Maria Alcina, the post-tropicalist hurricane
A deep voice with a lot of swing
Rodrigo Faour
18/10/2000
March, 2000. After 20 years without performing in Rio, singer Maria Alcina returned to Copacabana, where she appeared regularly in the 70s (Rio de Janeiro). The audience was mostly very young at the gay club Le Boy. Suddenly, the happy-faced, chubby singer with a male-like voice starts to tinkle – strong and impressive as she used to be. "People were a bit surprised at that show. The younger ones who hadn’t heard me before expected something different and stood there watching, trying to figure what I was up to. But it all worked out!", she celebrated, leaving the stage after excited encore requests.
Maria Alcina was a hell of a post-tropicalist hurricane within BPM in the 70s. After releasing a single with the emblematic Mamãe Coragem (by Caetano Veloso and Torquato Neto; first recorded by Gal Costa) in 1971, she enjoyed success in the following year with a quintessential version of Jorge Ben’s Fio Maravilha. Back then, she broke up aesthetic patterns with her powerful, masculine voice, unusual make up, costumes and stage manners. Like when somebody gave her a rose in the middle of her set. Without thinking, she proceeded to eat it, for the audience’s delight.
Forbidden in Brazil
To picture what Maria Alcina represented, it is worth mentioning that, in 1974, she tasted the bitterness of military dictatorship: "I was watching television and learned I had been censored all over the country. Then, I had to go to court. I was taken into a room filled with books, mostly forbidden books, and a guy kept asking me what this or that gesture I made on stage meant. In fact, it was just my performance. It was my expression that caused quite the fuss at the time", she reports.
The impact caused by the Maria Alcina phenomenon wasn’t a total surprise. After all, when she appeared, the band Secos & Molhados hadn’t yet made up their faces or shaken their hips on stage, and the mocking all-girl group Frenéticas would only start their female pop 5 years later. "I was an alien in the female realms, and everything that was different was dangerous. I was breaking down a series of stereotyped feminine myths. I came up in a time of dictatorship and my unconventional behavior was anti-everything. I ended up being censored and forbidden to perform anywhere. I was taken off the air, off of radio waves, TV shows and concerts. It was a time when behavior was a reason for penalty, and artists ran from the police.
The 70s were gone and so was restlessness. And would there be a place for Alcina in the 80s and 90s? Answer: no. She had redirected her career, taking on scattered gigs at small clubs and becoming a juror on the TV. But those who own her few, though remarkable recordings (5 LPs and 5 singles), know how unique she is.
Maria Alcina put out songs by João Bosco and Aldir Blanc (Kid Cavaquinho, Beguine Dodói, Amigos Novos e Antigos), Eduardo Dusek (Folia no Matagal – two years before Ney Matogrosso’s version) and Rita Lee (Tum-Tum). She also reviewed Noel Rosa’s sambas (Coração and Seu Jacinto) and the radio divas’ repertoire in a totally anarchic fashion, inserting electricity into the arrangements or maybe screaming if she thought that the song asked for it, in numbers originally created by Marlene (E Tome Polca), Emilinha Borba (Paraíba), Lana Bittencourt (Haja o Que Houver), Aracy de Almeida (Escandalosa), Bando da Lua (Maria Boa) and, of course, Carmen Miranda (Alô, Alô and Como Vaes Você). They were all energetic and vibrating recordings.
Yes, bananas
Maria Alcina was labeled "the Carmem Miranda of the 90s" by American critics while starring the show Eles cantam Ela, which reviewed Carmem Miranda’s 50-year death anniversary.
In fact, the resemblance between Alcina and Carmem is not restricted to extravagant clothing, but includes the joy transmitted both live and on record - which made her include Miranda’s songs in her sets, along with standards by other essential BPM singers from different eras: Elis Regina, Clara Nunes, Dircinha Batista, Dalva de Oliveira.
