Blessed Success: Arthur Nogueira sings Caetano Veloso - 2021

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Caetano is all mine. I mean, my favorite. And look, I have many favorites! It's just that they are many and big, so many and diverse and immense... But Caetano “is” me. A personal, biographical choice. So, when I hear Arthur, with Arthur's voice, which is just his, saying lyrics that I know so much, putting everything in my lap and giving myself over again, I receive it and I feel moved, renewed.

The essential, minimalist place of the voice with the guitar – which is the soul of so many composers –, in Arthur's silences scream the sweetly lonely and beautiful cry of this singer, who breathes looking up, praying for the rain of songs that came from its mouth and upon it will fall back, in the form of so many lives.

It's not easy to resing songs, but it's so necessary, when legitimate. Because if it's not, it's not, it's not worth it, we don't have time to waste. So, of course Arthur Nogueira can and should sing Caetano. He has his reasons and this voice of his, the singular size that the work that inspired him will always have.

Zélia Duncan 
June/2021