ASTRUD Gilberto, the Brazilian singer whose soft, beguiling voice made ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ a worldwide sensation in the 1960s and provided a huge boost to the budding bossa nova genre, has died at age 83, her family said.
"I come bearing the sad news that my grandmother became a star today and is next to my grandfather Joao Gilberto," Sofia Gilberto wrote on social media early Tuesday.
The singer was born in Salvador, capital of Brazil's northeastern state of Bahia, in 1940 and was married to Joao Gilberto, a pioneer of the bossa nova genre who died in 2019.
Astrud Gilberto recorded 19 albums in her career, but she had little professional music experience when she turned ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ – the song by Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes – into a global smash singing the English verses alongside American saxophonist Stan Getz.
The version made Gilberto the first Brazilian to be nominated for a Grammy – which she won, for song of the year, in 1965.
'Queen of bossa nova'
The silky-smooth song changed Gilberto's life, turning it upside down both personally and professionally.
As she told the story, she owed her popularity to an off-the-cuff suggestion by Joao Gilberto while they were recording it in New York to try singing in English.
"That song is going to make you famous," Getz told her in the studio.
It was apparently not just her music that wowed the saxophonist – and vice versa. She ended up leaving her husband for Getz and moving to the United States.
But that turbulent period in her life produced some of the best-loved recordings of all time, including the live album of the three friends' concert at New York's Carnegie Hall in October 1964.
Aged just 24, Gilberto suffered from stage fright, which she overcame by taking theatre eclasses at the Stella Adler acting academy. The pretty young brunette wowed audiences with her satin voice, which she took on tour with Getz.
She earned the nickname "The Queen of Bossa Nova," bringing the syncopated, relaxed Brazilian musical style to the world.
She remained in the US after separating from Getz, continuing her career with hits such as ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ (1972) and ‘Far Away’ (1977), and turning to songwriting with the albums ‘Astrud Gilberto Now’ and ‘That Girl From Ipanema’.
After a career touring the world, she retired from the stage in 2001. She was inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame the following year. In 2008, she was awarded a Latin Grammy for lifetime achievement. – AFP, June 7, 2023
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