The shock and the country’s commotion over singer Leandro’s death
and the feeling of personal loss seem to stem from the fulminating power of the crooner’s
cancer. Some also pointed out the trend to value the simple and the country style
represented by the sertaneja music.
By
The premature death of Leandro from the country-music duo
Leonardo and Leandro immersed Brazil in deep sorrow during a time when the seleção (the
national soccer team) was cause for some apprehension, but mainly for celebration to the
whole country. The intensity of the collective outpouring of grief was a surprise to
Brazilians themselves since the singer wasn’t a star and his music genre is snubbed by
most of the nation’s intelligentsia.
Leandro, whose real name was Luiz José Costa, was 36. He died
June 23 of multiple-organ failure caused by a giant and rare Askin tumor in his thorax.
Chemotherapy, two surgeries, nothing was able to deter the cancer, which took over
practically the whole right side of Leandro’s chest. It was April 20 and Leandro was
fishing in a farm in the state of Tocantins when he felt the pain that took him to the
hospital and the discovery of his cancer. It was too late though and the tumor was already
as big as an orange. Crowds had gathered outside the Hospital São Luiz in São Paulo’s
south zone, since he had returned to the hospital after a cardiac arrest at home.
On April 28, Leandro came to the U.S. At Baltimore’s Johns
Hopkins hospital he underwent a biopsy that confirmed his Brazilian doctors cancer
diagnostic. During his brief stay in the hospital Leandro used to sing the title song of
his just-released posthumous album. It was the favorite tune of his career he said.
Naively plain as all their songs, "Um Sonhador" (A Dreamer) brings now a
harrowing feeling of premonition:
Eu não sei para onde eu vou
pode até não dar em nada
minha vida segue o sol
no horizonte desta estrada.
I don’t know where I’m going
It might well amount to nothing
My life follows the sun
On this road’s horizon
The singer, who loved to dress well and to smile, appeared
bald—due to the chemotherapy—rolled into a Brazilian flag at his São Paulo
apartment balcony celebrating Brazil’ soccer victory over Scotland. The dramatic image
moved the country and even led President Cardoso to call the singer’s family to wish them
the best.
Leandro left three children: Tiago, 13; Lyandra, 3; and Leandro,
five months. He had been married and divorced twice. The mother of the two smaller
children is former model Andréa Motta from whom he had separated a short time before
knowing about his cancer.
During the 10-hour-long wake in São Paulo in the Palácio 9 de
Julho, the state assembly building, Leandro’s body was seen by a crowd of at least 20,000
people. Among the anonymous mob, who cried, prayed and sang some of the duo’s hits, there
were several celebrities and politicians. São Paulo state governor Mário Covas was there
and so was senator Eduardo Suplicy, São Paulo mayor Celso Pitta, and former Justice
Minister Íris Rezende.
Luciano, from another famed sertanejo duo, Zezé Di
Camargo e Luciano, fainted. Chitãozinho and Xororó—still another duo— and
Roberta Miranda also came for the farewell. The Fire Department truck transported the
Brazilian-flag bedecked casket when it was time to take it to the Congonhas airport on its
way to Goiânia.
Close to 100,000 people, including Vice-President Marco Maciel
representing President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, followed the singer’s body to the Jardim
das Palmeiras cemetery for the burial on June 24. Said Maciel: "Leandro left a void
and examples of love to the people and the music."
In Campos, state of Rio, 17-year-old Lídia da Silva Lima, soon
after listening to the news of her idol’s death, placed the duo’s record with the cut
"Pense em Mim" (Think of Me) and drank rat poison. She died 15 minutes after
arriving at the hospital to where she was rushed.
Record TV network was rewarded for dropping its programmed world
cup games in favor of the singer’s death wall-to-wall live coverage. Record, which was
getting a ridiculous 1% rating in the games jumped to a up to 24% rating, what placed it
in first place among all TV channels. That’s what happened for example during the
broadcasting of Austria vs. Italy. So enthusiastic was Record with the instant feedback
given by Ibope, the Brazilian Nielsen, that it almost skipped the game of Brazil against
Norway.
Reporters Silvana Silva and Célia Serafim ended up crying on the
air while showing the crowd emotions and Disk Record host Gilberto Barros seemed at times
more like a fire-and-brimstone preacher, screaming among other things: "Leandro did
not win the battle against death, but for us he became a national hero."
When the day games ended, the other networks—Globo,
Manchete, and SBT—joined in the mourning with news and specials about Leandro. The
next morning all of them covered live the funeral in Goiânia preempting the France vs.
Denmark world cup game.
The shock over Leandro’s death and the feeling of personal loss
seem to stem from the fulminating power of the crooner’s cancer. It took only two months
from the day he felt strong back pains to the day he died. Some analysts also pointed out
the agrarian origin of most of the population and a worldwide trend to value the simple
and the country style represented by the sertaneja music.
