Acabou Chorare
Acabou Chorare is the second studio album by Brazilian rock and MPB group Novos Baianos. The album was released in 1972 by Som Livre, following the group's moderately successful debut É Ferro na Boneca. During the recording of the album, the group took inspiration from various contemporary artists of the time, such as Jimi Hendrix, João Gilberto, and Assis Valente. In addition, Gilberto heavily influenced the sound of the album, as he served as the group's mentor during the album's recording sessions. The album was written and recorded as a response to contemporary Brazilian music of the 1970s, which often dealt with melancholic subject matters, due in part to the ongoing Brazilian military dictatorship.
Acabou Chorare is a MPB, samba rock and tropicália album with elements of frevo, baião, choro, afoxé and rock and roll. These elements were influenced by João Gilberto, who introduced them to Brazilian musical traditions, incorporating those elements into their sound while maintaining rock energy. Guitarist Pepeu Gomes contributed virtuosic solos and experimented with custom-built instruments and distortion techniques. Moraes Moreira's guitar style also evolved, shifting from rock strumming to the intricate plucking characteristic of samba and bossa nova.
The album has received several awards and nominations from publications. In 2007, Acabou Chorare was ranked first in the list of 100 greatest albums of Brazilian music by the Brazilian Rolling Stone magazine. It was also nominated in the podcast, being voted as the second greatest album of Brazilian music. In September 2012, it was voted the eight best Brazilian album, tied with the self-titled album by Secos & Molhados by the audience of Eldorado FM radio, the Estadão.com portal and Caderno C2+Música. In July 2024, it was ranked in the 22th position on the "Los 600 de Latinoamérica" list compiled by a collective of music journalists from several countries of the Americas, curating the top 600 Latin American albums from 1920 to 2022.
Background
Under the influence of countercultural movements, members of Novos Baianos—Pepeu Gomes, Paulinho Boca de Cantor, Baby Consuelo, Moraes Moreira, Luiz Galvão, Jorginho Gomes, Dadi Carvalho, José Roberto and Luís Bolacha—recorded their first album, É Ferro na Boneca, in the city of São Paulo. They first performed together in Salvador, Bahia in 1969, in the show Desembarque dos bichos depois do dilúvio, alongside the band of brothers Pepeu and Jorginho Gomes, who was the drummer. In 1971, they moved to Rio de Janeiro, initially sharing a penthouse before moving to a communal farm along the road to Jacarepaguá, Rio de Janeiro called the Cantinho do Vovô, where they would later record Acabou Chorare. Before this, seeking musical guidance in their new city, Galvão reached out to João Gilberto, whom he had known since his adolescence in Juazeiro, Bahia. Gilberto promised to visit them in Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, stating, "I always dreamed of having a group where everyone lived together. I always dreamed of that. I never managed to do it". Regarding the move to Jacarepaguá, Paulinho Boca explained, "We ended up leaving downtown because we were too conspicuous, standing out. Everyone had long hair, people were giving warnings. It was better to find a quiet, natural place with greenery". Paulinho and Moraes were even arrested in a warehouse due to their long-haired appearance but were soon released. Their hippie lifestyle was reflected in their music. The first album featured songs, among many by the group, that included references to drug use, but it was not subject to censorship by the military regime. The title track, for instance, includes the lines "Look at the product in the baggage" and "It's not a road, it's a trip..."At one point, while the group was living in an apartment in Botafogo, they received an unexpected visitor. Dressed in a suit and tie, he rang the doorbell, prompting Dadi Carvalho to initially suspect it was law enforcement. However, the visitor was João Gilberto—a fellow Bahian who would become a key musical and spiritual mentor to Novos Baianos. His visits were frequent, even in Jacarepaguá; he himself said he went there with his wife Miúcha and their young daughter Bebel Gilberto "for a stroll, and took the opportunity to listen to what the crazy guys were playing, composing, inventing ". His influence, combined with Novos Baianos' interest in tropicália, choro, afoxé, trio elétrico and Jimi Hendrix, contributed to the group's evolving musical style. Galvão recalls that, for Novos Baianos, João Gilberto introduced them to "the real samba of Assis Valente" and advised them, alongside the proposal to record "Brasil Pandeiro", "to turn inward themselves".
