Rita Lee

Rita Lee Jones (31 December 1947 – 8 May 2023) was a Brazilian singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Known as the "Queen of Brazilian Rock", she sold more than 55 million records, making her the most successful female artist by record sales in Brazil and the fourth overall. Winner of eleven Brazilian Music Awards, she built a career that started with rock but over the years flirted with various genres, such as psychedelia during the Tropicália era, pop rock, disco, new wave, pop, bossa nova, and electronic, creating a pioneering hybrid between international and national genres.
Rita was considered one of the most influential musicians in Brazil, being a reference for those who began the greater use of electric guitars from the mid-1970s. A former member of the group Os Mutantes (1966–1972) and Tutti Frutti (1973–1978), she participated in important revolutions in the world of music and society. Her songs, often filled with biting irony or a claim of female independence, became omnipresent on the charts. The album Fruto Proibido (1975), released with the band Tutti Frutti, is commonly seen as a fundamental landmark in the history of Brazilian rock, considered by some as her masterpiece.
In 1976, she began a romantic relationship with multi-instrumentalist and composer Roberto de Carvalho, who was the partner in most of Rita's compositions. They had three children, including guitarist Beto Lee, who accompanied his parents in live shows. Rita was vegan and an animal rights advocate. With a sixty-year career, the artist transitioned from the innovation and musical underground of the 1960s and 1970s to the very successful romantic ballads of the 1980s and a musical revolution, performing with numerous artists, including Elis Regina, João Gilberto, and the band Titãs. In October 2008, Rolling Stone magazine promoted a list of the hundred greatest artists in Brazilian music, where she ranks 15th. In 2023, Rita, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer two years earlier, died at the age of 75 on 8 May 2023.
Rita Lee was born around 8:20 BRT on New Year's Eve 1947, in São Paulo, into a middle-class family. She was the youngest daughter of Charles Fenley Jones, a dentist of Confederate descent, and Romilda Padula, of Italian origin. She grew up in Vila Mariana and attended the Liceu Pasteur, becoming fluent in Portuguese, English, French, Spanish, and Italian. As a child, she took piano lessons with Magdalena Tagliaferro, but originally wanted to become an actress, veterinarian, or follow in her father's footsteps as a dentist.
In 1963, Lee formed her first group, "Teenage Singers," and later merged with another band to form "Os Seis." After several members left, she joined forces with the Baptista brothers, and in 1966, they became Os Mutantes. The name was suggested by producer Alberto Helena Júnior after Ronnie Von's fascination with the novel O Império dos Mutantes. Her early musical influences included Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and Brazilian icons like Cauby Peixoto and João Gilberto.
In 1966, Lee formed the band Os Mutantes with Arnaldo Baptista and Sérgio Dias. The band released five albums between 1968 and 1972. In that time, Lee also released her first two solo works, although these records were produced with fellow members of Os Mutantes. When the band reformed in 2006, she refused to join, calling the reunion an attempt to "earn cash to pay for geriatry".
Lee formed a band with two other friends, excelling at vocals so much that they backed stars such as Tony Campelo, Jet Blacks, Demetrius, and Prini Lopez, when they met the brothers Arnaldo and Sérgio Dias Baptista. Adopting the name O'Seis (a pun with "the six" and the Brazilian caipira way of saying "you all"), they recorded the single "O Suicida," which was never released. When the rest of the band left for college, only three of them remained. Picking the name Os Mutantes, they backed Nana Caymmi on her then-husband's composition "Bom Dia" (Gilberto Gil). When Gil met them, he immediately knew Os Mutantes were on the same track as the Baianos, and the band worked extensively with the members of the Tropicalia collective over the next two years, becoming an integral part of the movement. Gil Invited them to accompany him at TV Record's 1967 III Festival da MPB, where they performed Gil's "Domingo no Parque" with the addition of Rogério Duprat conducting an orchestra with his revolutionary arrangements. Gil's friend Caetano Veloso also performed with a rock group (São Paulo band Beat Boys), and although the novelty of electric instruments and the general irreverence of the mixing of western pop and strange orchestral sounds irritated some in the festival audience, both performances ultimately won approval, with Gil coming second and Veloso taking fourth place. Within a year, however, the nascent Tropicalia movement would face strident opposition from both the military junta that ruled Brazil at the time, and from Brazil's student left, who regarded the Tropicalistas' dalliance with Western pop as a sell-out. Soon after, Os Mutantes recorded their single "O Relógio".
In 1968, Os Mutantes performed on the album/manifesto Tropicália ou Panis et Circensis (Philips), with Nara Leão, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa, and Tom Zé. This was also when they recorded their first LP, Os Mutantes, and they also backed Gilberto Gil on his second self-titled solo album. In September 1968, Os Mutantes backed Caetano Veloso during his two notorious performances in TV Globo's Third International Song Festival in Rio. The ensemble was met with howls of disapproval from leftist students in the audience at their first-round appearance, due to their challenging psychedelic music, as well as Veloso's lurid costume, and his sexually provocative stage moves. The confrontation climaxed in the second round of the competition on 15 September, when Veloso performed his newly written psychedelic protest song "É Proibido Proibir" ("It is Forbidden to Forbid"). Left-wing students in the audience (who were strongly opposed to the Tropicalismo experiment) loudly abused, booed and jeered the performers, and pelted the stage with fruit, vegetables and paper balls. A large group in audience showed their disapproval by turning their backs to the stage, prompting Lee and her bandmates to turn their backs on the audience, and Veloso responded angrily to the heckling, haranguing the students at length for their conservatism. The group also performed their "Caminhante Noturno", which won seventh place. In the same year, they participated at the IV FMPB with their "Dom Quixote" and, by Lee and Tom Zé, "2001". At the end of this year, they performed with the Baianos at the Sucata nightclub, Rio, and recorded their second album, also self-titled.
