Dorival Caymmi
Caymmi in 1938
Background information
Born	Dorival Caymmi (1914-04-30)April 30, 1914 Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Origin	Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Died	August 16, 2008(2008-08-16) (aged 94) Copacabana,Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Genres	Samba,bossa nova
Occupations	Singer, songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1933–2008
Labels	Odeon Columbia Continental RCA Victor Elenco Phonogram Funarte Som Livre Universal EMI

Dorival Caymmi (Brazilian Portuguese:[doɾiˈvawkaˈĩmi]; April 30, 1914 – August 16, 2008) was a Brazilian singer, songwriter, actor, and painter active for more than 70 years, beginning in 1933. He contributed to the birth of Brazil'sbossa nova movement, and several of hissamba pieces, such as "Samba da Minha Terra", "Doralice" and "Saudade da Bahia", have become staples ofmúsica popular brasileira (MPB).^[1] Equally notable are his ballads celebrating the fishermen and women ofBahia, including "Promessa de Pescador", "O Que É Que a Baiana Tem?", and "Milagre". Caymmi composed about 100 songs in his lifetime, and many of his works are now considered to be Brazilian classics. Both Brazilian and non-Brazilian musicians have covered his songs.

Ben Ratliff ofThe New York Times wrote that Caymmi was "perhaps second only toAntônio Carlos Jobim in 'establishing a songbook of [the 20th] century's Brazilian identity.'"^[2] Throughout his career, his music about the people and culture of Bahia influenced Brazil's image in the eyes of both Brazilians and foreigners.^[3] Caymmi was married to Brazilian singer Stella Maris for 68 years, and the couple's children,Dori,Danilo, andNana, are also prominent musicians. Each debuted professionally by accompanying Caymmi onstage and in recordings.^[4] In 2014, Caymmi's granddaughterAlice also began a musical career.^[5]

Caymmi was born inSalvador, Bahia, to Durval Henrique Caymmi, the great-grandson of anItalian immigrant, and Aurelina Soares Caymmi, a native Bahian. He had two younger sisters, Dinahir and Dinah, and a younger brother, Deraldo.^[6] His father, acivil servant, often played the piano, guitar, and mandolin at home, and his mother, a housewife, sang regularly. He participated in his church'schoir for much of his childhood.^[1] At age 13, he left school to work as a journalist at Bahian newspaperO Imparcial.^[1][3][4] WhenO Imparcial went out of business two years later, he took up work as astreet vendor.^[1]

Although he never formally studied music, Caymmi taught himself to play guitar in the late 1920s and began to compose, sing, and play his own songs on Bahian radio programs around 1930.^[1] He first achieved widespread recognition in 1933, when he composed the song "O Que É Que a Baiana Tem?" ("What Is It About Bahian Women?") for singerCarmen Miranda.^[2][3] In 1936, at age 22, he won a songwriting contest at Salvador's annualCarnaval celebration. His prize was a pink satin lampshade.^[1] Despite his early musical success, he moved toRio de Janeiro in 1938 with intentions to pursue a law degree and to return to working as a journalist.^[2][3] While employed there by the newspaperDiários Associados, he spent his spare time composing and singing songs on the radio showDragão da Rua Larga. His popularity began to grow with the show's audience.^[1]

Many of Caymmi's lyrics pay homage to the lifestyle, beaches, fishermen, and women of his native Bahia.^[3] He drew much of his inspiration from music indigenous to northeastern Brazil, especiallyAfro-Brazilian music andsamba.^[4] He recorded for more than five decades and released about 20 albums, sometimes singing and playing guitar as a soloist and at other times accompanied by bands and orchestras.^[2] Although active for the better part of the 20th century, Caymmi wrote only about 100 songs.^[4] Despite having a relatively small body of work, Caymmi held a reputation for composing songs of exceptional quality. He occasionally collaborated with Jobim, who called him a "universal genius" and Brazil's greatest composer.^[4] Many contemporary Brazilian artists, includingCaetano Veloso,Gilberto Gil andBeth Carvalho cite Caymmi as a significant influence on their music.^[4]

