August 23, 2011

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Blackout aka: Otavio Henrique de Oliveira. Had something to do with power outages when he sang.


And now for something completely different. Samba legend Blackout, whose real name was Otavio Henrique de Oliveira, earned the lasting nickname from a series of power outages throughout Sao Paolo every time he sang on the radio in 1941. His career started around the time the Second World War broke out and South America was not immune to wartime shortages - electricity being one of them.

But Blackout stuck and his popularity rose accordingly, becoming one of the best known singers of the Samba genre throughout South America throughout the 1940's, 50's and into the 60's. Sadly, not known practically at all north of the border.

Tonight it's a track he recorded in 1949 for the Continental label of Sao Paolo. Que Samba Bom is one of those songs so synonymous with the Samba Movement. You may think of Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto in the 1960's and they did a lot to put it on the map as far as U.S. audiences were concerned, but Samba has been around for a very very long time and with a rich history.

And Blackout was one of its best practitioners.

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