Portela 2024, enredo Um Defeito de Cor. Alegoria 5: Em cada porto, nosso ninho.

"O samba genuinamente preto

Fina flor, jardim do gueto

Que exala o nosso afeto

Me embala, oh! Mãe, no colo da saudade

Natal da Portela

Paulinho da Viola: Foi um Rio que Passou em Minha Vida (1970)

Another album “rescued” from my parents’ old record collection, Foi um Rio que Passou em Minha Vida (“It was a River that Passed through My Life”) was Paulinho da Viola’s breakthrough sophomore album, and it was born of an embarrassing misunderstanding.

It’s a long story, but Paulinho already had a strong affiliation with the Portela samba school when he scored an accidental hit with another song that praised the rival Mangueira school, “Sei Lá, Mangueira,” composed with Hermínio Bello de Carvalho, and made famous by Elza Soares in 1969.

So, as an act of contrition, Paulinho felt the need to once again pledge his loyalty to Portela with “Foi um Rio que Passou em Minha Vida,” then he named this blockbuster of a record after the song, for good measure.

The rest of this LP delivered almost a dozen prime examples of Paulinho’s traditional sambas (“Estou Marcado,” “Jurar com Lágrimas,” etc.), though some sweetening string sections were also added to certain tracks, e.g. “Para não Contrariar Você” and “Tudo se Transformou.”

My personal favorites include “O Meu Pecado” (“My Sin”), where an older but maybe not wiser Paulinho laments having loved too many women (haven’t we all?) and “Lamentação” which offsets his warm vibrato with unexpected, almost funereal, half-paced horns.

(I just got back from New Orleans, so this last observation may have been tainted by my visit to that unique city.)

Another tune I really like is the closing, spartan, absolutely lovely “Não Quero Você Assim,” (“I Don’t Want You that Way”) which finds da Viola accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, up until an orchestrated crescendo arrives to punctuate the album.

So, at the end of the day, it was mission accomplished: not only was this the album that made Paulinho da Viola a household name all over Brazil, its title song was such a smash that an estimated 15 different cover versions were recorded in 1970 alone!

I’d say, Paulinho made his amends with the Portela crew, and then some!