Tim Maia - I Don't Know What To Do With Myself
Tim Maia - I Don't Know What To Do With Myself
Thayer does an admirable job finding and interviewing band members from this era, but without Maia, who died in 1998, the center still feels murky. We don't exactly learn why Maia dove so hard into Rational Culture and we know even less about why he left and resumed his rock 'n' roll lifestyle and also finished the '70s with a disco-fueled return to relevance. His own liner notes on his first, post-Rational culture album in 1977 are also less than illuminating:
Sebastião Rodrigues "Tim" Maia (September 28, 1942 - March 15, 1998) was a Brazilian musician known for his jocular, yet soulful take on Brazilian music during his time. Maia was born in the Tijuca neighbourhood, in the northern suburbs of Rio de Janeiro. The second youngest of nineteen children, he wrote his earliest songs at age eight, at the time known as "Tião Maia". At fourteen, as a drummer, he formed the group Os Tijucanos do Ritmo, which lasted one year, during which he was also known by the nickname "Babulina", in reference to "Bop-A-Lena, a rockabilly by Ronnie Self. Interestingly, Jorge Ben Jor had the same nickname for the same reason. Tim was also very influenced by Little Richard (another influence cited by Jorge Ben Jor), Roberto Carlos said he learned to make the rock rhythm on the guitar when he saw Tim perform Richard's Long Tal Sally. In 1957, he founded the group The Sputniks, in which Roberto Carlos, Arlênio Silva, Edson Trindade and Wellington participated, where he played drums and sang, after falling out with Tim, Roberto Carlos left the group, being presented by Carlos Imperial as "The Brazilian Elvis Presley ", Tim sought Imperial and became" Brazilian Little Richard". He then took guitar classes and was soon teaching other children in Tijuca. Later, he taught Erasmo Carlos (at that time, only Erasmo Esteves) the first chords E, A and D, according to Erasmo, these chords allowed him to play several rock songs.
When he hit it big, Brazil was in the middle of a creatively vital period, the experimental music of Os Mutantes and the psychedelic samba fusions of Jorge Ben Jor were on the rise, but Maia's musical education came from an fairly short stint in New York (where he was then known as "Jim") that began in 1959, when he was 17, when he joined a vocal group named The Ideals (with Roger Bruno, the group's leader, he would write the song "New Love"). While in the U.S., Maia also began listening to Afro-American soul music, however, he was arrested in 1963 for smoking marijuana in a stolen car, he was deported back to Brazil.
In 1974, Maia was preparing his debut at RCA, after leaving Polydor once he received an offer from the former allowing him to record a double album (and generally being pissed at the way they handled his royalties). His band had already recorded several instrumental tracks before any lyrics were written, which led his lyrics to be inspired by a religious doctrine of a cult known as Cultura Racional (Rational Culture). Maia soon converted to the cult, abandoned the drugs and red meat, and decided to write the lyrics for the songs about the knowledge contained in the doctrine (known by the name Universo em Desencanto (Universe in Disenchantment)). RCA rejected the albums Racional Vols. 1 & 2 for the newly found spiritual content, but Maia bought the master tapes from them and released the albums independently through label Seroma (named for the first syllables of his first, middle and last names), an independent label founded for the purpose of releasing the records and splitting the profits with the cult.
Notable Songs: "Eu Amo Você" "Azul Da Cor Do Mar" "Primavera (Vai Chuva)" "Não Quero Dinheiro (Só Quero Amar)" "Não Vou Ficar" "Você" "Where Is My Other Half?" "Gostava Tanto de Você" "Réu Confesso" "Imunização Racional (Que Beleza)" "Nobody Can Live Forever" "Brother, Father, Mother, Sister" "Não Vá" "Sossego" "Me Dê Motivo" "O Descobridor dos Sete Mares" "Ela Partiu" "