Paris flies down to Rio

French Covers of Brazilian Classics

Paris 

11/03/2005 - 

The French-Brazilian connection has been fuelled by a host of cover versions over the years, many of them of the highest quality. RFI Musique takes a look at the Brazilian classics and rarities covered by French artists since the 1940s.

One of the most famous Brazilian classics of all time has to be Aquarela do Brasil, the 1939 'anthem' composed by the legendary pianist Ary Barroso – and covered by musicians in just about every country in the world ever since! Most famously, Aquarela do Brasil enjoyed a second lease of life as the theme music to British film-maker Terry Gilliam's cult movie, Brazil. Aquarela do Brasil has also spawned its fair share of covers in France, starting with Jean Sablon's softly crooned version in the late 50s. The French crooner, who enjoyed a successful career in Rio, went on to adapt a whole string of local hits including O Cangaceiro, Porque and the inevitable Garota de Ipanema (Girl from Ipanema).

In the 1940s, French bandleaders such as Jacques Hélian and Ray Ventura also flew their orchestras down to Rio. And they wasted no time in recording their own versions of Brazilian classics, Hélian covering Madureira chorou while Ventura adapted Chiquita Bacana. Henri Salvador, the suave French 'chanteur' who emerged from Ventura's group to launch his own solo career, made an impact touring the casinos in Rio and Belo Horizonte. Rumour has it Salvador was one of the inspirations behind bossa nova. This has never been confirmed, but one thing's for sure and that is that Salvador soaked up plenty of Brazilian flavour on his travels and wove local influences into his sound, recording his own version of Diz Que Tem and, more recently, a cover duet with Rosa Pasos of the Brazilian classic Wave. 

While Salvador reproduced the suave, sophisticated side of Brazilian music, Dario Moreno adopted a more comic, upbeat approach, drawing his inspiration from carnival samba. In the course of his career, Moreno transformed the Brazilian classic Madureira chorou into Si tu vas à Rio, turned Ze marmita into La Marmite and Mida Um Dineiro Ai into Eh oui mes amis. He also recorded his own version of Mulata Yeye, Tumba Le Le in 1961 and adapted Dorival Caymi's classic Vatapa. Caymi, a renowned composer from Bahia, happened to be a close friend of the French singer-songwriter Georges Moustaki. So it came as no surprise when Moustaki also dipped into Caymi's repertoire, recording his own version of Bahia as well as Asa Branca (the Nordeste 'anthem' by Luiz Gonzaga) and Les Eaux de mars (which also spawned an 80s cover by Atlantique). Brazil's famous sambas and bossa novas occasionally lost something in translation, however. Jobim's legendary Girl from Ipanema, rapidly adopted by French 'chanteuse' Jacqueline François, was later adapted in the worst 80s electro taste (by Lio) and was even played for laughs by the likes of Vincent Malone and La Campagnie des musiques à Ouïr.

Buarque, the one-man hit machine

The French vogue for Brazilian sounds began in earnest in the 1960s and 1970s when French artists cottoned onto the idea of adapting existing Brazilian hits. Brazilian songwriter Chico Buarque became a particular favourite with the French contingent. Buarque's 1976 hit O que sera soon found its way into the hands of Claude Nougaro, a pioneer of Brazilian music in France. The Toulousan crooner adapted the song into French as Tu Verras Tu verras and promptly went rocketing up the charts. (By this point in his career, Nougaro had already recorded a cover of Baden Powell's Berimbau, recreating it in France as another chart-topper, Bidonville). A Banda, another Buarque classic, enjoyed success in France thanks to covers by Georges Moustaki, Dalida and France Gall – who, strangely enough, decided to record her cover version in German!

But France Gall's version of A Banda was by no means the weirdest adaptation of a Buarque hit. That honour should surely go to Sheila's extraordinary 60s version of Funeral de um Lavrador (Funeral of a Brazilian Labourer)! Sheila's 'twisting the night away' take on the song contained the immortal line "Oh mon dieu qu’elle est mignonne" (My God, she's so pretty!) which somewhat missed the point of the tragic Brazilian original. Those who wish to hear a more faithful version of the original would be better off turning to the word-for-word adaptation Funérailles pour un travailleur brésilien recorded by Frida Boccara. Qui c'est celui-là, Pierre Vassiliu's French adaptation of Partido Alto turned out to be another nonsensical rendering of a Brazilian classic, where the Brazilian original lost all the force of its politically and socially committed lyrics (although, it has to be said, Vassiliu put a perfect musical spin on the song).

