Eduardo Araújo — Pressentimento

from A Onda é Boogaloo (1969)

This Brazilian soul LP is really an oddity—this is one of only three original tracks on the album, writen by Araújo and his songwriting partner Chil Deberto. The rest of the tracks are all reworkings of American soul classics by Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Smokey Robinson and James Brown, some of them quite good. (Aretha’s ‘Baby, baby sim baby’—‘Since you’ve been gone’).

Why so many covers? The album’s producer, funk master Tim Maia, had spent a year or two in New York City, where he became acquainted with the soul scene. His deportation back to Brazil served to turn him into a sort of soul ambassador, and he convinced his old friend from Rio’s Clube do Rock, Araujo, to give soul a shot.

Araujo, on the other hand, was a country boy from a farm in Minas Gerais, who moved to Rio in 1960 with dreams to become a veterinarian. But he got swept up in rock’n’roll mania instead, recording his biggest hit, the bubblegum rock number ‘O bom’ in 1967. This soul album, recorded several years later, sounds light years apart in style.

After the decline of Brazil’s teenybopper Jovem Guarda movement, he was back on the farm, where years later he recorded a tribute to the horse race Mangalarga Marchador, effectively relaunching his career—as a country singer. He’s now a mustachioed country singer with a white Stetson, and raises horses.

Grab the album over at Mining the Audio Motherlode.