Ronnie Von Gets His Due

Today in musical circles outside of Brazil, Ronnie Von is best remembered as the man who introduced Os Mutantes to the masses. Certainly, he is deserving of such credit - his late-sixties television show, O Pequeno Mundo de Ronnie Von featured Mutantes as weekly performers during the band's infancy. However, the depth of Von's influence is far more significant than that of a mere television host.

Ronnie Von was a musician himself, and a rather successful one at that. While Brazilian musical sophisticates in the 60s typically opted either for Tropicália (Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil, Os Mutantes, etc) or Bossa nova (Jobim, João Gilberto, Vinicius de Moraes) as their preferred genres, the mainstream masses were listening to "iê iê" - essentially the equivalent of teen pop. The genre's lyrics were uncomplicated, romantic, and inoffensive. Its music drew heavily from early American and British rock. It was within this genre that Von was a leading musical figure - so much so that he is still regarded by many as one of Brazil's finest popular singers ever. However, like much teen pop, "iê iê" was never regarded as being artistically substantive. While the Tropicalistas pushed the envelope, "iê iê" artists were candy makers, providing the masses with light pop.

From this milieu, Ronnie Von delivered his 1968 self-titled record. It was not his first record (nor his first self-titled record, for that matter), but it marked an interesting step for both him and the "iê iê" movement - it was an attempt to add more modern (well, modern for 1968) aesthetics to a genre that seemed to be stuck in the recent past. The album still sounds mainstream - it does still carry with it the schmaltz and cleanliness of big-budget pop. This said, it is nonetheless rather experimental for a straight pop album. Musically speaking, the arrangements and production are spotless. The record seems well informed by the symphonic pop of the era (The Walker Brothers being a point of comparison that comes to mind), and perhaps also the early work of the Tropicalistas. Regardless of the interesting leap forward, the record did not sell well - perhaps it was too "out there" for mainstream listeners, but too "inside" for the art scene. Indeed, the record seems to straddle such a line - it is unquestionably a pop record, though it carries some hallmarks of a more progressive effort.

When teen pop met Tropicalismo.

Today's post is "Esperança De Cantar," a track from the record. Note that the typical (though very competent) arrangement is punctuated by a fuzz guitar - a feature at home on a Gilberto Gil or Mutantes record, but surprising in a teen pop context.

Esperança De Cantar