Astrud Gilberto Biography
Astrud Weinert, 30 March 1940, Bahia, Brazil. Gilberto's career began by accident in March 1963 during a recording session featuring her husband, guitarist João Gilberto, and saxophonist Stan Getz. A projected track, "The Girl From Ipanema", required a singer conversant with English and although strictly a non-professional, Astrud was coaxed into performing the soft, sang-froid vocal. Her contribution was considered relatively unimportant - early pressings of the resultant Stan Getz/João Gilberto did not credit the singer - even when the track was issued as a single the following year. "The Girl From Ipanema" eventually reached the US Top 5 and UK Top 20, garnering sales in excess of one million and forever binding the artist to the subject of the song. Astrud later toured with Getz; their collaboration was chronicled on Getz A-Go-Go, but she later pursued an independent career, bringing her distinctive, if limited, style to a variety of material, including standards, Brazilian samba/bossa nova and contemporary songs from Tim Hardin, Jimmy Webb and the Doors. Gilberto was the subject of renewed attention when "The Girl From Ipanema" re-entered the UK charts in 1984 as a result of the UK bossa nova/jazz revival perpetrated by artists such as Everything But The Girl, Matt Bianco, the Style Council, Weekend and Sade.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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