Along with Tim Maia, singer-songwriter Genival Cassiano dos Santos (September 16, 1943), or simply Cassiano, is considered one of the forefathers of soul music in his native Brazil. Born in Paraiba, Cassiano relocated to Rio de Janeiro with his family during his early childhood. There, he took guitar and mandolin lessons with his father and worked as a bricklayer before deciding to pursue a career in music. At the age of 21 he joined the Bossa Trio, a group that would later be renamed as Os Diagonais. His first brush with fame arrived shortly after, as Tim Maia included two of Cassiano’s originals, “Eu Amo Você” and “Primavera (Vai Chuva),” on his self-titled 1970 debut. After releasing Os Diagonais’ second album Cada um na Sua in 1971, Cassiano embarked on a solo career that began that same year with Imagem e Som, which featured “Ela Mandou Esperar” and “Tenho Dito,” both co-written with Maia. He made headlines again in 1976 with the track “A Lua e Eu,” a sensual R&B song that gained massive popularity thanks to its inclusion in the soap opera O Grito. The following year, his single “Coleção,” also co-written with Paulo Zdanowski, became the theme song for the soap opera Locomotivas, further raising his profile. In 1978, recurring health problems made Cassiano retreat from the public eye until 1991, when he reappeared with the star-studded album Cedo ou Tarde, featuring Ed Motta, Djavan, and Marisa Monte. Subsequently, a couple of compilations saw the light in the early aughts and his early catalog was reissued in 2001. Despite his poor health conditions, Cassiano continued to perform and record well into the 21st century, collaborating with a younger generation of artists such as Sao Paulo’s Racionais MCs and Clave de Soul.
