Luiz Claudio

Luís Cláudio joined the roster at Rádio Inconfidência in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, in 1949, leading to a 1952 recording of the song “A Rua Onde Ela Mora,” which he wrote together with his brother Antônio Maurício de Castro. Two years later, after signing with Rádio Mayrink, he relocated to Rio de Janeiro and cut “Blim Blem Blam,” another collaboration with Nazareno de Brito; the track’s popularity earned him the Gold Record award presented by O Globo. Among the other successes that marked his career were “Joga a Rede no Mar,” also penned with Nazareno de Brito, “Só Deus” by Evaldo Gouveia and Jair Amorim, and “Rancho das Flores,” for which Vinícius de Moraes supplied lyrics drawn from Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantata “Jesus Alegria dos Homens.” His own compositions found their way to Tito Madi, Marisa Gata Mansa, Dick Farney, Elizeth Cardoso, Nara Leão, and additional interpreters. Cláudio took his music to Europe in 1973 and, in 1980, accepted an invitation from the Brazilian American Cultural Institute that brought him to fifteen American universities for a series of performances.