When Brazil Got the Blues: The Diffusion of Blues in Brazil

Abstract

Thisarticlewillexamine theintroduction of blues in Brazil (1985-1992), a phenomenon thathas not yet been addressed in scholarly spheres until now. By highlighting the processes of globalization and the Brazilian blues band from Riode Janeiro, Blues Etílicos, I ask what were the spaces, places, and venues that helped to disseminate blues throughout Brazil? How does an African-American-based genre adopted and popularized by upper-and-middle-class white urbanites in Brazil? To answer these questions, I discuss the process ofglobalization and the Geography of music, political, musical,and cultural backdrops, and the end of Brazil’s military dictatorship in 1985, which overlappedwith a major Brazilian rock festival, “Rock in Rio,” and later, Brazil’s first blues festival in Ribeirão Preto in 1989. This article adds to the scholarly literature of music geography by looking at ongoing discussions of Brazil’s changing political, cultural, and musical landscapes.