Astrud Gilberto, the Brazilian singer whose soft, seductive voice made “The Girl from Ipanema” a global sensation in the 1960s and gave a huge boost to the nascent genre of bossa nova, has died at age 83, her family said.
“I come with the sad news that my grandmother became a star today and is next to my grandfather Joao Gilberto,” Sofia Gilberto wrote on social media early Tuesday, later confirming the death to AFP.
The singer died at her home in Philadelphia, United States, where she had lived since the 1960s.
Gilberto was born in Salvador, capital of the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia, in 1940 and was married to Joao Gilberto, a bossa nova pioneer who died in 2019.
Astrud Gilberto has recorded 19 albums in her career, but she had little professional music experience when she turned “The Girl from Ipanema” — the now-classic song by Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes — into a global disaster by singing the English lyrics alongside to American saxophonist Stan Getz and her then-guitar-playing husband.
The version made Astrud Gilberto the first Brazilian to be nominated for a Grammy — which she won, for song of the year, in 1965.
– “Queen of Bossa Nova” –
The silky-smooth song changed Gilberto's life, turning it upside down both personally and professionally.
As the story goes, it owed its popularity to a suggestion from Joao Gilberto while they were recording it in New York to try singing a verse in English.
“This song is going to make you famous,” Getz told her in the studio.
Apparently it wasn't just her music that impressed the saxophonist — and vice versa.
She ended up leaving her husband for Getz and moving permanently to the United States.
But this tumultuous period in her life produced some of the most beloved recordings of all time, including the live album of the three friends' concert at New York's Carnegie Hall in October 1964.
Aged just 24 at the time, Gilberto suffered from stage fright, which she overcame by taking drama classes at the Stella Adler acting academy.
The suave young brunette wowed audiences with her satiny voice, which she performed on tour with Getz. She earned the nickname “The Queen of Bossa Nova”, bringing the syncopated, laid-back Brazilian music style to the world.
However, she claimed she never earned royalties from her best-known song, saying she only received a daily fee for recording it.
She remained in the US after splitting from Getz, continuing her career with hits such as “Fly Me to the Moon” (1972) and “Far Away” (1977) and turning to songwriting with the albums “Astrud Gilberto Now” and “That girl from Ipanema”.
After a career that saw him tour the world, he retired from the stage in 2001. The following year he was inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame.
In 2008, she was awarded a Latin Grammy for lifetime achievement.
She devoted herself to painting and animal rights activism in her later years.
The music world mourned the death of one of its iconic voices.
“Goodbye Astrud Gilberto,” tweeted English rocker Tim Burgess, frontman of alternative rock band Charlatans, alongside a black-and-white video of a shy Gilberto performing “Girl from Ipanema” in a vintage 60s beehive.
“Her contribution to bringing Brazilian music to the world was immeasurable. Her unparalleled swing and good taste will always stay with me,” wrote American musician Mark Lambert on Instagram.
It was the latest loss for Brazilian music fans, after Rita Lee died last month aged 75 and popular music legend Gal Costa, a leading figure in the 'Tropicalia' movement, died in November aged 77.
Bebel Gilberto, daughter of Joao Gilberto and a singer-songwriter herself, called Astrud “an eternal muse.”
“(May) you sing with birds and angels,” she wrote on Instagram.
