Adoniran Barbosa, artistic name of João Rubinato (6 August 1910 – 23 November 1982), was a noted Brazilian São Paulo style

samba Samba () is a broad term for many of the rhythms that compose the better known Brazilian music genres that originated in the Afro-Brazilians, Afro Brazilian communities of Bahia in the late 19th century and early 20th century, It is a name or ...

singer and composer.

Biography

Early years

João Rubinato was the seventh child of Francesco (Fernando) Rubinato and Emma Ricchini, Italian immigrants from Cavarzere ( province of Venice). His parents had settled in

Valinhos Valinhos () is a Municipalities of Brazil, municipality (''município'') in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. It is the birthplace of Adoniran Barbosa. Valinhos is famous for its purple fig, the theme of its annual Fig Fest. It is part of the Met ...

, a rural town in the state of

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

, about 70 km from the city of

. In 2010, two bridges were named after Rubinato: one located in Valinhos, Brazil, where the singer was born, and another in Cavarzere, Italy, where his parents came from. He is said to have been a rather reluctant student, and started working at an early age (which required falsifying his birth date). His first job was a sweeper boy and general helper at a railway company in the nearby town of

Jundiaí Jundiaí is a Municipalities of Brazil, municipality in the state of São Paulo (state), São Paulo, in the Southeast Region, Brazil, Southeast Region of Brazil, located north of São Paulo. The population of the city is 443,221, with an area ...

. In 1924 he moved to Santo André, a town in the Greater São Paulo area, where he went through many jobs —

loom A loom is a device used to weaving, weave cloth and tapestry. The basic purpose of any loom is to hold the Warp (weaving), warp threads under tension (mechanics), tension to facilitate the interweaving of the weft threads. The precise shape of ...

operator, painter, plumber, iron worker,

peddler A peddler (American English) or pedlar (British English) is a door-to-door and/or travelling vendor of good (economics), goods. In 19th-century United States the word "drummer" was often used to refer to a peddler or traveling salesman; as exem ...

and waiter. At a local technical school (the Liceu de Artes e Ofícios) he learned the office of mechanical assistant.

Debut as composer and singer

In 1933 João Rubinato moved to the city of São Paulo, where he started composing songs and tried his luck as a singer in Cruzeiro do Sul radio station, in a talent-scouting show directed by Jorge Amaral. After many failures, he finally succeeded with the Noel Rosa's samba '' Filosofia'', and got a contract for a weekly 15-minute show. Fearful that a samba artist with an Italian surname would not be taken seriously by the public, João Rubinato then decided to adopt a more Brazilian-sounding name. So he borrowed the unusual "Adoniran" from one of his friends, and "Barbosa" from samba composer Luiz Barbosa, his idol. In 1935 he won a Carnaval song contest sponsored by the city of São Paulo, with the samba '' Dona Boa'', composed together with J. Aimberê. Spirited by that success, he married his longtime girlfriend Olga. The couple had a daughter, Maria Helena, but the marriage broke up in less than one year.

At the Rádio Record

In 1941 he started performing comedy in the radio theater programs of the São Paulo radio station ''Rádio Record'', — which would later become one of the top television and radio networks of Brazil — '' Rede Record''. He remained with that network until his retirement in 1972; giving his voice to various popular characters created together with writer Osvaldo Moles, like: ''Pernafina, Zé'' ''Cunversa,'' and ''Jean Rubinet'' (a parody of a French movie star). He also played parts in the movies: '' Pif-Paf'' (1945) and '' Caídos do Céu'' ("Fallen from Heaven") (1946), both directed by Ademar Gonzaga. In 1949 he married Matilde de Lutiis, who would be his companion and co-author for the next 50 years. In 1953 he made a fine performance in the movie '' O Cangaceiro'', by director Lima Barreto. In the early 1950s he wrote many songs on typical São Paulo themes, most of them recorded by the band Demônios da Garoa, and won two other São Paulo Carnaval contests. In 1955 he introduced the enormously popular character Charutinho ("Short Cigar") in the radio humor show '' Histórias das Malocas'' ("Shantytown Stories"). Adoniran also acted in some of the earliest Brazilian soap operas (

telenovela A telenovela is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines ''tele'' (for "television") and ''novela'' (meaning "novel"). Similar Drama (film and television), drama genres around the w ...

s), such as ''A Pensão de D. Isaura'' ("Ms. Isaura's Boarding Home"), and comic programs like '' Ceará contra 007'' ("

Ceará Ceará (, ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. It is the List of Brazilian states by population, eighth-largest Brazilian State by ...

against 007") and '' Papai Sabe Nada'' ("Daddy Knows Nothing").

