Lyra was at the genre’s 1950s birth in Rio beachside jams, bringing sensuality to Brazil’s serious music scene. He explains how he shaped bossa’s stunning melodies – and gave it a social conscience
In 1959, Carlos Lyra’s musical partner and lyricist Ronaldo Bôscoli said that bossa nova is a state of mind. Lyra thought he was talking nonsense. “Today, I’m actually agreeing with him,” he reflects more than six decades later, while vividly narrating a flashback of the genre’s early days in 1950s Rio de Janeiro. “With our guitars and bottles of homemade drinks, we used to go to the beach at sunset and stay singing through the night. The next day, we would do it all over again. It was a joyous, carefree atmosphere.”
Lyra, who conjured that state of mind like few others with classics such as Você e Eu and Coisa Mais Linda, turned 90 last week and is one of the only musicians who helped birth the Brazilian genre still alive today. In April 1958, singer Elizete Cardoso recorded Canção do Amor Demais – the first album to present João Gilberto’s bossa nova guitar beat, inspired – mainly, but not only – by samba and American jazz. Less than a year later, Gilberto released the album Chega de Saudade, full of the beat he would later become world-famous for.
