Nara Lofego Leão (Portuguese pronunciation: ; January 19, 1942 – June 7, 1989) was a Brazilian bossa nova and MPB (popular Brazilian music) singer and occasional actress.
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (August 2022) |
Her husband was Carlos Diegues, director and writer of Bye Bye Brasil.
Nara Leão | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Nara Lofego Leão |
Born | Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil | January 19, 1942
Died | June 7, 1989 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | (aged 47)
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Instrument(s) |
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Years active | 1963–1989 |
Leão was born in Vitória, Espírito Santo. When she was twelve, her father gave her a guitar since he was worried about her being shy. Her teachers were popular musician and composer Patricio Teixeira and classical guitarist Solon Ayala. As a teenager in the late 1950s, she became friends with a number of singers and composers who took part in Bossa Nova's musical revolution, including Roberto Menescal, Carlos Lyra, Ronaldo Bôscoli, João Gilberto, Vinicius de Moraes, and Antônio Carlos Jobim. There are even voices that claim that it was in her room in her parents' home in Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, that the new music was born in the fifties. By 1963, after singing as an amateur for a few years, she became a professional and toured with Sérgio Mendes.
In the mid-1960s, the institution of military dictatorship in Brazil led her to sing increasingly political lyrics. Her show, Opinião, reflected her political beliefs, and she had largely switched to political music by this point. In 1964 she even spoke against bossa nova as a movement, calling it "alienating." In 1968 she appeared on the album Tropicália: ou Panis et Circenses, performing "Lindonéia."
She later left Brazil for Paris and in the 1970s abandoned music to focus on her family. She returned to music later, and when she discovered in 1979 that she had an inoperable brain tumor, she increased her productivity as much as possible. She died in 1989.
She was known as "the muse of bossa nova."
Nara's sister was Danuza Leão, a model and socialite who was also a newspaper columnist and occasional TV commentator.
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