After trying a comeback with the independent album Bucanera, from 1992, she’s chosen to perform to smaller, yet faithful audiences, instead of "turning into a corrupt that records dreadful little radio-friendly songs". "I’ve been playing for people who know what they’re getting when the buy the ticket for my show. As a whole, I think people are getting dumber. Therefore I’d rather sing for 10 people who understand what I’m saying than to 3,000 consumers of the crap produced these days", she fires.
Maria Alcina was a hell of a post-tropicalist hurricane within BPM in the 70s. After releasing a single with the emblematic Mamãe Coragem (by Caetano Veloso and Torquato Neto; first recorded by Gal Costa) in 1971, she enjoyed success in the following year with a quintessential version of Jorge Ben’s Fio Maravilha. Back then, she broke up aesthetic patterns with her powerful, masculine voice, unusual make up, costumes and stage manners. Like when somebody gave her a rose in the middle of her set. Without thinking, she proceeded to eat it, for the audience’s delight.
Forbidden in Brazil
To picture what Maria Alcina represented, it is worth mentioning that, in 1974, she tasted the bitterness of military dictatorship: "I was watching television and learned I had been censored all over the country. Then, I had to go to court. I was taken into a room filled with books, mostly forbidden books, and a guy kept asking me what this or that gesture I made on stage meant. In fact, it was just my performance. It was my expression that caused quite the fuss at the time", she reports.
The impact caused by the Maria Alcina phenomenon wasn’t a total surprise. After all, when she appeared, the band Secos & Molhados hadn’t yet made up their faces or shaken their hips on stage, and the mocking all-girl group Frenéticas would only start their female pop 5 years later. "I was an alien in the female realms, and everything that was different was dangerous. I was breaking down a series of stereotyped feminine myths. I came up in a time of dictatorship and my unconventional behavior was anti-everything. I ended up being censored and forbidden to perform anywhere. I was taken off the air, off of radio waves, TV shows and concerts. It was a time when behavior was a reason for penalty, and artists ran from the police.
The 70s were gone and so was restlessness. And would there be a place for Alcina in the 80s and 90s? Answer: no. She had redirected her career, taking on scattered gigs at small clubs and becoming a juror on the TV. But those who own her few, though remarkable recordings (5 LPs and 5 singles), know how unique she is.
Maria Alcina put out songs by João Bosco and Aldir Blanc (Kid Cavaquinho, Beguine Dodói, Amigos Novos e Antigos), Eduardo Dusek (Folia no Matagal – two years before Ney Matogrosso’s version) and Rita Lee (Tum-Tum). She also reviewed Noel Rosa’s sambas (Coração and Seu Jacinto) and the radio divas’ repertoire in a totally anarchic fashion, inserting electricity into the arrangements or maybe screaming if she thought that the song asked for it, in numbers originally created by Marlene (E Tome Polca), Emilinha Borba (Paraíba), Lana Bittencourt (Haja o Que Houver), Aracy de Almeida (Escandalosa), Bando da Lua (Maria Boa) and, of course, Carmen Miranda (Alô, Alô and Como Vaes Você). They were all energetic and vibrating recordings.
Yes, bananas
Maria Alcina was labeled "the Carmem Miranda of the 90s" by American critics while starring the show Eles cantam Ela, which reviewed Carmem Miranda’s 50-year death anniversary.
In fact, the resemblance between Alcina and Carmem is not restricted to extravagant clothing, but includes the joy transmitted both live and on record - which made her include Miranda’s songs in her sets, along with standards by other essential BPM singers from different eras: Elis Regina, Clara Nunes, Dircinha Batista, Dalva de Oliveira.
After trying a comeback with the independent album Bucanera, from 1992, she’s chosen to perform to smaller, yet faithful audiences, instead of "turning into a corrupt that records dreadful little radio-friendly songs". "I’ve been playing for people who know what they’re getting when the buy the ticket for my show. As a whole, I think people are getting dumber. Therefore I’d rather sing for 10 people who understand what I’m saying than to 3,000 consumers of the crap produced these days", she fires.