Nara Leão

Quick Facts

Intro

Brazilian singer

A.K.A.

Nara Leao

Places

Brazil

was

Singer Jazz musician

Work field

Music

Gender

Female

Birth

19 January 1942 People who share this birthday

Place of birth

Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil

Death

7 June 1989 People who died on this day

Place of death

Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Age

47 years

Family

Spouse:

Carlos Diegues Ruy Guerra

Children:

Isabel Diegues

The details (from wikipedia)

Biography

Nara Lofego Leão (January 19, 1942 – June 7, 1989) was a Brazilian bossa nova and MPB (popular Brazilian music) singer and occasional actress. Her husband was Carlos Diegues, director and writer of Bye Bye Brasil.

Leão was born in Vitória, Espírito Santo. When she was twelve, her father gave her a guitar since he was worried about her being shy. Popular musician and composer Patricio Teixeira and classical guitarist Solon Ayala were her teachers. As a teenager in the late 1950s, she became friends with a number of singers and composers who took part in Bossa Nova's musical revolution, including Roberto Menescal, Carlos Lyra, Ronaldo Bôscoli, João Gilberto, Vinicius de Moraes and Antônio Carlos Jobim. In fact, it was in her apartment in her parents' home in Copacabana that the new music was born in 1958. By 1963, after singing as an amateur for a few years, she became a professional and toured with Sérgio Mendes.

In the mid-1960s, the institution of military dictatorship in Brazil led her to sing increasingly political lyrics. Her show, Opinião, reflected her political beliefs, and she had largely switched to political music by this point. In 1964 she even spoke against bossa nova as a movement, calling it "alienating." In 1968 she appeared on the album Tropicália: ou Panis et Circenses, performing "Lindonéia."

She later left Brazil for Paris and in the 1970s abandoned music to focus on her family. She returned to music later, and when she discovered in 1979 that she had an inoperable brain tumor, she increased her productivity as much as possible. She died in 1989.

She was known as "the muse of bossa nova."

Nara's sister is Danuza Leão, a former model and socialite who's a newspaper columnist and occasional TV commentator. Danuza was married to Brazilian journalist Samuel Wainer.