Rita Braga is a singer, author and performer of songs with an eclectic repertoire of versions ranging from Mozart to the ukulele, folk Serbian, Portuguese, Swedish or Russian, cowboy songs, jazz and samba of the '20s and '30s or bollywood.
You develop various musical projects in parallel, all different from each other, tell me about the partnership with Chris Carlone, "chips and salsa".
Rita Braga: This partnership "chips and salsa "in fact what we have done is our repertoire, solo with him accompany me and we start working our first record with originals. Chris Carlone is a very versatile person; he is also an actor and has a side of performance, so when I'm with him I think we have a very good chemistry because he plays several instruments. It's a folk trace.
So how did you meet?
RB: He lives in New York and we know each other in 2008 through the "my space", we much like the work of each other and started collaborating via Internet. I invited him to participate on my record and he soon scored several concerts in the U.S. and that's how we started. Last year we played together in a festival of the Azores and we have been getting together once a year. Now, we will continue to record together.
Your work has many influences and what I think is curious that brings up the musical era of the 50s, although touches many musical instruments, among them the Ukulele.
RB: I have many references and one I like best comes from the period of the 20s and 30s music and my voice has as influences of the 50s, but the first album was "cherries that went to the police" were all versions of that time from several countries. These are things that I hear, that I love immensely, they are forgotten and people do not know it. I thought it was important to reinterpret these themes.
And the songs you write and compose where do you get the inspiration?
RB: Now I have played basically these versions of folk music and cinema. This year I recorded my second album, which will be an EP with six themes I wrote in that case got influenced by some old songs on the radio in Brazil. I also pursue other rock references, because I have an electric guitar training, drums and bass. I'm getting appropriate of various topics and as the collaborations go I can incorporate several different records.
So how did you get to Sao Paulo and meet Brazilian musicians?
RB : First , I met a Brazilian artist who makes comics and plays music that is José Vieira, who went to Portugal thru " chili with meat " , which is a publisher of comics and talked to him , I did not know him and said I liked to go there, to Brazil. He got me a few concerts and contacts with other people and one of them was the stain that has an independent space, Casa do Mancha. He plays drums and another plays the bass and we formed a band at the end were five and returned to record the EP with them.
What are you going to call the new album?
RB: Does not have a title yet, but is slated for March 2014. The band exists only because of me and it is called "psychedelic little Indians ".
If you could define it, how could you describe it?
RB : I think it has a lot to do with the previous album , is very eclectic , different; in a single song play with these changes of style and I think I have also an influence of films animation film , I get all these records, you also is something humorous .
Rita you also sing in other languages than English and Portuguese. But just sing phonetically, or you even learn to speak?
RB: Most learn phonetically. Contact with people who speak the language to know if I am pronouncing correctly, but then I have some knowledge of Polish, Russian and Serbian, who are Slavic languages .
Why the ukulele?
RB: Because I like their sound and I thought it was nice that I meet the instrument without knowing the references to Portugal and came to find out it had national origins, here in Madeira. But, I always thought it was a beautiful and versatile instrument, as I travel alone and have a solo project, is an ideal tool due to its portability.
You are also linked to comics?
RB: Yeah, nowadays not so much because the music occupies that space. I've been in the Air Co in graphic and drawn design and occasionally still do something, more flyers and posters for my concerts, but music in the first place.
Rita Braga because you're from the city of Braga?
RB: No, I have a great great grandfather of Braga, but I'm from Lisbon. My last name is Peixoto, but Braga is a family name from my mother side.
