles linked to bossa nova, but with a marked influence of jazz and the then incipient soul music of the United States. . . . After this experience, Cassiano, his brother Camarão and his friend Amaro founded Os Diagonais, a group notably influenced by American soul music. Although he only participated in the album Os Diagonais, released in 1969, Cassiano’s musical work in the group caught the attention of other artists on the Brazilian scene. Among them, Tim Maia, who, after a period in the United States, discovered in [him] another enthusiast of the work of Marvin Gaye [see #229, 940, 1,738], Otis Redding [see #1,333, 1,385] and Stevie Wonder. It was then that Tim Maia invited the musician to participate in the singer’s first album [’70] as both guitarist and composer . . . [a] great successes on Brazilian radio. The good commercial reception . . . gave Cassiano the chance to record his first solo album, Imagem e Som, released in 1971 . . . . Although it gained recognition late as a sophisticated mix of bossa nova, samba, soul and funk, the LP did not have a great impact at the time of its release. In 1973, Cassiano recorded his second LP, Apresentamos Nosso Cassiano . . . in which he performed ten compositions of his own . . . . Although some songs had received a more pop veneer compared to the first album, the record still maintained almost psychedelic experimental characteristics and echoed progressive rock in other tracks, which also made the LP, in addition to the absence of a commercial hit, a work that was difficult to assimilate on the country’s radio stations. It was then, in 1975, that Cassiano finally achieved commercial success in Brazil with the singles “A Lua e Eu” and “Coleção” . . . . [B]ut . . . this success did not facilitate Cassiano’s relationship with record labels. In 1978, Discos CBS decided against releasing a fourth Cassiano album . . . . Around the same time, health problems began to hinder the musician’s musical career. Forced to have part of his lung removed, Cassiano was only able to resume his career, at a much more measured pace, in 1984. A new work, which would also be his last studio LP in his lifetime, was released in 1991. . . . [mostly] re-recorded old hits . . . . However, without control over the musical direction of the album, Cassiano was extremely dissatisfied with the final result of this “tribute album” and, from then on, the singer decided never to record another album, remaining reclusive and withdrawn throughout the last three decades of his life . . . .
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