Clara Nunes

The warrior of samba

Clara Francisca Gonçalves was born on August 12, 1942 in Cedro, now Caetanópolis, Minas Gerais; sources vary on the municipality, Paraopeba or Caetanópolis. She took the surname Nunes from her mother's maiden name on the suggestion of the producer Cid Carvalho. She won a hometown singing contest in 1952, worked at fourteen as a weaver at the Cedro & Cachoeira textile mill and in 1957 moved to Belo Horizonte. In 1960 she won the Minas Gerais stage of A Voz de Ouro ABC and placed third in the national final in São Paulo. She hosted the TV show Clara Nunes Apresenta on TV Itacolomi in 1963, moved to Rio in 1965, and made her first LP, A Voz Adorável de Clara Nunes, in 1966, a commercial failure of boleros and sambas-canção.

Você Passa, Eu Acho Graça (1968) was her first samba album and first radio hit. Clara Clarice Clara (1972) sold over 100,000 copies on the strength of "Tristeza, Pé no Chão", making her the first Brazilian woman to sell that many records. She toured Europe in 1973, played a show with Vinicius de Moraes and Toquinho, and Alvorecer (1974) sold over 300,000. Claridade (1975), Canto das Três Raças (1976), As Forças da Natureza (1977), Guerreira (1978), Esperança (1979), Brasil Mestiço (1980), Clara (1981) and Nação (1982) followed, all on Odeon. Rolling Stone Brasil lists four million-selling albums, and she worked closely with the poet and lyricist Paulo César Pinheiro, her most-recorded composer. She dressed in white with beads, sang of the orixás of Umbanda and Candomblé, and played Angola in 1970 and 1980.

She died on April 2, 1983 in Rio de Janeiro, aged 40; the wake at the Portela court drew over 50,000 people and Portela's 1984 samba-enredo, dedicated to her, won. Rolling Stone Brasil ranks her ninth among the greatest Brazilian voices and the Instituto Clara Nunes, founded in 2005, runs a memorial in Caetanópolis. English Wikipedia counts her among the three samba queens with Alcione and Beth Carvalho. Vagner Fernandes wrote the biography Clara Nunes: Guerreira da Utopia (2007).