Brass Trax

If there’s an undercurrent of desperation in Olhaí, Balândro…É Bufo No Birrolho Grinza!, Wilson Simonal’s overlooked 1973 album, it’s easy to guess why. The Brazilian singer’s career was in a death spiral. He had gone from being one of Brazil’s most popular singers, a man with his own television show, to being a public outcast, accused of conspiring with Brazil’s military government, of snitching on his fellow entertainers. People had stopped buying Simonal’s records, and it’s easy to imagine the anxiety that must have infiltrated the recording sessions for Olhaí, Balândro…É Bufo No Birrolho Grinza!. Could this album save Simonal’s career?

The answer, of course, was “no.” But that doesn’t mean that the album wasn’t a triumph. In fact, it might have been the last shimmer of Simonal’s brilliance before his artistic decline began to match the decline in his popularity.

Simonal was a great innovator. He was one of the first black Brazilians to find success on the pop charts, and he blazed the trail for artists like Jorge Ben, Gilberto Gil, and, later, Tim Maia and the funky sounds of Black Rio. But, in the early 60s, it was just Simonal, taking the sounds of American R&B records and fusing them with samba, a specifically black concoction that stood as a counterpoint to both the bossa nova and the lefty protest samba of the MPB set. By the late 60s, Simonal would adopt his signature style: “pilantragem,” or “banditry,” a precocious approach to cutting-and-pasting other artists’ work into a tremendous whole.

It’s a style that he maintained for Olhaí, Balândro…É Bufo No Birrolho Grinza!, which some critics have labeled as an early example of “samba-rock.” It could just as easily be called “samba-highlife” or “samba-funk”; the influences are that varied. Take the opening track, “Dingue Li Bangue.” The tune opens with organ swells and a chorus of women singing the title phrase, sounding like the intro to a prog rock tune. Quickly, however, Simonal makes the scene with a funked up call-and-response that passes from the right channel to the left, echoes of Africa, before settling into a funky samba. The song is practically a crash course in comparative musicology.

Listen to “Dingue Li Bangue”

Simonal’s fall from fame began in 1971, when he signed his switched record labels from Odeon to Phillips. Taking a look at his finances, Simonal began to suspect his accountant, Rafael Vivani, of embezzling from him. The accountant denied the allegations, of course, so Simonal took the extraordinary step of having the man kidnapped and viciously tortured in order to extract a confession. Among the perpetrators was a friend of Simonal’s who also happened to be a member of the Departamento de Ordem Política e Social (DOPS), the Brazilian military regime’s brutal secret police. During the ensuing scandal, which would find Simonal convicted of kidnapping, members of the DOPS accused him of being an informant who had given away the secrets of leftist singers. There was enough circumstantial evidence—Simonal had served in the army when he was younger and his biggest hit, “País Tropical,” was viewed by many on the left as nationalist hokum—that he was convicted in the court of public opinion. The actual extent of his guilt may never be known—recent attempts to answer the question, such as the documentary “Wilson Simonal: No One Knows How Tough It Was” have likewise proved indecisive—but his career was effectively over.

One artist who stuck with Simonal, at least until 1973, was Jorge Ben, Simonal’s longtime friend and the author of “País Tropical.” Ben contributed two songs to Olhaí, Balândro…É Bufo No Birrolho Grinza!. The first, “Quem Mandou (Pé na estrada)” is a searingly funky samba, which Simonal simply slays with smoothness. The second, “Colecionador de Amigos,” might be the funkiest cut on the album, with a tight arrangement that privileges a strutting bassline and female backing vocals tooting what could easily be a proto-disco chant. Both tunes are vintage Ben—dancefloor sureshots—but, in the hands of Simonal, they also become headphone epics.

Listen to “Quem Mandou (Pé na estrada)”
Listen to “Colecionador de Amigos”

But Ben’s tracks weren’t the only ones on Olhaí, Balândro…É Bufo No Birrolho Grinza! that might tear up a party. “Nega Tijucana” and “Rio Grande do sul na Festa do Preto Forro” are both bangers that throw down an uncompromising torrent of samba percussion. Fierce tracks, each sounds like it was ripped straight out of a Carnaval parade, a glimpse at the African tradition behind the samba bacteria, or percussion ensemble.

Listen to “Nega Tijucana”
Listen to “Rio Grande do sul na Festa do Preto Forro”

Simonal’s gentler side comes out in “Andorinha Preta,” a slow jam. Dreamily produced, the track sounds weightless. In lesser hands, it could have ended up as the sort of thing you expect to hear at an upscale brunch, but Simonal’s timeworn, golden throat redeems the track and makes the Anglophone listener eager to better understand sung Portuguese.

Olhaí, Balândro…É Bufo No Birrolho Grinza! may have been Wilson Simonal’s last great record, and it, like much of his catalog, is finally beginning to get the attention it deserves. Simonal died a broken man in 2000, a drunk and a failure, and, as time passes, it has become easier for Brazilians to forgive, or at least forget, his crimes. One thing remains certain, however, even in the dusk of his career, Simonal was one hell of a singer.

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