When we listen to Saudosa Maloca, Samba do Arnesto or Trem das Onze, we immediately recognize the unmistakable style of Adoniran Barbosa’s sambas, with his deliberate “mistakes” in Portuguese – which he called “the right way to speak wrong” – and the always humorous chronicle of the poor people of the city of São Paulo. It was this unique way of composing that made Adoniran the greatest icon of São Paulo samba. What few people know, however, is that such an original style could only be born after a long gestation period in the world of radio drama.

Long before he made a name for himself as a composer, Adoniran was already a radio star as a comic performer. His career as a radio performer began in the late 1930s and was consolidated in the 1940s, when he joined Rádio Record and met the man who would become his most important partner: writer Osvaldo Moles.

A true radio genius, Moles was born in Santos in 1913. He began his professional career as a journalist, worked as an advertising professional and also as a scriptwriter for theater, film and TV. Considered one of the greatest chroniclers of the city of São Paulo, his chronicles were published in various newspapers of the time and later collected in the book Piquenique Classe C, released in 1962. However, his main medium was undoubtedly radio.

Endowed with inexhaustible creativity, Moles gave birth to a multitude of radio programs of the most varied genres, from educational and news programs to political satire, fiction and humor. And it was thanks to them that he gained enormous recognition during his lifetime, as confirmed by the more than 10 Roquette Pinto awards he has received in succession since the prize was created, consecrating him as the best broadcaster in São Paulo radio.

When Adoniran Barbosa and Osvaldo Moles met, in 1941, at Rádio Record, their affinity was immediate. Moles soon recognized Adoniran’s humorous spirit and interpretative skills, as a voice actor on the radio, and created several characters especially for him. This partnership in the world of radio drama – which lasted until the santista writer’s untimely death in 1967 – is one of the pillars of Adoniran Barbosa’s career, both professionally and artistically.

João Rubinato (Adoniran Barbosa’s real name) was born in Valinhos in 1910 – or 1912, we’ll never know for sure – moved to Jundiaí as a child, spent his youth in Santo André and arrived in São Paulo in his early twenties, wanting to be a singer. It was at this time that he created the pseudonym Adoniran Barbosa, which he kept until the end of his life.

After winning a carnival song contest held by the São Paulo city administration in 1935 with his marchinha Dona Boa, Adoniran finally made it onto the radio, but still without any stability, jumping from station to station and working on the most diverse fronts – as a singer, songwriter, presenter and even comedian. The fact is that his professional career on the radio was only consolidated in 1941, when he signed a contract with Record as a voice actor, which lasted for more than three decades.

However, we must remember that this Adoniran of the 1940s was not yet the Adoniran we know today. There was still no Saudosa Maloca or Samba do Arnesto. Although he had been using his stage name since the early 1930s, the fact is that his original style would only be born ten years later; ten years of deep immersion in radio drama, interpreting the characters and texts created by Osvaldo Moles. Not surprisingly, the 1940s were the least musically prolific period of his career: over the course of a decade, there were only five compositions, only three of which were recorded. However, while the composer rested, the voice actor made a name for himself.

The first character created by Moles especially for Adoniran was the black trickster Zé Cunversa, who spoke Barra Funda slang right from the start:

– Que é que há, Zé Cunva? Que tristeza é essa?
– Néca, seu Branco, né tristeza não; eu tô é ofendido. Num posso cum esses peste desses branco… Achá que nóis os preto devia de arranjá um outro logá pra passeá nos domingo… Eles vão querê me enganá que a rua Dereita é deles! Né não, a rua é livre. Eu sô preto, sô brasileiro e passelho na rua Dereita quando quisé. Me batê, ninguém vae.[1]

There was also the Jew Moisés Rabinóvich, a cunning salesman from “Rua José Pauzinho[2]“, in Bom Retiro, whose store had a sign that read: “I buy old furniture / I sell splendid antiques”.

Another important character from this period, and also one of the first, was Giuseppe Pernafina, who alongside Noé formed a duo of Italian taxi drivers, fellow drivers at Largo do Paissandu, characterized by Moles as “the drivers who run over the language”.