"O Que É Que a Baiana Tem?" gained even more fame in Brazil when Miranda performed it in the 1939 filmBanana da Terra, and it was this song that garnered her international attention and helped launch her career. After this success, Caymmi began to focus more on making music, and he wrote songs that appeared in other Brazilian films.^[2][4] In late 1939, he signed withOdeon Records and recorded his first three singles, "Rainha do Mar/Promessa de Pescador" ("Queen of the Sea/Promise of the Fisherman"), "Roda Pião" ("Spinning Wheel"), and "O Que É Que a Baiana Tem?/A Preta do Acarajé" ("What Is It About Bahian Women?/The Black Beauty Who SellsAcarajé").^[8] He came to more attention in the early 1940s when he performed as a regular on the Brazilian radio networkRádio Nacional. He recorded "Samba da Minha Terra" ("Samba of My Homeland") in 1940 and "A Jangada Voltou Só" ("The Raft Returned Alone") in 1941.^[1] Also in 1941, he released "Você Já Foi à Bahia?" ("Have You Been to Bahia?").^[9]

In 1944, he performed his own "Acontece Que Eu Sou Baiano" ("It Just So Happens That I'm Bahian") in the movieAbacaxi Azul (Blue Pineapple).^[4] In the late 1940s, he was a member of thesamba-canção movement largely founded by his sometime creative rival, composerAry Barroso. Other prominent Brazilian musicians of the day covered several of his songs, includingDick Farney, who famously recorded Caymmi's "Marina" (1944) in 1947.^[1] In 1957 Caymmi wrote "Suíte do Pescador", which appeared in the filmThe Sandpit Generals.^{[citation needed]}

"Samba da Minha Terra" (1940)

Chorus of "Samba da Minha Terra"

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In the 1950s and 1960s, Jobim,João Gilberto, and others who contributed to the birth of the bossa nova style collaborated with Caymmi and often referenced his work when composing their own pieces. During this era, Gilberto covered several of Caymmi's songs, including "Rosa Morena" ("Dark-skinned Rose") and "Saudade da Bahia" ("Longing for Bahia"). Jobim was particularly enamored of Caymmi's music, and the two grew to be close friends.^[1] American lyricistRay Gilbert translated Caymmi's "Das Rosas" into English in 1965, and it was released in the United States as "...and Roses and Roses".^[1][2] The song was recorded by Brazilian vocalistAstrud Gilberto and by American singersAndy Williams andPerry Como.^[2] Williams's version became a hit, and as a result, Caymmi was invited to spend four months inLos Angeles, where he performed, filmed a television show, and recorded anLP record.^[1]

Caymmi was a lifelong friend of Bahian authorJorge Amado, and in 1945, he set one of Amado's politically driven poems to music to aid thesenatorial campaign ofLuís Carlos Prestes.^[1][4] In the late 1970s, Caymmi again took inspiration from Amado when he composed "Modinha para a Gabriela" ("A Little Song for Gabriela"), a musical adaptation of Amado's novelGabriela, Cravo e Canela (Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon). Perhaps the best known product of Caymmi and Amado's collaboration is the song "É Doce Morrer no Mar" ("It's Sweet to Die in the Sea"), which the two wrote over dinner one night at Amado's home. Other songs they co-wrote include "Beijos pela Noite" ("Kisses Through the Night"), "Modinha para Teresa Batista" ("A Little Song for Teresa Batista"), "Retirantes" ("Migrants"), and "Essa Nega Fulô" ("This Feisty Dark Lady").^[1]

In 1968, to thank Caymmi for bringing international attention to Brazilian music and culture, the governor of Bahia presented Caymmi with a house in Salvador, and so he returned to live in his hometown for a short period of time. In 1972, Caymmi was awarded the Order of Merit of the State of Bahia, anorder given to Bahian residents for excellent service to the state. In Caymmi's case, the service was bringing pride and honor to Bahian people through the widespread dissemination of his music about life there. On Caymmi's 70th birthday, in 1984,FrenchMinister of CultureJack Lang presented him with theOrdre des Arts et des Lettres, a French order that recognizes significant contributors to the fields of art and literature, inParis. The following year, a new street namedAvenida Dorival Caymmi (Dorival Caymmi Avenue) opened in Salvador. In 1986, Rio de Janeiro's famedMangueira samba school based its Carnaval performance on Caymmi's life and work, and the school won the annual parade-style samba competition.^[1] In 2015, his tribute albumCentenário Caymmi (Caymmi Centennial) was nominated forBest MPB Album at the16th Annual Latin Grammy Awards.^[10]

