Cassiano

Cassiano pioneered soul music in Brazil and shaped its early practitioners, among them Tim Maia. His own performances yielded notable successes such as the 1976 Paulo Zdanowski collaboration “A Lua E Eu,” featured in a widely watched telenovela, and “Coleção,” likewise co-written with Zdanowski, which surfaced in the soap opera Loco-motivas alongside the Banda Black Rio instrumental “Maria Fumaça.” As a songwriter he supplied Alcione with “Mister Samba,” Tim Maia with “Primavera” and “Eu Amo Você,” and Gilberto Gil with “Morena.” Marisa Monte, Djavan, Ed Motta, and fellow musicians honored him on the 1991 album Cedo Ou Tarde. At age six he relocated to Rio with his family. Mandolin and violão lessons, the latter on acoustic guitar, came from his father. In 1964 he entered the Bossa Trio, subsequently renamed Os Diagonais, whose support appeared on several singles and the 1971 RCA long-player Cada Um Na Sua. Tim Maia’s debut album, issued in 1970, contained “Primavera” and “Eu Amo Você,” both co-authored with Sílvio Rochael, and featured Cassiano’s guitar playing. Five further LPs followed, one of them unreleased, before Ed Motta assembled his first anthology in 2001.