– Puxa vida, Noé…
– Puxa vida, Pernafina…
– Sabe de dindonde venho eu agora? Do Ispitar Aberto o Primo! Porque a minha mulher foi sobremetida a uma interjeição siderúrgica!
– Que tinha ela?… Vae taquis? A penninziata separada?
– Nó! Tinha os cárculo bilhar in cima do figo! Sufria ela de insoficência intipática![3]

As this small sample shows, among the countless characters created by Osvaldo Moles especially for the voice actor Adoniran, right from the start we already come across different types of people from São Paulo, from different regions of the city and with their different accents, and always with high doses of humor. And it is precisely in this rich universe, created by Moles, that Adoniran will be immersed throughout the 1940s. It was only after these ten years of immersion that his experience in radio theater began to reverberate in his musical creation. And, curiously, this would only happen after Moles migrated to Rádio Bandeirantes, leaving his old partner alone at Record.

Composer Adoniran Barbosa finally inaugurated his original style with the samba Saudosa maloca, in 1951. Two years later came Samba do Arnesto and, on the B-side of the same record, Conselho de mulher. Also known as Pogréssio [a wrong, and popular, way to say “progress”, similar to “pogress”], the song Conselho de mulher is the first explicit echo of radio drama in Adoniran’s songbook. As well as being the first musical partnership between the old radio companions, the track features an extensive and hilarious opening monologue – a kind of genesis of the tramp – written by Moles and interpreted by Adoniran as the character Zé Cunversa. Curiously, the artist was so much better known as a voice actor than as a composer that the record label itself, on both sides, indicates the performer as follows: “Adoniran Barbosa (Zé Conversa)”. Let’s follow the introductory line and the original lyrics of the song:

Quando Deus fêiz o home
Quis fazê um vagolino
Que nunca tivesse fome
E que tinha no destino
Nunca pegá no batente
E vivê forgadamente
O home era filiz
Enquanto Deus ansim quis
Mais dispois pegô o Adão
E tirô uma costela
Feiz a muié
Deisde intão
O homem trabáia prela
Vai daí
O home reza pra Deus
Uma oração:
Se quisé tirá de mim
Arguma coisa de bão
Que me tire o trabáio
A muié não
Pogréssio, pogréssio
Eu sempre iscuitei falá
Que o pogréssio vem do trabalho
Intão amanhã cedo, eu vou trabaiá
Quanto tempo
Nóis perdeu na boemia
Sambando noite e dia
Cortando uma rama sem pará
Agora iscuitando o consêio da muié
Amanhã vô trabalhá, se Deus quisé
Mas Deus não qué[4]

Thus, the trickster Zé Cunversa, with his characteristic disgust for work, the first character created by Osvaldo Moles for the voice actor Adoniran, now migrates, ten years later, to the world of music. And, against the mentality of the time, in a São Paulo undergoing intense industrialization and urbanization, Moles and Adoniran satirize the pogress. In fact, from Saudosa maloca Adoniran already makes it clear that he sees himself from the point of view of the poor people of the city, in other words, those who suffer the harmful consequences of the so-called pogress.

A few years later, when he returned to Record in 1956, Moles opened the way back, now going from music to radio drama: inspired by the song Saudosa maloca, he created the program Histórias das Malocas [History of the Malocas].

The highlight of Adoniran’s career as a comic performer and the creation of Osvaldo Moles for radio drama, the program Histórias das Malocas was one of the most popular shows on São Paulo radio between the late 1950s and early 1960s. In a satirical and tragicomic tone, the radio stories present the troubles and joys of the inhabitants of Morro do Piolho, with the protagonist being the black trickster Charutinho and his absolute distaste for work.

Deus – o majorengo do céu – feiz o hómi. Dispois, deu um escabriolete no Adão e tirô uma costeleta que ele tinha na cara e feiz a muié. Dispois feiz os trabaiadô. Dispois, quis fazê arguém feliz: e feiz nóis, os vagabundo.[5]

The success of the program, therefore, ended up inspiring several compositions, thus consolidating the two-way nature of this fertile relationship between music and radio drama in Adoniran Barbosa’s work. The first of them, a partnership with Moles recorded in 1958 by Adoniran himself, was the samba Pafunça, a tribute to Charutinho’s girlfriend and Dona Terezoca’s daughter in the radio series. The following year, with other partners, Adoniran created the marcha Aqui Gerarda, which transforms Charutinho’s popular catchphrase at the time into music, and the samba No Morro do Piôio, which summarizes the plot of an episode and, in the final breque [brake], includes a scene from a radio drama. Curiously, both compositions were released in the voice of Charutinho himself, who in fact appears on the record label as a performer. Later, the protagonist of the program Histórias das Malocas would also release the samba Chora na rampa and the carnival marchinha Segura o Apito, the last two created by Adoniran in partnership with Osvaldo Moles.

However, the main reverberation of radio theater in Adoniran Barbosa’s musical career was undoubtedly the samba Tiro ao Álvaro[6]. One of the biggest hits in Adoniran’s songbook, eternalized in the voice of Elis de Regina in 1980, Tiro ao Álvaro is considered one of the best examples of Adoniran’s established style, mainly due to the hilarious deliberate Portuguese mistakes. However, still to the surprise of many of us, the lyrics were actually written by none other than Osvaldo Moles. Adoniran only created the melody. What’s more, the song was released in 1960, at the height of the Histórias das Malocas program, on a 78 rpm record, in the voice of Charutinho himself. Here are the lyrics from the original recording:

De tanto levá
Frechada do teu olhá
Meu peito até
Parece sabe o quê?
Táubua de tiro ao Álvaro
Não tem mais onde furá
(Não tem mais)
Teu olhar mata mais
Do que bala de carabina
Que peixeira de baiano
Que veneno estricnina
Teu oiá mata mais
Que atropelamento de artomórve
Mata mais que bala de revórve [7]

Tiro ao Álvaro is the greatest synthesis of the umbilical connection between music and radio drama in Adoniran Barbosa’s artistic career. Without exaggeration, we can say that Adoniran’s experience in radio theater, in partnership with Osvaldo Moles, is the fertile soil where his original musical style was born. In a way, what he is doing is extending his long and fruitful collaboration with Moles in radio theater to the world of music.

One of the most obvious reminiscences of radio drama in Adoniran’s musical work are the lines he includes in most of his compositions. From the note Arnesto should have left on the door (“assinado em cruz porque não sei escrever[8]“), to the hilarious Sargento Oliveira in Um samba do Bixiga (“Carma, pessoá! A situação aqui tá muito cínica. Os mais pió, vai pas Crínica[9]“); from the tragicomic lament of Iracema’s fiancé, when his beloved is run over, to the priceless dialog between the lampida and the moths, these lines further reinforce the scenic character already present in his songs. One of the trademarks of his original style, Adoniran makes a point of savoring them, using all his mastery as a comic interpreter. Especially when it’s a live show, as is the case with this precious Relicário dedicated to the artist by Selo Sesc.

Adoniran Barbosa, himself a character that João Rubinato incorporates into his daily life, is first and foremost a clown, who always conducts his performances in a very witty manner and with complete mastery over the audience. In Relicário, for example, right from the start Adoniran plays a game of question and answer with the euphoric audience (“Every time I say, ‘thank you very much’, you say ‘you’re welcome’, okay?”); he suddenly interrupts a song that hasn’t started to ask for his “mel[10]“, which actually permeates the whole show; and, in true Osvaldo Moles fashion, he invents unusual words like “desvórta” and “vocêizes”[11].

But Adoniran Barbosa is also a sad clown, who suffers in every way from the passage of time. The opening song of this Relicário, for example, the samba Já fui uma brasa[12], is a kind of autobiographical lament, from an Adoniran who is already beginning to feel the burden of age. Released in 1966, a year after the end of the Histórias das Malocas program, the song marks the decline of his career as a voice actor, at the same time as it denounces the depreciation of samba on the radio after the rise of Jovem Guarda: “mas lembro/que o rádio que hoje toca/ieieiê o dia inteiro/tocava Saudosa maloca[13]“.

