Brazil has two kings whom it proclaims aloud and to whom it surrenders equally in admiration. One of them is Pelé, the star of football, and the other Roberto Carlos, the romantic and compulsive musical icon who at the age of 80 continues to captivate the public in Latin America and the world.
A biography that recounts in detail and without a sensationalist tone the life of the singer from his childhood, through his dramas, triumphs, mysteries and obsessions, comes to light this Monday, April 19, the same day that the octogenarian artist celebrates his birthday.
Recognized around the world for hits such as “El cacharrito”, “A cat in the dark”, “Concave and Convex”, “Dear lover” and “I just want” (a million friends), the several-time winner of the ‘Grammy has had a life of luxuries and happiness, but also of obstacles and deep sorrows.
The amputation of part of a leg when he was just six years old, the death of his three wives, the blindness of one of his children, His “panic” in old age and an obsessive compulsive disorder, for which he only wears white and blue, and which led him to veto several of his songs from his repertoires, are a few examples.
Written by the Brazilian journalist Jotabé Medeiros, who accompanied the artist’s career for 35 years, the biography called “That’s why this voice is so great” (That’s why this giant voice) was released by the publishing house Encara, at the risk of being vetoed by justice, as already happened with the first work that counted the life of the singer.
In 2007, at the request of the artist, the court ordered the removal from circulation of all copies of the biography “Roberto Carlos in details”, written by the Brazilian historian Paulo César d’Araujo.
“This work was the only one that inaugurated historiography around him, because there are many books that deal with aspects of his career, but the only one that dealt with his whole life, was this book,” he said. explain to Efe Medeiros, in a telephone interview.
The journalist added that if anyone else wanted to write a book of this style they would have to go all the way back to the artist. As he had been following his career since 1986 and had witnessed several events in person – something that gave him “some advantage” – he decided to set out to meet this challenge.
“For the issues of the past I had to do some research in which I went back, to the roots, to explain how it was that Roberto became what he is. This is something that so far neither the Brazilians have managed to explain well, “he said.
Medeiros says he “doesn’t write” authoritative biographies, but as a good reporter he called for the artist’s concept on some “controversial” topics before the book was published. Whether he read it or not is still a “mystery.”
In the book, the journalist is fully involved in the musical training of Roberto Carlos since his childhood in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, a municipality in the state of Espírito Santo, where he was born on April 19, 1941, for his explosion as a Brazilian rock star in the 1960s, until he became the ‘king of romantic song’ a decade later.
“Then he did a cultural assimilation related to American ‘black music’ (…), he recorded funk and soul songs and when he reaches the 70’s he makes more orchestral music and also has others with a bit of activism. environmental, ”the author explained.
Later, Roberto Carlos began to make a “more erotic” genre with songs like “Hostal taula” and “Cavalcada”, and which was known in Brazil as its “motelera phase”.
JULIO IGLESIAS, THE ONLY MUSICAL RIVAL
“This lasts a while and from there it goes to its more exacerbated romantic phase in which you will later find a single rival who is not Brazilian: Julio Iglesias,” Medeiros said.
According to the journalist, Roberto Carlos and Julio Iglesias came to have a dispute over “territory” at a certain point in their careers, a battle they fought only from the stage and for which they never became friends.
Among the curious facts that are revealed for the first time in this biography, is the obligatory visit that Roberto Carlos made in the 60s to the Apollo Theater in Harlem, whenever he traveled to New York, to be considered the “temple” of black music, through which passed stars like James Brown or Ella Fitzgerald.
PROTECTED FROM PUBLIC LIFE
At the age of 80, Roberto Carlos has already announced that his next tour will be in 2022 and that this year a film about his life will be released, according to an interview sent by his press office to the media, which included everything just a few questions from the more than 60 that several journalists sent him on the occasion of his birthday.
Imprisoned by the pandemic in the apartment that has also been protected from public life since 1980, the Brazilian artist revealed that he has composed again.
Since he released his first album in 1961, he produced an album annually until 2005, all successful, and from 1965 he used the same strategy for his productions in Spanish. After that, he only released two productions, with four songs each in 2012 and 2017.