MOG

The good thing about ripping your CD collection is the pleasure you get from unearthing fantastic records you had not listened to in a long time.

That's how I stumbled upon Elis Regina today.

She was one of the most important female interpreter of Brazilian music. Hearing her for the first time is a revelation, her voice conveys more emotion in a single phrase than most artists in an entire song.

Antônio Carlos Jobim said of her that _she could change in a song, suddenly she was water, wine, cachaça; she was whatever she wanted, she had complete command of her body and soul._

Elis was born in 1945 in Porto Alegre in the south of Brazil. Her recording career began in the early 1960s, she quickly established herself as an interpreter to whom composers looked to introduce their songs and her impeccable taste in repertoire meant the discovery of untold numbers of the best Brazilian composers.

She helped to introduce Milton Nascimento, Joao Bosco, Ivan Lins, Joyce, Lô Borges and countless others. For years after her death in 1982 from a mixture of drugs and alcohol, Nascimento refused to even discuss her in interviews, such was his desolation over her passing.