At times clownish and at others sad, Adoniran is the city’s poet, sensitive to its profound transformations, whether in his denunciation of the contradictions of the pogress or in his nostalgic lyricism for a São Paulo that is no more. All this without ever abandoning the point of view of the poor and working class people. This is what we see, for example, in two sambas from the 1970s, which refer to the construction of the subway, and which also make up the repertoire of this Relicário: Uma simples margarida (A simple daisy), which tells the love story between two city government employees, a gardener and a daisy (a female synonym for janitor), and Viaduto Santa Efigênia, whose pretext was a rumor that the viaduct was going to be demolished to build a subway station – although in the end it was only renovated and made pedestrian-only.

Finally, this Relicário reaffirms its historical value by bringing to the public an unprecedented recording of the song Vai da valsa in the interpretation of Adoniran himself – a composition from 1953, which was never recorded on an album throughout his career.

[1] – What’s the matter, Zé Cunva? What is this sadness?
– Nothin, Branco, ain’t no sadness; I’m just offended. I can’t live with these white bastards… They think we blacks should find another place to hang out on Sundays… They’ll want to fool me that Dereita Street is theirs! No, the street is free. I’m black, I’m Brazilian and I walk down Rua Dereita whenever I want. Hit me, nobody will. (The text is filled with oral language markers typical of São Paulo’s black population at the time, especially in the Barra Funda district.)

[2] The correct street name is “José Paulino”; “pauzinho means literally “little stick”

[3] – Jesus, Noé…
– Jeez, Pernafina…
– Ya know where I come from now? From the Ispitar Aberto o Primo [Hospital Humberto I]! Because my wife was overcome by a siderurgical interjection [surgical intervention]!
– What about her? Vae taquis? The separated penninziata?
– Jee! Her gallstones were on top of her liver! She was suffering from liver failure!
(The characters’ speeches are filled with popular regional linguistic markers.)

[4] When God made man / He wanted to make a tramp / Who never went hungry / And whose destiny was  / Never to work / And live easily / The man was happy / As long as God wanted / But then he took Adam / And took a rib / Made the woman / Since then / The man works for her / Go from there / The man prays to God / A prayer: / If you want to take it from me / Something good / Take away my work / Not the woman / Pogress, Pogress / I’ve always thought / That pogress comes from work / So tomorrow morning, I’m going to work / How much time / We lost in bohemia / Making samba night and day / Cutting a branch without stopping / Now I’m taking my lady’s advice / Tomorrow I’ll work, God willing / But God won’t /

[5] God – the Major of Heaven – made the man. Then he tricked Adam and took a chop off his face and made the woman. Then he did the workers. Then he wanted to make someone happy: and he made us, the tramps.

[6] Tiro ao Álvaro is a play on the sonority between target (“alvo”) and Álvaro (a first name), the correct should be “tiro ao alvo” (target shooting) to simulate the popular speech typical of the author’s songs.

[7] From so much / The sting of your gaze / My chest even / Feels like what? / A board of target practice / There’s nowhere else to shoot / (No more) / Your gaze kills more / Than a rifle bullet / Than a Bahian’s fish knife / Like strychnine poison / Your eyes kill more / More than a car crash / It kills more than a revolver bullet

[8] cross-signed because I can’t write

[9] Simmer down, people! The situation here is very cynic. The worst ones, go to the clinic

[10] In some contexts, in Portuguese, “mel” (honey) means cachaça or any alcoholic beverage.

[11] A misspelled way to say “came back” and “you”.

[12] “Once I was brasa”. Referring to Jovem Guarda slang, “brasa”, which means something cool or someone physically attractive; implying that the lyrical self was no longer so attractive.

[13] but I remember / that the radio that plays today / ieieiê all day long / used to play Saudosa maloca(“iê-iê-iê” refers to Brazilian rock and roll during the 1960’s, due to expression yeah, yeah, yeah, present in some Beatles songs, such as She Loves You, for example. It is a way to phonetically refer to expression in English.)

Tomás Bastian is a PhD in Philosophy and creator of Rádio Rubinato, a research and broadcast project for the work of Adoniran Barbosa. He is the author and director of the album-book Adoniran em partitura: 12 canções inéditas (2017).

About Relicário: Adoniran Barbosa (Ao vivo no Sesc 1980), you may also read:

• Adoniran Barbosa, the storyteller of São Paulo, por Kamille Viola