These albums are as amazing as their cover art suggets!
At some point soon I plan to start posting reviews of individual albums on a whole slew of artists and music I really dig. But for this post it’s just a quickie, in response to the joyful epiphanies of this particular music-fuelled journey.
I don’t know what if any religious beliefs Marcos has, but several of tracks that I always find particularly powerfully moving have either overt (‘Jesus Meu Rei’) or potentially covert (‘Meu Heroi’*) allusions to Christianity. Both the pieces mentioned above have a kind of transcendent joyousness that always blows me away when I hear them.
One of the many things I love about Valle is the musical magpie aspect, he’s super-eclectic in a way many artists don’t come anywhere near, and yet whatever he does always bears his very personal imprint. And we shouldn’t forget his brother Paul Sergio Valle, Marcos’ long time lyrical collaborator.
Some years ago I bought all the albums I could by him which, at that time, meant Japanese imports for the 1970s stuff. I bought them via the superlatively cool Dustygroove website. They wound up costing me about £30 each! They were quite expensive in themselves, but I was mugged by Customs as well. Still, it was money well spent. What price the sublime?
Subsequently these albums have also been released by Light In The Attic, and I keep meaning to get these versions. Sadly funds aren’t as readily available to me right now as they were when I bought the Jap imports, or I’d have bought them already. The LITA versions look very groovy, with plenty of additional material (pics, liner notes, etc.).
The Jap reissues have lots of text, but in Japanese (although the lyrics are given in both Japanese and Portuguese). Then there’s the earlier more straight ahead bossa stuff, all of which is excellent.
I must admit I haven’t been so ardent a collector of his music of the ’80s and after.I do have some of it. And it’s very good. Indeed, by ordinary standards it’s superb. But it’s not as psychedelically and orgasmically eclectic or rich as his ’70s heyday, for my money.
Anyway, Marcos Valle is fantastic. He’s been over to England several times in recent years. But somehow I never hear about it until afterwards. Most frustrating! And from what I’ve seen posted online – there are some great recent concerts on YouTube – he’s still firing on all cylinders. Marcos, we love you and salute you!
* I mistakenly thought the chorus was ‘Meu heroi é Jesus’, when in fact it’s ‘Meu heroi é isso’. Typing the latter into google translate, I get either ‘my hero is that’, or ‘my hero it is’.
NOTES:
[1] Looks like Marcos might belong to my pantheon of boss-eyed heroes, along with Leo McKern and Peter Falk. I can find no info on Marcos’ eyes, but it looks to me like the left one isn’t a mobile as the right.
[2] His last in a run of brilliant music for Brazil’s ‘national’ label, a subsidiary of EMI.
[3] He has at least two self-titled albums, one released in 1970, the other in ’74.
And has he lost this bright shining musical genius? Watch this and decide for yourself: