Renato e Seus Blue Caps were one of the best, and longest-lived, of the Jovem Guarda teen-oriented Brazilian rock bands which flourished in the early 1960s. Swiping their band name from Gene Vincent's original '50s outfit, Renato Barros and his "Blue Caps" covered everything from surfbeat instrumental to Beatles-y pop, with plenty of cover tunes throughout, but also a notable amount of good original material. Renato and Co. were several notches above the average Brazilian teenybopper band -- they were certainly not as wimpy as most, and could hit a blue-eyed soul groove roughly equivalent to that of the Spencer Davis Band... Here's a quick look at their legacy....
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Twist" (CBS/Copacabana, 1962)
(Produced by Nazareno De Brito & Carlos Imperial)
Fairly adorable material from one of the earliest (and best) Brazilian rocknrollers. This 2-in-1 reissue is evenly split between Eddie Cochran-ish instrumentals and peppy vocal numbers that would have done Freddy "Boom-Boom" Cannon or Bobby Rydell proud. It's goofy, derivative teenybopper music, but it was the best Brazil had to offer, and holds up pretty well, especially in the spunk department. The first album features fun, perky-girl vocals by Cleide Alves, who could have given Annette Funicello a run for her money -- there are also a few tunes featuring Reynaldo Rayol, who was a bit dripper, in a Pat Boone/Mario Lanza kinda way. The tracks which are sung in English are less fun, as are the numerous instrumental "twist" tunes... Overall, though, this is pretty charming. Worth checking out.
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Renato E Seus Blue-Caps" (CBS/Copacabana, 1963)
Fairly adorable material from one of the earliest (and best) Brazilian rocknrollers. This 2-in-1 reissue is evenly split between Eddie Cochran-ish instrumentals and peppy vocal numbers that would have done Freddy "Boom-Boom" Cannon or Bobby Rydell proud. It's goofy, derivative teenybopper music, but it was the best Brazil had to offer, and holds up pretty well, especially in the spunk department. The first album features great, perky-girl vocals by Cleide Alves, who could have given Annette Funicello a run for her money -- the tracks which are sung in English are less fun, but overall this is pretty charming. Worth checking out.
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Viva A Juventude!" (CBS, 1964)
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Isto E Renato E Seus Blue Caps" (CBS, 1965)
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Um Embalo Com..." (CBS, 1966)
Good record! Cover tunes galore, with material from the Beatles, Hollies and others, but what makes this album fun is the competent, up-to-date rock playing, with plenty of chiming Byrds-y guitar and nice harmonies. Os Blue Caps were definitely at the top of the jovem guarda pyramid, and this is them at their best.
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Renato E Seus Blue Caps" (CBS, 1967)
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Especial" (CBS, 1968)
A somewhat lethargic set with plenty of mid-tempo ballads and soft-psych pop tunes, and the same mellow, loping, dumpti-dumpti-dum backbeat on almost every track. It's not awful-sounding, it's just not very exciting.
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Renato E Seus Blue Caps" (CBS, 1969)
A little peppier and more upbeat, though still mostly kinda snoozy. A cover of Creedence Clearwater's "Lodi" (here interpolated as "Claudia") slips by in unreconizable form, although a cover of the Beatles' "Paperback Writer" hits closer to the mark... Some fuzzed-out, psych-y guitars, and a few catchy tunes, but mostly this has more of their trademark mid-tempo, sonambulent love ballads. One of their better albums, though that isn't saying much...
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Renato E Seus Blue Caps" (CBS, 1970)
(Produced by Renato Barros)
There are some fun moments on here, chugging rhythms that hint at a Spencer Davis Group-like sound, and lightly fuzzed-out guitars. Of course, by 1970 this stuff was pretty mild and tame in comparison to the freaky acid rock mayhem up North, and to the verboten mischief of Brazil's homegrown tropicalia scene. If this had come out in 1966, it would have been a whole lot hipper; as it is, it'll go down in history as an innocuous soft-rock record, typical of the shift in jovem guarda towards the increasingly sedate "toque popular" sound, but the Blue Caps were still a cut above most of their JG contemporaries...
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Renato E Seus Blue Caps" (CBS, 1971)
(Produced by Renato Barros)
You hear that fuzzed-out, funky opening number, "46-77-23," an obvious homage to the Latin rock of Carlos Santana, and your head spins a little: is this really the same band that was sleepwalking its way through the last few years? Well, yeah, it is, as they prove on the next five songs... Zzzzzzzzzzzzz... huhn?? Oh, is it safe to wake up now? ...And then they toss out another bouncy, uptempo salsa-rock tune -- "Nao E Nada Disco" -- and get your attention again, before going back to teetering between various contemporary light, fluffy pop styles, including some horn-led pop-rock, ala Three Dog Night. It's the mellow, harmony-oriented numbers that'll get you all snoozy, but this particular album has a few tunes with interesting arrangements. A change of pace, for sure, but still pretty wimpy.
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Renato E Seus Blue Caps" (CBS, 1972)
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Renato E Seus Blue Caps" (CBS, 1973)
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Renato E Seus Blue Caps" (CBS, 1974)
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Dez Anos De..." (CBS, 1976)
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Renato E Seus Blue Caps" (CBS, 1977)
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Suco De Laranga" (CBS, 1979)
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Renato E Seus Blue Caps" (CBS, 1981)
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Pra Sempre" (RCA-Victor, 1983)
Eww. Tacky soft-pop in which the bad's lingering connection to its teenpop past is limited to a poorly-arranged medley of various '60s pop tunes. But this album is really worth skipping over.
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Baton Vermelho" (Continental, 1987)
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Renato E Seus Blue Caps: 1996" (Globo/Columbia, 1996)
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Os Grandes Sucesos De..." (CBS, 1977)
A little later in the game, Renato had slicker guitars and a wider palatte to work with. This collection was pretty cheaply packaged, to in lieu of real discographical info, I'll hazard a guess that some of these recordings date as late as the mid-70s, and others come from the late '60s. A lot of Beatles covers, along with other cover tunes such as "California Dreaming" and "My Baby Don't Care"... For the most part, these are the sort of close-but-not-quite efforts you expect from "foreign" rocknroll, and the band's stylistic limitations -- which seemed cute in 1962 -- are a little less forgivable here. Still, their cover of the reggae standard, "Shame and Scandal In The Family", as well as the mildly tweaky version of Arthur Alexander's "Anna", are pretty noteworthy.
Renato E Seus Blue-Caps "Series XXI" (Sony, 2000)
Wanderlea "Quero Voce" (CBS, 1964)
Renato and his crew played backup for a lot of the early ie-ie-ie groups; a notable early example is their work on the second LP by Wanderlea, who was one of Brazil's best shots at approximating the classic Leslie Gore/Little Eva girl-group style. They helped solidify and toughen up her sound, giving it a catchier and more consistent feel, particularly on the guitars... worth checking out!
