Belchior

Belchior built a prominent career in Brazil as both composer and performer. Across fifteen solo albums he placed more than three hundred of his own pieces on record, while Roberto Carlos, Elis Regina, Erasmo Carlos, Vanusa, Jair Rodrigues, Ney Matogrosso, Fagner, Ednardo, Jessé and numerous others interpreted his material. His texts confront social and existential concerns, yet the accompanying music draws chiefly on pop and rock rhythms rather than the traditions of his northeastern birthplace.

A flutist father and a mother who delivered his earliest lessons and performed in the local church choir shaped his first encounters with sound; uncles steeped in Brazilian verse also gathered regularly at the family home. From childhood he worked as a poeta repentista and as a cantador de feira. Formal training followed with Acacy Halley in choral singing and piano, after which he programmed music for radio in his native city. At sixteen he relocated to Fortaleza CE, finished undergraduate degrees in philosophy and the humanities, and began appearing on amateur television, stage and radio programs, where he formed lasting ties with fellow newcomers Fagner and Ednardo.

While enrolled in medical school he abandoned his studies in the fourth year, 1971, and moved to Rio. There he met Sérgio Ricardo, who included the Belchior–Raimundo Fagner composition “Mucuripe” on Fagner’s contribution to the Disco de Bolso series that Sérgio produced for the tabloid O Pasquim. The track attracted the notice of leading artists and was soon re-recorded by Elis Regina together with Fagner. That same year Belchior claimed first prize at the IV Festival Universitário de MPB with “Na Hora do Almoço,” performed by Jorge Teles and Jorge Neri, earning a single release on the Copacabana label.

His debut LP, A Palo Seco, appeared on Continental in 1974. The follow-up, Alucinação (1976), secured his reputation with the inclusion of “Como Nossos Pais,” “Velha Roupa Colorida”—later taken up by Elis Regina—and “Apenas Um Rapaz Latino Americano.” In 1977 he settled in São Paulo to score an ecological film protesting the slaughter of whales and issued his third album, Coração Selvagem, whose tracks “Paralelas” (subsequently recorded by Wanderléa) and “Galos, Noites e Quintais” (later cut by Jair Rodrigues) became hits. During the decade his joint presentation with Simone filled Teatro João Caetano with an audience of one hundred thousand.

The 1982 Warner release Paraíso showcased several emerging figures, among them Guilherme Arantes, Jorge Mautner, Ednardo and Arnaldo Antunes. The following year Belchior established his own imprint, Paradiso Discos, and in 1997 entered a partnership with Camerati. His 1984 production Cenas do Próximo Capítulo set new attendance marks on a nationwide tour. In 1999 BMG issued the double retrospective Auto-Retrato, compiling twenty-five of his best-known songs in arrangements entrusted to Rogério Duprat and other collaborators.