Joyce Moreno at 78: her 50-year battle in Brazil's music scene
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- Joyce Moreno, now 78, has written more than 400 songs and released more than 30 albums, but faced years of resistance from Brazil's music establishment, where critics argued her music was "too good to have been written by a woman."
- Moreno was boycotted by Brazil's major record companies for a decade after she sued her label in 1980 and won, having discovered that another female singer had been given the blueprints to songs she had written—she recounts the episode in her memoir.
- During Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship, Moreno recorded 1975's album Passarinho Urbano while touring Italy, featuring songs by censored artists including Chico Buarque, Milton Nascimento, and Caetano Veloso; she told the paper she didn't vote until age 40.
- A shelved 1977 New York album cut with arranger Claus Ogerman—who worked with Antônio Carlos Jobim and Frank Sinatra—intended to launch her global career, was finally released in 2022 by UK label Far Out Recordings, 45 years after it was recorded.
- Her new album Joyce & Tutty Moreno, made with guitarist Adrian Younge, is dedicated to longtime collaborator pianist João Donato, who died in 2023 at 83; Moreno recorded it with her partner of nearly 50 years, drummer Tutty Moreno, whom she met in 1977 at Rio's Cachaça club.
Why it matters: Moreno's career spans Brazil's pre- and post-dictatorship eras, making her a rare living witness to how the 1964-1985 regime silenced artists—her shelved 1977 album only seeing daylight in 2022 captures how long the music industry's resistance to her outlasted the political one. With records now surfacing 50 years late and a new album at 78, she is one of the few artists from MPB's founding circle still actively producing.
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