Later years and legacy

In spite of the success of his songs and radio characters, Adoniran only became a star of sorts after 1973 when he recorded his first own album. That made him respected as a major composer, and gave him some media exposure. Nevertheless, through his career he continued living a simple and happy life. He had earned a private table at the Bar Brahma, one of the city's most traditional bars. While he never lost his love of São Paulo, towards the end of his life he became increasingly sad about the disappearance of its traditional character. "Until the 1960s," he once said, "São Paulo still existed, but since then I have been looking for it, and could not find it. Brás, where is Brás now? And Bexiga, where is it? I was told to look for the Sé. Could not find it. All I see is cars and concrete." While his music continued to be played, Adoniran himself was gradually forgotten by the public; so that when he died in 1982, in relative poverty, he had at his side only his wife and a brother in law. However, almost 30 years after his death he is still remembered by popular Brazilian singers like Perci Guzzo, who occasionally performs his songs in tribute. On 6 August 2016, Google Doodle commemorated his 105th birthday. Adoniran Barbosa was portrayed by

Paulo Miklos Paulo Roberto de Souza Miklos (known as Paulo Miklos , born on January 21, 1959) is a Brazilian multi-instrumentalist, musician and actor. He is best known for his tenure with the band Titãs, in which he was a vocalist, guitarist and occasional ...

in the 2023 Brazilian feature film ''Saudosa Maloca''.

Homages

Besides the Museu Adoniran Barbosa (at Rua XV de Novembro, 347), there are many mementos of the composer scattered through São Paulo. He gave his name to a

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

in Itaquera, to a

street A street is a public thoroughfare in a city, town or village, typically lined with Building, buildings on one or both sides. Streets often include pavements (sidewalks), pedestrian crossings, and sometimes amenities like Street light, streetligh ...

in the borough of Bexiga, to a Bar Adoniran Barbosa, and to a

square In geometry, a square is a regular polygon, regular quadrilateral. It has four straight sides of equal length and four equal angles. Squares are special cases of rectangles, which have four equal angles, and of rhombuses, which have four equal si ...

. In the Don Orione Square there is a bust of the artist, and in Jaçanã there is a street called "Rua Trem das Onze (11 PM Train Street)".

Musical production

Themes

Adoniran Barbosa made good on the hardships of his youth by becoming the composer of the lower classes of São Paulo, particularly the poor Italian immigrants living in the quarters of Bexiga ( Bela Vista) and Brás, and the poor who lived in the city's many ''malocas'' (the shanties of '' favelas'') and '' cortiços'' (degraded multifamily row houses). The themes of his songs are drawn from the life of low-wage urban workers, the unemployed and the vagabonds. His first big hit was ''Saudosa Maloca'' ("Shanty of Fond Memories", 1951), where three homeless friends recall with nostalgia their improvised shanty, which was torn down by the landowner to make room for a building. His next success '' Joga a Chave'' ("Throw me the Doorkey", 1952) was inspired on his own frequent experiences of arriving late at home and finding the door locked by his wife, Matilde. In his '' Trem das Onze'' ("The 11 pm Train", 1964), which has been ranked one of the five best samba songs ever, the protagonist explains to his lover that he cannot stay any longer because he has to catch the last train to the Jaçanã suburb, and besides his mother will not sleep before he arrives.

Adoniran's language

Unlike the samba songs of the previous decades, which generally used the formal Portuguese of the educated class, Adoniran's

lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, ...

are a realistic record of the informal speech of São Paulo's lower classes. He once said "I only write samba for the common people. That is why I write lyrics in 'wrong' Portuguese, because that is how the common people speak. Besides, I feel that samba is more beautiful when sung that way". The homeless narrator of his '' Saudosa Maloca'', for example, tells of the day when his shanty was torn down by the landowner: The ''peguemo'' instead of ''pegamos'', ''fumo'' instead of ''fomos'', ''nós sentia'' instead of ''nós sentíamos'', and ''tauba'' instead of ''tábua'' were all standard features of the speech of many ''paulistas''. Yet, because of the strong social prejudice attached to such "bad" Portuguese, few if any authors before Adoniran had dared to put those "errors" in writing. Even lyrics ostensibly sung by poor ''favela'' dwellers, such as the classic samba '' Chão de Estrelas'' ("Starry Floor"), were paragons of correct grammar and pronunciation. Thus Adoniran's use of "real"

Brazilian Portuguese Brazilian Portuguese (; ; also known as pt-BR) is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of Portuguese language native to Brazil. It is spoken by almost all of the 203 million inhabitants of Brazil and widely across the Brazilian diaspora ...

was a revolution that may be comparable to Gershwin's use of

Gullah The Gullah () are a subgroup of the African Americans, African American ethnic group, who predominantly live in the South Carolina Lowcountry, Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida within ...

in ''

Porgy and Bess ''Porgy and Bess'' ( ) is an English-language opera by American composer George Gershwin, with a libretto written by author DuBose Heyward and lyricist Ira Gershwin. It was adapted from Dorothy Heyward and DuBose Heyward's play ''Porgy (play), ...

