Zany B-66 music video from 1969!

I have read several times that Sergio brought his group to Brazil in '69 following their big success in the USA in '68. I am sure that these videos were a part of a 1969 Brazilian TV special--they never were shown on US TV. And it comes as no surprise that the music is prerecorded, as were his US TV appearances. They are fun to watch--I always like going down memory lane.
 
In "The Key of Joy" documentary, the are a few tantalizing seconds of helicopter and other footage of the gang ambling along a beach and goofing around for the FOOL ON THE HILL inside cover photos - I'll bet it's part of that Brazilian TV footage. NEED TO SEE MORE!
Lieutenant Dish and Herbie's wife are getting wet, apparently.
Note how Sergio and the guys were right there to dry them off 😀 😛
 
Man, Karen is...shall we say...beyond photogenic. [HEH-HEH-HEH]
Even wearing clothes! 🤪

I do think Karen and Lani have better onstage (and likely offstage) chemistry than Lani and Janis, who in their TV appearances barely seem to acknowledge each other. By contrast , Lani and Karen will often exchange wry grins. Jon "BrasilNut" (where is he??) observed that Karen's body language huddled next to Lani on the back of "Stillness" reads as "I'm sad to say goodbye to my sister Lani....." I recall reading somewhere than Karen and Rubens had even better "chemistry" 🥴😍

Love how onstage Karen is usually boppin', flipping her hair and groovin' to the beat. I'm sorry she and Sergio had an acrimonious parting (as you can read in her interview in "Playboy"). Sergio never mentions her name in his documentary.
 
I've recently located the September 1972 issue of Playboy magazine, which I bought amazingly 50 years ago. The years just seem to fly. Yes, Karen looks good. By the end of her stay with Brasil 77 she was totally burned out. She said back in '71: "There's no spontaneity anymore. The show I'm performing in is prepackaged. It's formula music, sophisticated Muzak. I hate its predictability. Like the Brazilians have a saying: 'It doesn't smell good, it doesn't smell bad, it just doesn't smell.' And that's a real drag. To a great degree, being in this group has destroyed my interest in music." It's easy to see why she passed the vocal baton to Geri Stephens in 1972, who had the good fortune of being a part of the classic "Primal Roots" album . Bibi and Janis and Karen all left the group in unhappy circumstances. Interestingly, I saw Sergio Mendes and Brasil 77 at a show in Lake Tahoe in August 1971. The show was good with Karen and Gracinha, but something was missing. I guess I was I was yearning for the early days of Brasil 66 with Lani and Janis when their sound was fresh and new.
 
Well there you go.
Only the strongest band vocalists and musicians can survive for long touring's daily grind of jet lag and tiredness, boredom, and the sheer repetition of performing the same songs over and over again. Audience appreciation and decent pay can only go so far, and then the average artist gets homesick and wants to get back to the "real world." Huge paydays for superstars overcome the irritations of touring. But for the average artist it's so much different. So, I know where Karen was coming from. Plus, Sergio had a reputation of not being the easiest guy to work for, as Bibi and Janis and Karen can attest to.
 
Plus, Sergio had a reputation of not being the easiest guy to work for, as Bibi and Janis and Karen can attest to.
I hate to gossip but I've heard this for 50 years. Is it true that everyone but Sergio stayed at terrible hotels, etc.?
 
Plus, Sergio had a reputation of not being the easiest guy to work for, as Bibi and Janis and Karen can attest to.
I hate to gossip but I've heard this for 50 years. Is it true that everyone but Sergio stayed at terrible hotels, etc.?
The hotel story was from Janis and was in the Carnival CD re-issue liner notes [Rev-Ola; 2004]. Sergio in the 1960s definitely comes off as autocratic, which -- for A&M in the mid/late '60s -- is about a 90o from Herb and a full 180o from Julius.
 
I hate to gossip but I've heard this for 50 years. Is it true that everyone but Sergio stayed at terrible hotels, etc.?
Janis Hansen on the Carnival album reissue liner notes said this was true for the first iteration of Brasil 66 from 1966-1967. Claudio Slon who joined the group as drummer in 1970 was warned by everyone that "no one can work for Sergio Mendes", and yet he said he had no problems with Sergio and was his drummer for 9 years. So, who knows about future decades when the hits stopped coming. Maybe he mellowed out. And having his future wife Gracinha off and on in his band since 1970-- maybe that was a positive factor to create better vibes in his group. All this is just speculation.
 
