Branco Mello
Encyclopedia
Branco Mello (ˈbrɐ̃ku ˈmɛlu, born Claudio Corrêa de Mello Júnior, March 16, 1962) is a Brazil
ian musician
and actor, best known as the vocalist and bassist of Brazilian rock
band Titãs
. He has also played small but significant roles for the movies.
, or the shows promoted by his mother, Lu Brandão, a cultural producer.
At his adolescence, already nicknamed "Branco" (White) by his friends, he listened to almost everything. Frank Sinatra
, Glenn Miller
, Gilberto Gil
, Caetano Veloso
, Chuck Berry
, Little Richard
, The Doors
, Stray Cats
, The Clash
, João Gilberto
, Raul Seixas
, Tim Maia
, Cartola
, Zé Ketti are some of his favorite artists.
He decided to play the acoustic guitar. He and Marcelo Fromer
, whom he met at Hugo Sacramento school, began to make the firsts partnerships. They even entered a music festival in Rio de Janeiro
promoted by Brahma
with two songs, although they were not selected. At that point they formed the Trio Mamão, with Tony Bellotto
. Also at that time, they helped Serginho Groisman (which would later become the presenter of Altas Horas, a midnight program of Brazilian channel Globo
) on the production of shows of famous Brazilian musicians, like Clementina de Jesus
, Jorge Mautner
and Luiz Melodia
, three of Mello's idols.
In 1982, he was one of the presenters of TV Eclipse, a spectacle that parodied programs and featured almost all nine members that would later found the Titãs do Iê-Iê. At this spectacle Mello would play the role of a presenter who was a mixture of Flavio Cavalcante and Hebe Camargo
.
His works for the cinema came up again in 1985, at the movie Areias Escaldantes, playing a small role of a sushi chef and a manicure
.
At the first great break of the band, Mello joined Sérgio Britto
, another member of the band, and the drummer Roberta Parisi and formed the band Kleiderman, where he sang and played the bass. The group presented strong lyrics and aggressive sound, and released an album called Con el Mundo a mis Pies (With the World at my Feet). In 2000, he formed the band S. Futuristmo. Although the objective of the band was only fun, they were invited to perform at Tenda Brasil do Rock 3, in January 2001.
At the end of the same year, Mello released a children project: the book/CD "Eu e Meu Guarda-Chuva" (Me and My Umbrella), which tells the story of boy named Eugênio and his trusty umbrella. The CD comes with 10 songs made by him together with Ciro Pessoa
, one of the founders of Titãs. The songs feature many famous artists, like Arnaldo Antunes
, Elza Soares
, Cássia Eller
, Roberto Frejat
, Toni Garrido and Marcelo D2
. A movie with the same name was filmed based on the novel.
, with his wife, the actress and producer Angela Figueiredo, his two sons, Bento, born in 1991, and Joaquim, born in 1999, and his stepdaughter, Diana Bouth.
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
and actor, best known as the vocalist and bassist of Brazilian rock
Brazilian rock
Brazilian rock refers to rock music produced in Brazil and usually sung in Portuguese.-Overview:Rock entered the Brazilian music scene in 1956, with the screening of the film The Blackboard Jungle, featuring Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock", which would later be covered in Portuguese by Nora...
band Titãs
Titãs
Titãs are a rock band from São Paulo, Brazil. Their best-known line up is the one in the album Cabeça Dinossauro : Nando Reis , Branco Mello , Marcelo Fromer , Arnaldo Antunes , Tony Bellotto , Paulo Miklos , Charles Gavin and Sérgio Britto...
. He has also played small but significant roles for the movies.
Childhood
Music entered Mello's life through the cinema. Every week, his father would take him to watch musicals at Metro. The movies' soundtracks joined other influences, like Bossa NovaBossa Nova
Bossa Nova may refer to:*Bossa nova, a style of music*Bossa Nova , a dance form associated with the music*Bossa Nova , a 2000 film*Bossa Nova - album by John Pizzarelli...
, or the shows promoted by his mother, Lu Brandão, a cultural producer.
