16 Facts about Rita Lee, the queen of Brazilian rock

Known as the queen of Brazilian rock, Rita Lee is a multi-talented, greatest hits collector, author of best seller, visual arts enthusiast and animal protector. Despite having left fans homesick when she left the stage in 2012, grandma rock n Roll has yielded many reactions in his recent appearances on the Internet, “spreading the virus of love”, always with lucidity and a lot of good humor.

At 72, the woman who sold the most records in the history of Brazilian music still has a lot to tell.

With that in mind, the awesome.club gathered 16 interesting facts and stories about the life and work of this artist, who (spoiler!) is coming to the big screen soon!

Rita was very blonde and told in an interview that she adopted the red hair during a season in London, after being expelled from Os Mutantes.

Rita Lee and Os Mutantes became known to the general public in 1967, when they accompanied Gilberto Gil in the song Sunday at the park, at Record’s 3rd Festival of Brazilian Popular Music. Until then, guitars were far from this type of event, but Gil and the “weirdos” Mutantes took second place at the festival, forever changing the expression of Brazilian music.

Rita has always had a super scenic side, notable in costumes and in her performances in concerts and TV shows. She has already been a presenter, participated in soap operas and, in 2017, participated in the series Manual for Defending Against Aliens, Ninjas and Zombies🇧🇷

Rita has also revealed that she likes to spend her free time painting among other tasks, such as taking care of her vegetable garden and feeding her pets at the place where she currently lives with her music and life partner, Roberto de Carvalho.

Charles Fenley Jones is an American immigrant who married Romilda Padula, daughter of
Italians. Together, they had Rita, Mary and Virginia, as well as their beloved daughters Balu and Caru.

The book Rita Lee lives next door, by Henrique Bartsch, became the eponymous musical. In the show, Rita is played by Mel Lisboa (pictured above). Mel, by the way, made the rock queen cry in one of her performances.

Humor has always been present in the lyrics of his songs. In her autobiography, Rita tells
about when he composed, in partnership with Paulo Coelho, the song broke the party🇧🇷 Second
her, the “compact-bomb was a song to scandalize once and for all the good habits of MPB.
Apart from Elis, we spare no one.” At the time, the compact hit sales record, but the
debauchery even generated disagreements and, from time to time, the phrase “Fora Gringa Rita Lee” was sprayed with graffiti.
on the walls.

It was in one of the numerous times that she participated in the program, that Rita surprised Hebe
with a peck, which ended up becoming the presenter’s trademark. the two were
very close friends. “Hebe was the most complete translation of the Queen of Sampa and I, just
your jester”, says Rita in her autobiography.

Rita said “the only flag I carry in my heart and soul is the defense of animals”. Today, the rocker lives surrounded by dogs, cats, turtles, mice and carp and lives posting pictures of her pets on her Instagram. In 2017, she even visited Instituto Luisa Mell, as shown in the photo above.

After Os Mutantes and after releasing albums accompanied by the group Tutti Fruti, Rita met
Roberto de Carvalho, with whom he began to compose and with whom he soon fell in love. The partnership, which
remains firm to this day, yielded the biggest hits of the singer’s career, in addition to three children:
Beto, João and Antonio.

In his interview with Conversation with BialRita showed and told stories about the costumes that marked important moments in her career, which she has kept very well since the time of Os Mutantes.

Before being called Os Mutantes, the trio called themselves “Os Bruxos”. Who renamed the band was Ronnie Von, who presented a program on TV Record. “For him, The Wizards were, shall we say, too poor. He showed us a book he was reading, The Empire of Mutants, explaining that they were beings from another planet that transformed into infinite life forms in order to conquer Earth. Plin! Blessings, painho” — described Rita in her book.

After being expelled from Os Mutantes for “artistic incompatibility”, Rita recorded four albums alongside the band Tutti Frutti, between 1974 and 1978. Now only you are missing🇧🇷 Black sheep and Babylonian Gardens are some of the hits released at that time.

Rita Lee has broken many records throughout her career. She is the woman who has sold the most records in the history of Brazilian music and is the Brazilian artist who has scored the most hits in the opening tracks of novels. Rita was also the artist with the highest number of censored songs during the period of the military dictatorship. The first batch of vinyl Sugarplum (1983) was even scratched with blades and the record could only be released with a “prohibited for under 18” stamp.

Rita Lee is one of the best known Brazilian artists outside the country. In the 1980s, success Perfume Launcher it reached number one in France and reached the Billboard chart (USA), yielding versions in several languages ​​around the world, including a Hebrew version recorded in 1983 by Yael Levi.

A multi-talented artist, Rita Lee travels beyond the stage, TV and visual arts. She has written children’s books, based on stories she told her children. Furthermore, Rita Lee: An Autobiographylaunched in 2016, became best seller surpassing the expressive number of 200 thousand copies sold. In 2017, he was nominated for the Jabuti Prize, the most important in Brazilian literature.

These and other stories are very well told by Rita herself in her autobiography, always with a lot of personality, good humor and a hint of acidity. And, to our delight, we will soon see the story of this great artist being told in cinema. In the photo above, you can see Rita herself in a super excited meeting with the crew responsible for the production. The film, still without a release date, will be based on the artist’s autobiography and is already in the works. Mel Lisboa, who played Rita in the theater, is a strong candidate to embody the singer again on the big screen.

The queen of Brazilian rock made and makes a lot of people happy with all her irreverence and her unforgettable songs. Tell us: which Rita Lee success packed moments in her life?