Astrud Gilberto, the singer who shot to fame after she released the first song she ever recorded, “The Girl From Ipanema”, has died at 83.
The Brazilian singer, whose music heralded the genre of Bossa nova into the west, recorded sixteen albums throughout her four decade long career, collaborating with the world’s biggest musicians, including Quincy Jones, George Michael, James Last, and jazz legend, Stan Getz — whose 1964 album “Getz/Gilberto” — introduced the world to the iconic song.
Gilberto’s granddaughter, Sofia, announced her grandmother’s death on Instagram.
“I’m here to bring you the sad news that my grandmother became a star today, and is next to my grandfather João Gilberto,” she wrote.
“She was a pioneer and the best. At the age of 22, she gave voice to the English version of Girl from Ipanema and gained international fame.”
Family friend and fellow musician, guitarist Paul Ricci confirmed the news on Facebook.
“I just got word from her son Marcelo that we have lost Astrud Gilberto,” he wrote. “He asked for this to be posted.”
“She was an important part of ALL that is Brazilian music in the world and she changed many lives with her energy. RIP from ‘the chief’, as she called me.”
Gilberto became one of Brazil’s biggest stars in the 1960s and 70s, paving the way for an explosion of genre-mixing styles during subsequent eras.
Childhood
Gilberto was born Astrud Evangelina Weinert in Bahia, Brazil in 1940, to a German father and a Brazilian mother.
The family relocated to Rio de Janeiro when she was still young, and during her teenage years, she began singing with a group of young musicians who would go on to influence the course of Brazilian music.
One of the musicians included a guitarist nine years her senior, named João Gilberto — who, she would go on to marry when she was 19.
“The Girl From Ipanema” controversy and achievement
In 1963, when Gilberto was 22, she joined her husband, João in New York City as he was set to record an album with American saxophonist, Stan Getz.
One of the songs on the album was called “The Girl From Ipanema,” written by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes — one of the musicians the young married couple hung out with back in Rio.
When it came time to recording the song in English, the studio realised they needed someone to sing the English lyrics, written by Norman Gimbel.
That was when Gilberto stepped up. In an interview from 2010, an engineer who worked on the record said the producer, Creed Taylor, “said he wanted to get the song done right away and looked around the room,” engineer Phil Ramone told jazz criticism site, Jazzwax.
“Astrud volunteered, saying she could sing in English. Creed said, great. Astrud wasn’t a professional singer, but she was the only victim sitting there that night.”
She had barely any preparation.
“Creed handed Astrud the word sheet and she went into the studio and did it,” Ramone said.
The song was an instant hit, going on to sell more than five million copies worldwide, as well as becoming one of the most covered songs in pop music history.
It also made history that year, winning a Grammy Award for Record of the Year — the first album by a jazz artist to win the award. (The only other time that would happen would take place more than 40 years later, when Herbie Hancock’s “River: The Joni Letters,” took out the award in 2008.)
The album, “Getz/Gilberto” also collected three other Grammys, including Album of the Year. In 2001, the song was inducted into the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2014, on the song’s 50th anniversary, one music critic called it “perhaps the most successful melding of American jazz (with saxophonist Stan Getz) and the Brazilian samba and bossa nova sounds of South America.”
But behind the public accolades, Gilberto was fighting to be recognised as a serious artist.
Fighting for recognition as a woman
Sadly, behind one of the most successful songs in history lies a story of “exploitation and manipulation by a music industry dominated by men full,” as revealed by Mexico City news publication, La Jornada.
According to author Ruy Castro, who published his 2003 book “Bossa nova: The history of Brazilian music”, Getz earned almost a million dollars from the album. Joгo received US$23,000, while his wife earned what the American musicians’ union paid for a single session’s work: US$120.
Getz gave an interview with Jazz Professional magazine in 1964, calling Gilberto’s voice “innocent and demure” and that he knew it would be huge hit.
“She was just a housewife and I put her on that album because I wanted the song to be performed in English,” he said.
Years later, in 1982, Gilberto published her thoughts in an interview on her own website, saying, “I can’t help but to feel annoyed at the fact that they resorted to lying.”
“Nothing is further from the truth,” she wrote.
“I guess it may them look ‘important’ to have been the one that had the ‘wisdom’ to recognise talent or ‘potential’ in my singing… I suppose I should feel flattered by the importance that they lend to this, but I can’t help but to feel annoyed at the fact that they resorted to lying!”
Gilberto’s son, Marcelo, revealed that his mother had to endure a lot of misogyny and discrimination within the music industry during her four decade career.
“[She was] the face and the voice of bossa nova to the majority of the planet,” Marcelo told The Independent. “She deserves to be honoured as a singer who brought joy to the world with a song, that in her own words, gave everyone “romance and dreamy distraction”.
“Brazil turned its back on her. She achieved fame abroad at a time when this was considered treasonous by the press.”
Just a year after the album was released, Gilberto divorced her husband. Even so, she agreed to go on tour across America with Getz’s band as a guest singer.
It was a decision the singer later revealed she regretted.
“They were very difficult times,” she said in 2002. “Besides being in the midst of a separation and dealing with the responsibilities of being a single mother and a brand-new demanding career, I was also coping with being on my own for the first time in my life, in a foreign country, travelling with a child, having financial difficulties… and, of course, sadly, totally naïve”.
In 1965, she recorded “The Astrud Gilberto Album,” before following that up a year later with “Look to the Rainbow”.
In the 70s, she expanded her talents to write her own songs, and released a further two albums “Astrud Gilberto Now” (1972) and “That Girl From Ipanema” (1977).
Later Years
Over the next two decades, she continued to work extensively with a range of musicians, including George Michael (who asked to sing a duet with her for a charity album in the 90s), Chet Baker, recording an album with James Last and touring internationally in a band with her son, Marcelo.
In 2002, Gilberto recorded her last album, “Jungle,” where she “demonstrates that she can still be a charming, expressive vocalist,” according to Philadelphia-based journalist and music critic, Alex Henderson.
In recent years, she has been actively campaigning against animal cruelty, writing essays on her website about Animal Testing Labs, animal rights laws in the U.S and factory farming.
She is survived by her two sons, Marcelo Gilberto, Gregory Lasorsa (from her second marriage) and two granddaughters.