Although Caymmi earned his fame through music, he was also known to a lesser degree for his paintings. From 1943 to 1945, he regularly attended a drawing and painting class at theEscola de Belas Artes, a fine arts school in Rio de Janeiro. Even after discontinuing his formal study, he painted for the rest of his life. He practicedCandomblé, anAfro-Brazilian religion characterized by belief in spirit-gods and ritualistic practices involvingmediumship. Candomblé was his father's religion, and Caymmi gradually involved himself more with it as an adult, when his friends invited him to accompany them to religious ceremonies and parties. Caymmi was also anaturist, and when he was in Bahia, he liked to bathe nude in theLagoa do Abaeté (Abaeté Lagoon) with a group of friends.^[1] He stated to the newspaperValor Econômico: "We rolled around in palm leaves and slipped through the mountains of sand. Some people didn't like this, but most understood that we weren't naked for unclean reasons."^[1]

"Milagre" (1977)

Caymmi sings a duet with his daughter, Nana, in "Milagre".

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While working atRádio Nacional in 1939, he met Brazilian vocalist Adelaide Tostes, who is better known by her stage name Stella Maris, and the two married in 1940.^[3][4] Tostes responded to a 1994 press query about Caymmi's habit of frequenting bars with a short story: "One night I went to look for him in a bar ... He was surrounded by women. I went in and slammed a table. A glass broke. The bouncer came, and I punched Caymmi's face. Then I left cussing. I thought he was involved with drugs, but it wasn't the case. He was with the tramps."^[4] Despite such incidents, however, they remained together for 68 years, until his death in 2008.^[2] The couple had three children,Nana,Dori, andDanilo, all of whom followed their father into musical careers.^[4]

Although Caymmi rarely incorporated political messages into his music, he often spoke bitterly about the government's corruption. Jorge Amado, his close friend, was sent into exile for several years after he publicly criticized the country's rulers during the period ofmilitary dictatorship. In 1994, Caymmi said, "I have concluded that to act as a citizen in Brazil today is to live a joke. It's the same as playing the lotto, dreaming about nonsense, trying to get rich when you are 80."^[4]

Dorival Caymmi died at age 94 ofkidney cancer andmultiple organ failure on August 16, 2008, at his home inCopacabana, Rio de Janeiro.^[4][12] His granddaughter, Stella, who wrote a biography about him in 2001, said, "He did not know that he had cancer, and he did not want to know. He did not ask much about this. He was first hospitalized in 1999. My grandfather went through with treatment, but he did not want to know anything about the illness. He acted with serenity every day, and because of that, we respected this wish."^[13]

Brazilian singer and composerCarlos Lyra praised Caymmi's style for its "suave and romantic colloquialism".^[14] In a 1994 anthology of Caymmi's work, Antônio Carlos Jobim wrote in the introduction, "Dorival is a universal genius. He picked up the guitar and orchestrated the world."^[2] In 2001,New York Times journalist Ben Ratliff wrote that Caymmi was "perhaps second only to Antônio Carlos Jobim in 'establishing a songbook of this century's Brazilian identity.'"^[2] On the day of Caymmi's death in 2008, Brazilian composer and musicianTom Zé said, "It's difficult to comprehend just how valuable a CD of Caymmi's beach songs from the 1940s is."^[13] Also around the time of Caymmi's death,President of BrazilLuiz Inácio Lula da Silva called him "one of the founders of Brazilian popular music".^[2] Several of Caymmi's contemporaries, includingGal Costa andOlivia Hime, have recorded tributes to him.^[8][15]

Prior to 1988, all of Caymmi's albums were released asLP records. His last four albums were released as CDs.^[8]

All of Caymmi's singles were released as 78 rpmgramophone records.^[8]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toDorival Caymmi.

• Dorival Caymmi atIMDb
• Caymmi's obituary inThe New York Times

• 1914 births
• 2008 deaths
• 20th-century Brazilian male artists
• 20th-century Brazilian male singers
• 20th-century Brazilian painters
• Brazilian male painters
• 20th-century Brazilian singers
• Brazilian bossa nova singers
• Brazilian bossa nova guitarists
• Brazilian Candomblés
• Brazilian male jazz musicians
• Brazilian people of Italian descent
• Caymmi family
• Deaths from cancer in Rio de Janeiro (state)
• Deaths from kidney cancer in Brazil
• Deaths from multiple organ failure
• Male actors from Salvador, Bahia
• Portuguese-language Brazilian singers
• Samba musicians

• CS1 Portuguese-language sources (pt)
• CS1 Spanish-language sources (es)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from August 2024
• Good articles
• Articles with hCards
• Pages using infobox musical artist with associated acts
• Pages with Brazilian Portuguese IPA
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from August 2019
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• Commons category link is on Wikidata