Biography
In every corner of the world
26 October 1942 at six o’clock in the afternoon, the hour of the Angelus: The
radio was playing an Ave Maria and, in the corridors of Laranjeiras Hospital, a crying
shared the silence with the melody. A baby had just been born. His name: Milton
Nascimento…
Milton lived the first two years of his life in Rio de Janeiro. In 1945, his life
turned upside-down with the death of his biological mother due to tuberculosis. Milton
moved to little Três Pontas, a city between the mountains and the echoes of the south of
the state of Minas Gerais, where he came to live with the couple who would become his
parents, Lília and Josino. In spite of facing prejudice for being a Black raised by a
White family, Milton had a happy childhood in the countryside of Minas Gerais,
surrounded by friends, surrounded by music. At five years old, he received a harmonica
from his parents and, a little later, a small accordion. His favorite pastime was to sit on
the steps of the porch and play these two instruments. And it was even on the porch that
where he took his first steps toward being a composer, creating musical stories to amuse
his friends and neighbors. One of them, Wagner Tiso, became his great friend and
musical partner while still at teen.
Together, they made up the vocal group “Luar de Prata” (Silver Moonlight) that
performed at dances and on the radios of the towns of the region. The group became
“Milton Nascimento and his Combo”, and, at the beginning of the ’60s, Milton and
Wagner formed “W’Boys” in Alfenas, also in the south of Minas Gerais. They were so
successful that they were invited to take part in the “Holliday Cmbo” in Belo Horizonte.
In 1963, upon finishing a technical course in business, begun after high school, Milton
moved to Belo Horizonte and took up residence in a rented room in the Levy Building,
where he met the Borges family. Beyond the “Holliday”, he became a member of the
Célio Balona dance combo. What he earned from his music, however, was not enough
to get by in the city. Because of this, he worked during the day as a typist in an office
of the Furnas Electricity Company.
In 1964, with Wagner Tiso and Paulinho Braga, he formed the Berimbau Trio, in
which he starred as the bassist. During a break between sets with the group, he met
Márcio Borges, who encouraged him to become a composer. Milton resisted and, only
after watching the François Truffaut film “Jules et Jim” three times in a row, composed
his first three compositions with Márcio: “Crença”, “Novena”, and “Gira Girou”. Still
in this period, he recorded the single “Barulho de Trem” with the Holliday Band and the
LP “Quarteto Sambacana” with Pacífico Mascarenhas. In 1966, he took part in the TV
Excelsior Music Festival in São Paulo, performing “Cidade Vazia” by Baden Powell
and Lula Freire. He took fourth place and decided to move to that city. In that same
year, Elis Regina recorded “Canção do Sal”.
Disappointed by the competitive atmosphere of the festivals, Milton Nascimento
never took part in another one, but, in 1967, he met singer Agostinho dos Santos.
Under the pretext of recording a record of his own, Agostinho asked his new friend for a
tape with three songs and entered him in the II International Song Festival. All three
songs made it into the contest, Milton won best interpretation, and one of them,
“Travessia” came in in second place, making it one of Milton’s best-known and mostrecorded songs both in Brazil and abroad. From there, Milton’s career took off. The
Mineiro who had made his debut on the stage of the ISF(International Song Festival)
because of his three qualifying songs left it as a heavy-weight in Brazilian music with a
contract to record albums in Brazil and the United States.
His first albums confirmed him as an innovated composer and exceptional
interpreter. With his third LP, “Milton”, in 1970, his music got a pop/rock boost from
with the addition of “Som Imaginário”, which he accompanied with electric guitars and
keyboards. Two years later, his work culminated in the double album “Clube da
Esquina” (The Club on the Corner), which he shared with Lô Borges and ended up
being acclaimed one of the biggest and most important movements in Brazilian Popular
Music. In the following years, the “Clube” expanded and added new members, from
old friends to international stars, including Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, James
Taylor, Jon Anderson, Naná Vasconcelos, Ron Carter, Peter Gabriel, Pat Metheny, Gil
Goldstein, Jack Dejohnette, Mercedes Soza, Fito Paez, Hubert Law, Sting, Paul Simon,
Duran Duran, e Maurice White from the group Earth, Wind and Fire.
In the almost four decades of his career since “Travessia”, Milton Nascimento
has proven himself one of the most expressive and important composers and interpreters
both in Brazil and around the world. In 1990, he became the first Brazilian to reach the
top of Billboard Magazine’s World Music charts with his album “Txai”, and in the two
following years, he was chosen DownBeat Magazine’s World Beat Artist of the Year.
With a Grammy in 1998 for his CD “Nascimento”, Latin Grammies, and countless other
important awards in Brazil and abroad — such as the Tenco Prize at the San Remo
Festival in 2009 — but mostly for being part of the lives and dreams of people in every
corner of the world, going where the people are, his music is rooted in the street corners
of the world and spreads outward, growing into one of the most solid and fertile stories
in contemporary music with many pages yet to be written.