''. Indeed, he was often strongly criticized for it, even by poet and composer Vinícius de Moraes (of ''

The Girl from Ipanema "Garota de Ipanema" (), or "The Girl from Ipanema", is a Brazilian bossa nova and jazz song. It was a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s and won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965. It was written in 1962, with music by Antônio Carlos Jobim a ...

'' fame). But Adoniran did not mind his critics, and his mastery allowed him to break with convention: as he used to say, art was required to sing in "wrong" language. And the success of his most popular songs, such as '' Tiro ao Álvaro'' (1960), was undoubtedly due in good part to the warmth and naturalness of its language. Barbosa was known as the composer to the lower classes of São Paulo, particularly the poor Italian immigrants living in the quarters of Bexiga (Bela Vista) and Brás, as well as the poor who lived in the city's many shanties and cortiços (degraded multifamily row houses). He knew well the Italian-Portuguese

pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...

spoken in the streets of São Paulo, mostly in the sections of Mooca, Brás and Bexiga. In 1965, Barbosa wrote " Samba Italiano" (Italian Samba), a song that has Brazilian rhythm and theme, but Italian lyrics with some words with Brazilian influence.

Musical style

His favorite musical style is the '' samba paulista'', the samba of São Paulo, generally despised by the ''sambistas'' of

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

. A feature of this style is the '' samba de breque'' ("brake samba"), where the music is suddenly interrupted to make space for a few spoken words, or a sudden reversal in the melodic line. For example, one of his great successes, the " Samba do Arnesto" ("Arnest's Samba", 1953) begins: :''O Arnesto nus convidou prum samba, ele mora no Brás.'' :"Arnest invited us for a samba, he lives in Brás." The melodic line is suspended briefly for the phrase ''ele mora no Brás'', which marks it as a parenthetical remark – not only in the lyrics, but in the music as well.

Compositions

:"Malvina", 1951 :"Saudosa maloca", 1951 :" Joga a chave", with Osvaldo Moles 1952 :" Samba do Arnesto", 1953 :"Pra que chorar", with Matilde de Lutiis :"A garoa vem descendo", with Matilde de Lutiis :"As mariposas", 1955 :"

Iracema ''Iracema'' (in Portuguese: ''Iracema - A Lenda do Ceará'') is one of the three indigenous novels by José de Alencar. It was first published in 1865. The novel has been adapted into several films. Plot introduction The story revolves around ...

", 1956 :"Apaga o fogo Mané", 1956 :" Um Samba no Bexiga", 1957 :"Bom-dia tristeza", 1958 :"Abrigo de vagabundo", 1959 :"No morro da Casa Verde", 1959 :"Prova de carinho", 1960 :" Tiro ao Álvaro", with Osvaldo Moles 1960 :"Luz da light", 1964 :" Trem das Onze", 1964 :"Agüenta a mão", 1965 :" Samba Italiano", 1965 :"Tocar na banda", 1965 :"Pafunça", with Osvaldo Moles 1965 :"O casamento do Moacir", 1967 :"Mulher, patrão e cachaça", 1968 :"Vila Esperança", 1968 :"Despejo na favela", 1969 :"Fica mais um pouco, amor", 1975 :"Acende o candieiro", 1972 :"Uma Simples Margarida" ("Samba do Metrô") :"Já Fui uma Brasa" :"Rua dos Gusmões" Adoniran also left some 90 unpublished lyrics, which are being posthumously set to music by various composers.

Compilation albums

* Raízes do Samba

References

External links

Adoniran Barbosa
Biography (in Portuguese).

Lyrics of Adoniram Barbosa Songs
In Portuguese.

Terra Music (30 sec. samples, sung by himself) {{DEFAULTSORT:Barbosa, Adoniran 1910 births 1982 deaths People from Valinhos Brazilian people of Italian descent Brazilian people of Venetian descent 20th-century Brazilian male singers 20th-century Brazilian singers Brazilian male songwriters Musicians from São Paulo