Humble
Origins
Leandro was born August 15, 1961, the third of eight children.
Their father, Avelino Virgulino, played viola (five-to-fourteen-string guitar) and
Leandro started to play the guitar as a child. He and his seven siblings didn’t have time
to school though. Very early in life they started to pick up tomatoes with their parents
who worked for a farmer in Goianápolis. To do their job the family had to wake up at 4 in
the morning and walk six miles to be at work at 6.
In 1980, Leandro started to sing by himself in Goianápolis bars,
after a day of work in the fields. It was 1983 when they decided to leave for Goiânia to
try the show business. "Don’t worry," said Carmen Divina, the mother. "If
it doesn’t work you’ll always have a home to come back to." They never had to.
Their first gig was at the Canta Viola (Sing, Viola) nightclub.
They would soon adopt the new moniker. Luís José and Emival Eterno became Leandro and
Leonardo. At the time, Leandro was making a living as a salesman in a clothes shop while
Leonardo worked in a pharmacy. They got the inspiration for their name from the twins
fathered by the pharmacist.
Their first record in 1983—an independent
production—was ignored. It was producer Moacir Machado, who that same year invited
them to record for the 3M label after listening to them on a tape. "Solidão"
(Loneliness) was their first regional hit, a song by Zezé Di Camargo, an unknown at the
time, who would also become a country music sensation. Brazilian sertaneja music
makes extensive use of duos. Leandro used to sing harmonies while his brother sang lead.
In 1985, their first CD, Leandro & Leonardo – Volume 1,
with "Contradições" (Contradictions), sold 150,000 copies. The second,
in 1987, containing "Solidão" (Loneliness) was a bigger success, selling
250,000 discs. In 1989, with their third album and the hit song "Entre Tapas e
Beiaw6kx," (Amid Slaps and Kisses), they sold 1.3 million records. That was the CD that
made them a national phenomenon. Except for the last album called Um Sonhador, all
their CDs had the same name. There were 11 Leandro & Leonardo discs, distinguished
from each other by a number.
They reached the top in 1990 with the release by the Continental
label of their fourth CD with "Pense em Mim" (Think of Me), a catchy and
saccharine tune about a man whose ladylove interest has eyes for another man. The tune
sold 2.9 million copies and hit a chord with the middle and upper middle class in the
South of the country. They were received by President Fernando Collor de Mello at Casa da
Dinda, the presidential residence at the time.
This closeness to power brought also some heartache to the
singing brothers. They were involved in a suit against Goiás governor, Agenor Resende,
who in 1994 was accused of misuse of public funds. In exchange for 30 shows they had a
runway and a lake built in their farm in Jussara, state of Goiás.
They had abandoned their cowboy outfits and adopted a dignified
suited look. "Our secret is to play music that people like to listen to and to not
complicate," Leandro told Brazilian Playboy. In 1991 they became the first sertanejo
artists to perform at Rio’s sophisticated pop music temple Canecão. It was their
pinnacle.
A chorus of nouveaux riches, socialites and members of the
thinking elite sang "Pense em mim." By then, they were selling more records than
kid TV presenter Xuxa and romantic balladeer "King" Roberto Carlos, this one a
best-seller for decades. Unheard for a country group they got their own monthly program on
Globo network in 1992, the same year in which they also became cartoon characters.
A Legacy
Differently from their predecessor, the caipiras
(hillbilly)—Leandro hated to be called a caipira singer—who sang about
cattle and farms, the sertanejo crooners talk about love, lust and sex in their
lyrics, as revealed in "Paz na Cama" (Peace in Bed):
Se de dia a gente briga
De noite a gente se ama
é que nossas diferenças
Acabam no quarto
Em cima da cama.
If we fight by day
By night we make love
Because our differences
End in the bedroom
On the top of the bed
Leandro and Leonardo have sold 20 million discs, including the
2.8 million for Pense em Mim, a record in the Brazilian music industry only broken
recently by the pagode group Só Pra Contrariar. With the difference that the sertanejo
duo sold their close-to-three-million when the record industry had only half the size it
has today.
Passed their prime they were selling about 500,000 of their
latest CDs. In their wake, other duos like Zezé Di Camargo & Luciano and João Paulo
& Daniel were able to be very successful. When Leandro fell sick, Leandro and Leonardo
were still very active and in demand doing two shows a week, charging a minimum of $45,000
for presentation. And with two "best of" CDs in Spanish they were poised to
conquer Latin America.
They signed with BMG Ariola in October 1997. Um Sonhador (A
Dreamer) was supposed to be the first of a series of new albums. Even though their records
didn’t sell more than 1 million copies since 1995, BMG on the strength of the tragedy has
released their last effort with an initial 1.5 million copies.
|
By Douglas Maio, Zé
Invés de você ficar pensando nele Se lembre que eu |
Think of Me
Instead of thinking of him Remember that |
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