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The Girl From Ipanema: Astrud Gilberto

This is from The Very Best of Astrud Gilberto and is labeled as the original album version.

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This entry was posted on April 17, 2010 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Music. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Comments on “The Girl From Ipanema: Astrud Gilberto”

  2. sblake's avatar sblake Says:

    April 17, 2010 at 9:05 pm

    The song has a fascinating story from the colourful streets of Ipanema, where the composer Antonio Carlos Jobim and the poet Vinicius de Moraes were inspired by ipanema bikini swimwear and a beautiful girl passing their favourite café the bar Veloso on Rua Montenegro in Rio de Janeiro.

    According to Jobim “she had long, golden hair, these bright green eyes that shone at you and a fantastic figure: let’s just say she had everything in the right place…” [Harold Emert, Inside guide to Rio de Janeiro]
    Nowadays the street has been renamed “Rua Vinicius de Moraes” and the bar is called A Garota de Ipanema”, but many beautiful girls from Ipanema Brazil still pass there everyday.
    This history / story about the girl from Ipanema song is probably a legend. It was never the duo’s style to write music sitting at the table in a bar, even though they may have spent some of their greatest moments in them. Jobim wrote “A Garota Ipanema Partitura “ or the music in his home, sitting at the piano in Rua Barro da Torre. Originally the girl of Ipanema song was intended for a musical comedy called “Blimp” worked out by the poet Vinicius.
    It’s probable that they were inspired by Heloísa Eneida Menezes Paes Pinto who frequently passed in front of bar Veloso. Heloisa lived in Rua Montenegro 22, between the Prudente de Morais and the beach.
    It wasn’t until two and a half years later that Heloisa found out her path had been recorded for ever more in records as the song of The girl of Ipanema.
    In this period she was dating the engineer Fernando Abel Mendes Pinheiro, a good volleyball player from a rich family in Rio de Janeiro. Fernando lived in a house in Leblon made with stone walls. In may 1966, when the two got married, Tom Jobim and his wife Thereza were two of the god parents.

    What did Helô tribute to the girl from Ipanema Song? Not the music, not the lyrics, not her name, publicity or privacy. Helô supplied the inspiration. Even though the writers and their estates have made millions in royalties from the song, Helô never made a penny from it. When she tried to open a clothing boutique with the name “The girl from Ipanema” she was sued by the heirs of Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vincius de Moraes.
    Helô has been labelled the girl of ipanema but isn’t allowed to wear the official identity. Her husband has been out of work for 5 years and they have a daughter with brain damage and in need of constant help. Helô is now in her 60ies.
    The other legend is that Gilberto didn’t want to sing the song and Jobim had to cajole her husband into getting her to sing it.In fact, Astrud and Joao Gilberto already had a career as a duo long before Jobim approached her.


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