Several authors argue that it was precisely João Gilberto's presence that inspired the creation of Acabou Chorare. The album's title itself emerged from a conversation among them, recounting how his daughter, Bebel Gilberto, as a young child, mixed Portuguese with Spanish she heard while living in Mexico with her parents. She often used the phrase when she fell or bumped into something and cried, prompting her father and the rest of the family to chase after her. When she stopped crying, she would say: "Acabou chorare, acabou chorare", which is a way of saying "no more crying" in baby talk. According to Galvão:
As Ricardo Azevedo wrote, "to the ears of Novos Baianos, that was enough to turn into music". And, as Baby recalls, "Coming from the mouth of a child, it showed that we had cried too much. We wanted the joyful Brazil back". After recording all the tracks in a rough and improvised manner at Polygram, following Nelson Motta's suggestion to record them at Jorge Karan's house, they ended their association with the label. They later secured the support of producer Eustáquio Sena and, owner and director of Som Livre, later known as the father of Cazuza, who financed the recording of Acabou Chorare and contributed to the group's career development.
Recording and production
Under such influence, Acabou Chorare was composed and recorded. At the Jacarepaguá farm, the entire band lived together with other relatives and friends, embracing a communal lifestyle associated with the hippie movement; The number of residents was large enough to organize regular soccer games in the late afternoons, which led them to create the team Novos Baianos F.C. and release the post-Acabou Chorare album with that very title, Novos Baianos F.C.. As Moreira recounts, "We might lack money for food, but we always had enough to buy marijuana and sports equipment". The routine at the Cantinho do Vovô was simple. As Paulinho Boca recalls, "After breakfast, Galvão would go compose, Moraes would stay playing. We exercised a lot, went to the beach by bike. When the sun was setting, the 'baba' would start", he says, referring to the Bahian nickname for soccer games. The album cover, a wooden table built by Pepeu, shows scattered plates and cups, disorganized cutlery and pans, flies, and flour, symbolizing the musical "mixture" and the communal spirit of the group at the farm. In 1972, it received the award for Best Graphic Production of the Year; the artwork is credited to Antônio Luis Martins, better known as "Lula", the protagonist of the cult movie Meteorango Kid - O Herói Intergalático, directed by André Luiz de Oliveira.The musical direction of the album took a total of two years to develop, with the group composing, rehearsing, and refining the album, while João Gilberto provided tips and suggestions. According to Moraes Moreira, it was natural to live, produce, and share everything within the farm's community: "It was something that happened within the chaos we lived in. We didn't close the bedroom door to compose. It was right there in the middle of everyone, in the joy. We believed that this would influence our music. And it did. For us, life was the rehearsal. When we went to record Acabou Chorare, everything was already under our fingers from daily rehearsals. You listen and realize the album was recorded in four tracks". Despite feeling unquestionably inferior to their mentor, the musicians of Novos Baianos took pride in occasionally "stealing" João's chords. They displayed impressive virtuosity, particularly in tuning—at a time when tuners were not readily available—playing a combination of acoustic and electric instruments with precise tuning. According to Moraes, this was because, even though they adopted unconventional behaviors and experimented with substances like LSD, music remained a serious pursuit for them. Paulo César Salomão, the sound technician, lived in a section of the property near the decommissioned chicken coop and the communal shower. He spent late nights studying electronics and, since there were no resources to purchase new parts for the album's guitars, he enhanced the sound of the Supersonic guitar by carving into the instrument and attaching capacitors removed from the family's television set, which was left unguarded on the farm.
The "television trick", as it became known, is particularly notable in the "buzzing stridency" of "Bilhete Para Didi" and the solo of "Mistério do Planeta". Salomão also showed his resourcefulness by transforming the chicken coop into a studio, placing amplifiers and speakers on tree branches. Nearby, they took collective showers: "It wasn't everyone naked, full of lust", recalls Paulinho, "it was sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll, but all at home. People said we were dirty, lice-ridden, but everyone showered every day and smelled nice. We had one meal a day, 'almojanta