In 1969, following the arrests of Gil and Veloso, Os Mutantes went to Europe, playing in Cannes, France, at the MIDEM, and in Lisbon, Portugal. Then, they returned to Brazil and presented the show O Planeta dos Mutantes, the first multi-media experiment in Brazil. With bassist Liminha and drummer Dinho, they participated in the V FIC with "Ando Meio Desligado" (Arnaldo and Rita).
In 1970, Lee recorded her solo album, Build Up, produced by Arnaldo Baptista. Soon after, they had a stint at the Olympia in Paris. In that period, during their somewhat frequent tours in Europe, they recorded an LP that was never fully released, Tecnicolor, with the exception of some tracks included on 1971's Jardim Elétrico. The LP, A Divina Comédia ou Ando Meio Desligado, is from that year and Jardim Elétrico (Polydor) from the next. In 1972, Lee recorded another solo album backed by Os Mutantes, Hoje É o Primeiro Dia do Resto da Sua Vida (Philips). After releasing the Mutantes e Seus Cometas no País do Baurets, Lee was ejected from the group by Arnaldo. Following a period of depression, during which she became locked up in her home, she decided to abandon her career, but, at the same time, she was writing the material that would make her famous as a solo artist.
Following her departure from Os Mutantes in late 1972, Lee started a solo career. She was initially part of a female duo with singer Lúcia Turnbull called Cilibrinas do Éden, and after a short time the duo met Lisergia, a band that would eventually become Lee's backing band with the name of Tutti Frutti. In 1974, the band recorded their first album Atrás do Porto Tem Uma Cidade (There is a City Behind the Harbor) that brought some great songs such as "Mamãe Natureza", "Menino Bonito", and "Pé de Meia". In 1975, she recorded the album Fruto Proibido with the band. The album was praised by critics, sold more than 700,000 copies and Lee was given the title "Queen of Brazilian Rock". In 2007, the Brazilian edition of Rolling Stone magazine ranked this album as the 16th-best Brazilian album of all time in its "100 Best List". The producer was Andy Mills, producer of Alice Cooper and then Lee's boyfriend.
In the late 1970s, Lee started a partnership with her husband, Roberto de Carvalho, and many subsequent albums were credited to the duo Lee/Carvalho. In the late 1970s, Lee was mentioned in the Caetano Veloso song, "Sampa".
In 1976, pregnant for the first time, she was arrested for possession of marijuana and sentenced to one year of house imprisonment, when she composed with Paulo Coelho the single "Arrombou a Festa", which sold 200,000 copies. She continued to perform, under special judicial permits. Soon thereafter, she recorded the single "Doce de Pimenta" with singer Elis Regina, and recorded and toured with Gilberto Gil with the show/album Refestança.
In 1978, she released Babilônia, her fourth and last album with the band Tutti Frutti. The last work came after disagreements between members of the band. The guitarist Luis Carlini left the band, taking the name Tutti Frutti with him. Lee and the rest of the band finished the tour under the name Rita Lee & Cães e Gatos. Lee started recording with her husband, Roberto de Carvalho. The couple wrote hits such as "Mania de Você" (1979), "Lança Perfume" (1980), "Saúde" (1981), "Flagra" (1982), and "On the Rocks" (1983).
Aside from her musical career, Lee had a comedy program called Radio Amador on Brazilian radio for nine months in 1986. That same year, Lee wrote three children's books and appeared in Brazilian movies and TV shows. In 1990, she started her own talk show, called TvLeeZão (a play on "televisão", the Portuguese word for television), on MTV Brasil. From 2002 to 2004, she hosted the Brazilian cable TV talk show Saia Justa. In 2005, she and her husband started a new talk show, called Madame Lee. She worked as actress in the 1989 film Better Days Ahead and made a brief cameo in the 2002 film Durval Discos. In 2008–09, she performed a new show called Pic Nic Tour. In 2010, she performed another new show called Etc...Tour, revisiting some forgotten songs from her long career. In 2011, she began to produce and record two new albums. The first one had then new unreleased songs, and the second one is called Bossa'n Movies where she continued the project started with Bossa'n Roll in 1991 and Bossa'n Beatles (Aqui, ali, em qualquer lugar).
In 2011, she contributed the track "Pistis Sophia" to the Red Hot Organization's most recent charitable album, Red Hot+Rio 2. The album was a follow-up to the 1996 Red Hot + Rio. Proceeds from the sales were donated to raise awareness and money to fight AIDS and related other health and social issues.
Lee was married to Mutante Arnaldo Baptista from 1968 to 1972. In 1976, MPB singer Ney Matogrosso introduced her to guitarist Roberto de Carvalho, whom she married, and they had three children: Beto Lee, João Lee, and Antônio.
Lee died at her home in São Paulo around 18:00 BRT on 8 May 2023, at the age of 75. She had been in treatment for lung cancer for over a year before her death. Brazilian musicians and celebrities, such as Lulu Santos and Xuxa Meneghel, and politicians including the President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and various of his ministers, lamented her death and exalted Lee.