Sultry 60s diva Françoise Hardy turned Buarque's Fabia into La Mésange (The bluetit) while, keeping things in the bird kingdom, Michel Fugain triumphed with Fais comme l’oiseau (Do Like Birds Do), originally a hit in 1971 for Antonio Carlos and Jocafi as Voce Abusou. Meanwhile, Martine Havet scored significantly less of a chart hit with Coin coin (Quack quack), her French version of the trials and tribulations of the famous duckling in O Pato. Joe Dassin made a much smarter move, covering (for his second single, but first hit) Robert Carlos's O Calhambeque, the theme song of the hip young bohemian 'Jovem Guarda' movement in 1963. Dassin's version, Bip bip (Beep beep) evoked the experience of sitting in a Paris traffic jam – which was actually fairly close to the original story of an old banger cruising the highways and byways of Brazil!

Countless other French artists, including Les frères Jacques, Les 4 barbus and Chantal Goya, crested the wave of Brazilian hits, and it would be impossible to cite them all in the context of this article. But mention has to be made of Pierre Barouh, a lifelong fan of Brazil, who re-made Tom Jobim's Agua de Beber as Rien que de l’eau and recorded a Franco-Portuguese duet with Elis Regina in 1977, turning Noite Dos Mascarados into La nuit des masques.  

Brazilian Groove

Marcel Zanini and Brigitte Bardot also teamed up as a duo to score a hit with the risqué Tu veux ou tu veux pas? (a cheeky French version of Wilson Simonal and Carlos Imperial's Brazilian smash Ne vem que nao tem). In the mid-60s, Bardot (whose charms were sung by the famous samba singer Jorge Veiga and honoured by Tom Zé) also covered Carlos Lyra's Maria Ninguem, singing in (frankly far from perfect) Portuguese set to music by French arranger Alain Goraguer. It was around this time that France's blonde bombshell succumbed to the charms of Buzios, Rio's version of Saint-Tropez, adopting the seaside resort as her new beach retreat. Incidentally, Alain Goraguer also set his nimble pianist fingers to work, arranging an impressively groovy version of Mas que nada (an original hit for Jorge Ben in 1963). In French, the song became La Ville est là, recorded by Isabelle Aubret and featured on her album Casa Forte, released in the early 70s.

Jorge Ben's work also seduced French 'chanteuse' Nicoletta, who first heard Ben's Fio Maravilha at the Rio carnival. Nicoletta asked Boris Bergman to write a French adaptation of the song (originally written in honour of a famous Rio football star) in 1973. And, talking of football, hands up who knew that the Paris Saint-Germain supporters' chant "Olele, olala, quand il faut y aller, PSG est là!" is a reworking of Zuzuca's 'samba enredo'? In 1971, Festa para um rei negro celebrated the Salgueiro samba school in Brazil, but French music giant Carlos would later immortalise the song as his Bamboula.

Brazilian music has made an impact on the French scene in more recent years, too, starting with La Lambada (originally a Brazilian dance before becoming a craze in France as a summer chart-topper). Fifteen years later, TF1 - the French TV channel that launched the lambada craze – attempted another Brazilian revival with the group T -Rio, three scantily-clad Brazilian singers reworking La Choopeta (a song originally recorded by 30s diva Carmen Miranda). Meanwhile, on a less flashy commercial scale, Brazilian sounds have worked themselves into the French music scene courtesy of les Femmouze T, a duo made up of two female singers (one Brazilian, one French) who have adapted a number of Brazilian classics over the years.

As for the Toulousan group Les Bombes 2 Bal, their debut album was largely inspired by traditional Brazilian rhythms from the Nordeste. A fitting exchange when you consider that their fellow Toulousan musician Claude Sicre (member of Les Fabuleux Troubadours) was sampled in 1997 by up-and-coming Brazilian star Lenine on A Ponte, a track from his aptly-titled album Le jour où nous entrerons en contact (The Day We Come Into Contact). Looks like the French-Brazilian connection is set to run for many years yet!

Jacques  Denis

Translation : Julie  Street