Country Music
Is Crying

The death of João Pacífico is a big loss for the country and for caipira music in particular. He was considered by many the best country composer Brazil ever had.

Elma Lia Nascimento

Amid the celebrations of Christmas and New Year's few Brazilians took notice of the death of João Pacífico, a music great and one of Brazil's last legitimate caipira (country) composers. He has been often called the "best composer Brazilian caipira music has ever had." The author of "Cabocla Tereza," "Chico Mulato" and "Gota d'Água," among other musical treasures, died in Guararema in the Greater São Paulo from respiratory insufficiency on December 30, 1998.

Son of an ex-slave woman, he was born in 1909 on a farm in Cordeirópolis, a town in the interior of São Paulo state. Only one year later he would get his birth certificate where he was registered as João Batista da Silva. The Pacífico epithet would come much later, in 1932, given him by an RCA executive who thought the term was a perfect description for his humble, quiet and calm demeanor.

In an interview with daily O Estado de S. Paulo, Assis Ângelo, a journalist and an expert in popular culture agrees that the name fits well: "He was patient, calm, attentive." In one of his rare interviews Pacífico, when asked what he expected from life, told the reporter: "Life is good, I do no harm to anyone, I drink my cachacinha (sugar cane liquor), but I would like to see everything changing a lot, everything getting calmer and more peaceful."

Ângelo also talked about the importance of the composer for the Brazilian culture: "With the death of Pacífico we lose a good part of pure Brazilian music. He leaves admirers but no substitute. He invented a genre called historic tune. He was able to create a narration using a classic theme of history."

Pacífico, who went to school for a mere three years, was still a little boy when he started playing percussion in a movie theater orchestra. By age 10 he moved to Campinas, a bigger city. He continued playing, but had to find a job to survive and became a dish washer aide at Companhia Paulista de Estrada de Ferro (São Paulo Railway Company). Always humble, he used to talk about those hard times with humor: "I washed the dish so the dish washer could wash it. Important stuff, hum? Top job, amazing."

It was working in the wagon restaurant of the train that he met people that would help him in his career. That's where he met, for example, Raul Torres, the so-called Rei da Embolada (Embolada King) who, after listening to some of his poetry became a long-time partner. He also met renowned poet Guilherme de Almeida, who had a radio program and gave him a chance to show his talent and recite verses like: "Don't pay attention if you see one day that the leaves have become yellow, it was longing that painted them this way."

During his career he would compose, according to his own estimate, close to 1,400 songs. He started a tradition of caipira music, in which the singer would recite verses before starting to sing the song. Inezita Barroso, Rolando Boldrin, Sérgio Reis, Tonico e Tinoco are some of the famous interpreters who sang Pacífico's tunes.

After living many years in Vila Mariana, a neighborhood in the south zone of São Paulo, Pacífico, who was a widower, was living with friends in Guararema at the time of his death.

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