1. Adoniran Barbosa, artistic name of Joao Rubinato, was a noted Brazilian Sao Paulo style samba singer and composer.
16 Facts About Adoniran Barbosa
1. 2.
Adoniran Barbosa is said to have been a rather reluctant student, and started working at an early age.
3.
Adoniran Barbosa's first job was a sweeper boy and general helper at a railway company in the nearby town of Jundiai.
4.
Adoniran Barbosa remained with that network until his retirement in 1972; giving his voice to various popular characters created together with writer Osvaldo Moles, like: Pernafina, Ze Cunversa, and Jean Rubinet.
5.
In spite of the success of his songs and radio characters, Adoniran only became a star of sorts after 1973 when he recorded his first own album.
6.
Adoniran Barbosa had earned a private table at the Bar Brahma, one of the city's most traditional bars.
7.
Adoniran Barbosa was portrayed by Paulo Miklos in the 2023 Brazilian feature film Saudosa Maloca.
8.
Besides the Museu Adoniran Barbosa, there are many mementos of the composer scattered through Sao Paulo.
9.
Adoniran Barbosa gave his name to a school in Itaquera, to a street in the borough of Bexiga, to a Bar Adoniran Barbosa, and to a square.
10.
Adoniran Barbosa made good on the hardships of his youth by becoming the composer of the lower classes of Sao Paulo, particularly the poor Italian immigrants living in the quarters of Bexiga and Bras, and the poor who lived in the city's many malocas and corticos.
11.
Unlike the samba songs of the previous decades, which generally used the formal Portuguese of the educated class, Adoniran Barbosa's lyrics are a realistic record of the informal speech of Sao Paulo's lower classes.
12.
Yet, because of the strong social prejudice attached to such "bad" Portuguese, few if any authors before Adoniran Barbosa had dared to put those "errors" in writing.
13.
Adoniran Barbosa was known as the composer to the lower classes of Sao Paulo, particularly the poor Italian immigrants living in the quarters of Bexiga and Bras, as well as the poor who lived in the city's many shanties and corticos.
14.
Adoniran Barbosa knew well the Italian-Portuguese pidgin spoken in the streets of Sao Paulo, mostly in the sections of Mooca, Bras and Bexiga.
15.
In 1965, Adoniran Barbosa wrote "Samba Italiano", a song that has Brazilian rhythm and theme, but Italian lyrics with some words with Brazilian influence.
16.
Adoniran Barbosa left some 90 unpublished lyrics, which are being posthumously set to music by various composers.