Raul Santos Seixas (Portuguese pronunciation: [ʁaˈuw ˈsejʃɐs]; 28 June 1945 – 21 August 1989) was a Brazilian rock composer, singer, songwriter and producer. He is sometimes called the “Father of Brazilian Rock” and “Maluco Beleza”, the last one roughly translated as “Groovy Nutcase”. He was born in Salvador (Bahia), Brazil, and died of pancreatitis in São Paulo. Every year on Seixas’ birthday, legions of fans, including thousands of impersonators (many even changing their last name to Seixas as a sign of passionate admiration), throw a parade in his honor in downtown São Paulo.His body of work consists of 21 albums released throughout his 26-year career. His musical style is varied, though Rock’n’Roll, folk, and ballads form much of his oeuvre. Raul Seixas also wrote songs that blended non-Anglo styles, including variations of rhythms typical of his native Northeast Brazil like Forró, Baião, Maxixe, Candomblé drumming, and in fact, often used more than one style in the same song, such as in “Let Me Sing, Let Me Sing”. “Canto para minha morte” (Song for my death) is a rock-tango of deep spiritual resonance. His debut album, Raulzito e os Panteras, was produced when he was part of a band of the same name. However, he only gained prominence and critical audience with songs from the album Krig-Há, Bandolo! (1973), such as “Ouro de Tolo” (“Fool’s Gold”), “Mosca na Sopa” (“Fly in the Soup”), and “Metamorfose Ambulante” (“Walking Metamorphosis”). Raul Seixas developed a musical style that emphasized the free-spirit and the mystic. His album Gita (1974), influenced by figures such as Aleister Crowley, expresses his views directly. Although Raul Seixas never described himself as an adept of Tropicália (Os Mutantes, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tom Zé, Gal Costa, Jorge Ben Jor, etc), his openness to exploring and mingling sounds and rhythms of different times and cultures with an iconoclastic shows that Tropicália did seem to have a degree of influence in Raul Seixas’ artistic output.
Many songs in Gita were co-written with his frequent collaborator, then-fellow mystic and future worldwide bestselling author Paulo Coelho. Raul was interested in philosophy (especially metaphysics and ontology), psychology, history, literature and Latin. In October 2008, nineteen years after his death, Raul Seixas was placed in 19th position in a list of one hundred greatest artists of Brazilian music sponsored by the Brazilian edition of Rolling Stone magazine, topping the likes of Milton Nascimento, Maria Bethânia, Heitor Villa-Lobos and others, demonstrating the influence that Seixas’ music continues to hold today.
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