Always In My Heart - Los Indios Tabajaras

 

Moonlight And Shadows

Always In My Heart

Los Indios Tabajaras

Produced by Herman Diaz, Jr.

Recorded in RCA Victor's Studio A and B, New York City

Recording Engineer: Ed Begley

RCA Victor LSP-2912 STERO

1964

From the back cover: In 1957, two young Indians from Brazil were brought into RCA Victor's studios by producer Herman Diaz, Jr., to cut an album. The pair, a guitar duo, specialized in Latin American standards and Brazilian folk melodies. Their sound was a kind of "mood" guitar with odd haunting overtones. The album was released under the title Sweet And Savage and very little came of it.

In the summer of 1963, Mike Camito, producer of the Gene Klavan-Dee Finch morning comedy show at radio station WNEW, New York, was searing for music that could be used as an instrumental filler for the show. He pulled out the long-forgotten album by Los Indios Tabajaras, and dropped the needle on it. He found that Band One, Side One, Maria Elena could be played for 20 seconds, 40 seconds – any needed time segment – and still provide a complete musical bridge for smooth program production.

Almost every day during the program, some part of Maria Elena was heard by WNEW's vast listening audience. Inquiries started to come in. Who were the artists? Where could the record be bought? The inquiries were referred to RCA Victor which put them in the wait-and-see file. The requests continued to come into the station; dealers and juke box operators started asking for the record. Disbelievingly, the company decided to release a single of Maria Elena in the New York market area only to see what would happen. What happened was that over 5,000 copies of the record sold almost immediately. The record was released nationally. San Francisco's station KEWB jumped on the record; it took off there as it did in other key cities around the country. In the weeks that followed, Maria Elena rose to No. 4 on the best-seller charts, becoming one of the big single records of the year. Now the complete 1957 album was released. It jumped on the best-seller charts, becoming the country's No. 2 stereo album, No. 4 monaural album.

Along about this time, the word went out around the RCA Victor New York office: "Find those Indians!" Producer Herman Diaz, Jr., got in touch with RCA Electronica Brasileira, the firm's affiliate in Brazil, and implored representative Doug Reid in Rio de Janeiro to locate Los Indios. Mr. Reid made inquiries and finally contracted people in the so-called "artists' grapevine" who furnished the information that the boys were currently living on a farm in an area some sixty miles outside Rio. In Producer Diaz' own words, "When you're sixty miles outside of Rio, you're in the jungle!" He that as it may, RCA Victor remained undaunted and sent messages on horseback to "Bring back Los Indios Tabajaras!" They did, and the selections in this album are the happy and entertaining end result.

In case you missed the first part of the fantastic story of these sensations of modern music (a story, by the way, that's recently been many times retold in show business circles), here's the way Los Indios Tabajaras began... Some twenty-odd years ago (once upon a time) there were two boys, brothers, in the jungles of the State of Ceara, in the wild northeastern part of Brazil, members of a remote tribe unfamiliar with white man's civilization. One day, following a path through the jungle along which a party of white men had passed, Mussapere and Herundy found a battered guitar that the party had discarded.

In the weeks, months and years that followed, the boys taught themselves to play the instrument in rudimentary, primitive style – mostly as an accompaniment to their tribal songs. Making their way to the market places of Rio de Janeiro, they found their odd style of playing the object of curiosity and admiration. Taken by hand by a local impresario, they were booked regionally, and then throughout South America and Mexico as their fame grew. Formal instruction on their adopted instrument followed – two intense years of study in which the talented duo even branched out into the classics!

Today, some twenty-five years later, Los Indios Tabajaras have behind them a career of concerts in Madrid, Barcelona, Rome, Athens and Lisbon. Their Indian folk and Brazilian repertoire has been enhanced by the works of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Falla and Albeniz. They speak and sing in Italian, German, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese and their native Tupi.

In February of this year, their single Always In My Heart was released. It was an instant hit. This, their second album, is another quietly fascinating collection of standards in the Latin vein. It is no flash-in-the-pan sensation. You will listen to it for many years.

Always In My Heart

Por Que Eres Así?

Over The Rainbow

More Brandy Please

Amapola

Wide Horizon

Moonlight And Shadows

You Belong To My Heart

Central Park

Magic Is The Moonlight

New Orleans

Maria My Own