Like Trio Nordestino, there are two noteworthy Azulãos: Azulão da Bahia and Azulão de Caruarú. The Azulão in this post is from Caruarú and was featured in the forró documentary in my previous post: Rare Forró Documentary in English & Portuguese - Luiz Gonzaga, Azulão & Jackson Do Pandeiro.
Several musical forms melded with forró in the 1970s: Carimbo, Funk and Disco. These were natural crossovers, since each was a type of dance music. Esperando Só is a catchy number with distinctive, squishy, funky electric bass. One of the first artists to use the electric bass in a forró recording was Luiz Gonzaga in O Folé Roncou in 1973. If Luiz Gonzaga did something, it was like a blessing from the Pope. As the 70s progressed, rock and soul instrumentation gradually became more common in forró.
According to onordeste, Azulão de Caruarú was born in 1942. Musicaria Brasil claims that his first appearance on disc was the compilation called Forró Do Zé Do Gato in 1964, which I will eventually feature on this blog. It should be noted that the history of forró is constantly being rewritten, because new discs are discovered and discographies are populated. Compactos seem to come out of the woodwork all the time. Azulão began recording full length albums in 1975 and has a healthy back catalog.
It is difficult to find biographies or current, reliable information about most forró artists, including Azulão. Many do not have their own promotional sites. dictionariompb is the finest resource I have found. According to their website, dictionariompb was created in 1995 by Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), through the Department of Arts and Livraria Francisco Alves Editora, and with the technical support of IES - Computer and Systems Engineering. This is one of the few resources dedicated to academic cataloging of popular music in Brazil.
Azulão de Caruarú - Esperando Só from Vaqueiro Varão - Esquema (1979)
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| Azulão - Esperando Só from Vaqueiro Varão - Esquema (1979) |
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