Maybe he mellowed out. And having his future wife Gracinha off and on in his band since 1970-- maybe that was a positive factor to create better vibes in his group. All this is just speculation.
I would agree. Like everyone else in the pop bag, Sergio was trying very hard to stay viable in the ever-changing (and fickle!) '60s and '70s pop market. Like with Herb, the Top-40 hits dried up from 1969 onward. Naturally it's disappointing to no longer seem commercially relevant in the forefront of pop music culture; yet, once the Top-40 pressure is removed (and provided one has a large enough cult), one should be able to settle down a bit and simply go with an increasingly relaxed approach to record making for the album market. Frank Zappa is the best example: he made a 20+ year career out of ballyhooing to all and sundry that his music had "no commercial potential" -- and indeed had no top-40 singles (save one serendipitous novelty hit rather late in his career) so there was never any pressure to cater to top-40 culture -- yet his cult was large enough to sustain his recording career. Like Zappa, Sergio enjoyed a strong international following.
 
I would agree. Like everyone else in the pop bag, Sergio was trying very hard to stay viable in the ever-changing (and fickle!) '60s and '70s pop market. Like with Herb, the Top-40 hits dried up from 1969 onward. Naturally it's disappointing to no longer seem commercially relevant in the forefront of pop music culture; yet, once the Top-40 pressure is removed (and provided one has a large enough cult), one should be able to settle down a bit and simply go with an increasingly relaxed approach to record making for the album market. Frank Zappa is the best example: he made a 20+ year career out of ballyhooing to all and sundry that his music had "no commercial potential" -- and indeed had no top-40 singles (save one serendipitous novelty hit rather late in his career) so there was never any pressure to cater to top-40 culture -- yet his cult was large enough to sustain his recording career. Like Zappa, Sergio enjoyed a strong international following.
JOv2--You are exactly right--Sergio always had a large following internationally. He had the amazing physical stamina right up to age 81 to keep traveling to Japan and Europe and the USA for concerts galore. Financially, concerts were his bread and butter so to speak. And he never tires of performing his greatest hits from the late '60s over and over again. Come to think of it, in today's era of streaming media all pop artists have to extensively tour to make a living. They can't make a living by just "selling records" as in the "old days."
 
What the heck is this delightful "Mas Que Nada" video? I've never seen this before.

Sergio and the gang land in Rio and are off for madcap hijinks!

What are Lani and Karen doing bobbing in the surf with black umbrellas?



That was a great video.. Too bad it did not see the light of day for MTV.
 
I'm kind of curious about the video of the beach, since didn't FOTH come out in late 1968? (I haven't seen the Sergio doc yet.) That would seem to indicate the video was done then if it's the same day as the stills in the cover. Also, I will say Claudio in his emails to me decades ago told me he did have a few issues, but mostly due to the relentless touring and quest for another Top 40 hit. He was one of the people who insisted to me it was the Wrecking Crew on Righteous Life, I know Paula Stone has said otherwise, but it seems to me he should have known.
 
I'm kind of curious about the video of the beach, since didn't FOTH come out in late 1968? (I haven't seen the Sergio doc yet.) That would seem to indicate the video was done then if it's the same day as the stills in the cover. Also, I will say Claudio in his emails to me decades ago told me he did have a few issues, but mostly due to the relentless touring and quest for another Top 40 hit. He was one of the people who insisted to me it was the Wrecking Crew on Righteous Life, I know Paula Stone has said otherwise, but it seems to me he should have known.
Claudio Slon would have been right about other musicians used on Righteous Life, as the album jacket credited several non-Brasil 66 musicians for their appearance on the 1970 Stillness album. It said "A special thanks to"--Michael Lang, piano and Mark Stevens, drums and Joe Osborn, bass.--a whole rhythm section. Claudio's solo drumming on "Viramundo" which opened the September 1972 live at the Greek Theater concert album by Brasil 77 was fantastic.
 
The "sped-up, zany" motion in the "Mas Que Nada" video reminds me of a similar video of the Tijuana Brass spilling into and out of a Tijuana Taxi, cavorting at an airport, etc. It was included in the VERY BEST OF HERB ALPERT video released in the UK and Japan. Can't find its equivalent on YouTube at the moment.
 
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