Jorge Ben – Eu Sou Da Pesada
Jorge Ben – Si Manda
Jorge Ben – Quanto Mais Te Vejo
Jorge Ben – Nascimento De Um Principe Africano
This record is currently up for auction on Ebay, support Melting Pot, grab some classic (and classy) brazilian sounds by clicking here to view the listing.
As I mentioned earlier, the reason I picked up this copy (and why I’m selling it) is an interesting story…I first came across this record for I think $9 at Ameoba in Berkeley. Being a fan of Brazilian music and a lover of Jorge Ben in particular, I was more than happy to take advantage of what I thought was a major error on the stores part. For a few years I really dug on the sounds, but when my big sell-off happened in 2004, this was one of the LPs I had to part ways with. I made a few copies of my favorite songs from it, just to keep the album in my mind.
Over the years I kept coming back to the music and finally this year I decided to reaquire this LP. After this copy arrived at my house I was shocked to find that the music on the album was TOTALLY different than what was on my original copy. What was on this record was the same music as the brazilian release O Bidu Silencio No Brooklin from 1967! But yet, I knew I had had this same looking LP but with different music. I then noticed that this copy was originally labeled as stereo, but then relabeled as mono, so I tracked down a stereo copy of the album in hopes that THAT record would have the songs I had been looking for…Nope, stereo version was the same as this.
Eventually I figured out that the music on that LP I used to own was actually not even Jorge Ben’s music! It turned out to be music from Wilson Simonal, a contemporary of Jorge Ben’s, with a slightly deeper, but quite similar voice. The tracks from the LP I used to have were spread out over 5 or 6 releases that Simonal cut in the mid & late 1960s. My thinking is now that somehow there was a record plant mistake, and since the music is all in Brazilian portuguese, no one noticed they had pressed the wrong records. (I might have tracked down the Simonal LP with those songs…I’ll update with a Dig Deep post when it finally arrives).
So, here I was with two copies of a record that was not the record I thought it was. O Bidu / From Brazil IS a great record, as Ben’s music shifts from more acoustic bossa/samba sounds to a swinging 1960s rock style (backed up by Os Fevers) that actually doesn’t show up on many of the subsequent records. I especially dig how many times Jorge Ben name checks the “Brooklin” area of Sao Paulo, almost like a precursor of Hip-Hop’s love affair with NYC’s own Brooklin. Having heard “O Bidu” from Brazilian pressings, I feel like this 4 corners release has a superior sound and if you’re looking for these recordings, this is one you want to search for…now here’s some extra pics for the Ebay peoples.
Cheers,
Michael
