Rita Lee Jones de Carvalho

Rita Lee was a Brazilian rock singer and songwriter who rose to fame as a member of the band Os Mutantes and a popular figure in Brazilian entertainment. She was born in São Paulo, Brazil, on December 31, 1947, to an American-Brazilian father, Charles Fenley Jones, a dentist descended from the Confederates, and Romilda Padula, a Brazilian mother of Italian ancestry and a pianist. She studied classical piano with the renowned pianist Magdalena Tagliaferro. In place of the traditional adolescent debut ball, she asked to receive a drum set. Lee was educated in a French-language school and became fluent in Spanish, French, and Italian, as well as her native Portuguese and the English that her parents spoke at home. She went to college, with the popular actress Regina Duarte as one of her classmates, but she soon left to pursue her musical career. 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. Rita Lee left Os Mutantes in 1972 and started a solo career that spanned more than four decades and 30 albums. She experimented with different genres, such as pop, disco, electronic, and children's music. She collaborated with some of Brazil's most renowned artists, such as Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, Milton Nascimento, and Zélia Duncan. She also wrote songs for other singers, such as Elis Regina, Gal Costa, and Maria Bethânia. She was also an actress, author, TV host, and animal rights activist. She was a vegan and supported causes such as Greenpeace, PETA, and SOS Mata Atlântica. She was named Singer of the Millennium by BBC Radio in 1999, along with Tina Turner. She died of cancer of the bladder in São Paulo on May 8, 2023, at the age of 75. She was admired and loved by millions of fans and left behind a legacy of music and joy.