At his adolescence, already nicknamed "Branco" (White) by his friends, he listened to almost everything. Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
, Gilberto Gil
Gilberto Gil
Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira , better known as Gilberto Gil or , is a Brazilian singer, guitarist, and songwriter, known for both his musical innovation and political commitment...
, Caetano Veloso
Caetano Veloso
Caetano Emanuel Viana Teles Veloso , better known as Caetano Veloso, is a Brazilian composer, singer, guitarist, writer, and political activist. Veloso first became known for his participation in the Brazilian musical movement Tropicalismo which encompassed theatre, poetry and music in the 1960s,...
, Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
, Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
, The Doors
The Doors
The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...
, Stray Cats
Stray Cats
Stray Cats are an American Rockabilly band formed in 1980 by guitarist/vocalist Brian Setzer , upright bassist Lee Rocker and Slim Jim Phantom in the Long Island town of Massapequa, New York. The group had numerous hit singles in the UK, Australia and the U.S...
, The Clash
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
, João Gilberto
João Gilberto
João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira, known as João Gilberto , is a Brazilian singer and guitarist. His seminal recordings, including many songs by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, established the new musical genre of Bossa nova in the late 1950s.-Biography:From an early age, music...
, Raul Seixas
Raul Seixas
Raul Santos Seixas June 28, 1945 Salvador Northeast Brazil – August 21, 1989),was a Brazilian rock composer, singer, songwriter and producer.He is sometimes called the "Father of Brazilian Rock" and "Maluco Beleza"....
, Tim Maia
Tim Maia
Tim Maia , born Sebastião Rodrigues Maia in Rio de Janeiro, was a famous Brazilian musician known for his iconoclastic, ironic, outspoken, and polemical musical style...
, Cartola
Cartola
Angenor de Oliveira, known as Cartola , was a Brazilian singer, composer and poet considered to be a major figure in the development of samba.Cartola composed, alone or with partners, more than 500 songs.-Biography:...
, Zé Ketti are some of his favorite artists.
He decided to play the acoustic guitar. He and Marcelo Fromer
Marcelo Fromer
Marcelo Fromer was the guitarist of Brazilian rock band Titãs. One of the founding members and also the band's manager, he died in 2001, after being hit by a motorcycle while jogging.- Childhood :...
, whom he met at Hugo Sacramento school, began to make the firsts partnerships. They even entered a music festival in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
promoted by Brahma
Brahma
Brahma is the Hindu god of creation and one of the Trimurti, the others being Vishnu and Shiva. According to the Brahma Purana, he is the father of Mānu, and from Mānu all human beings are descended. In the Ramayana and the...
with two songs, although they were not selected. At that point they formed the Trio Mamão, with Tony Bellotto
Tony Bellotto
Antonio Carlos Liberalli Bellotto is a Brazilian musician and writer, best known as the guitarist of Brazilian rock band Titãs. He has also written and released several books. Tony keeps a column called "Cenas Urbanas" at Brazilian magazine Veja.- Childhood :Bellotto decided to be a rock...
. Also at that time, they helped Serginho Groisman (which would later become the presenter of Altas Horas, a midnight program of Brazilian channel Globo
Rede Globo
Rede Globo , or simply Globo, is a Brazilian television network, launched by media mogul Roberto Marinho on April 26, 1965. It is owned by media conglomerate Organizações Globo, being by far the largest of its holdings...
) on the production of shows of famous Brazilian musicians, like Clementina de Jesus
Clementina de Jesus
Clementina de Jesus was born on February 7, 1901, in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She worked as a maid for more than 20 years until she was discovered in 1963 by the composer Hermínio Bello de Carvalho. She is considered queen of the Samba style Partido alto and represents the musical...
, Jorge Mautner
Jorge Mautner
Jorge Mautner is a Brazilian writer and singer. He is the creator of the Moviment of Kaos.-Albums:* Revirão - Gege/Warner Music* Eu não peço desculpa * Mitologia do Kaos...
and Luiz Melodia
Luiz Melodia
Luiz Melodia, born Luiz Carlos dos Santos is a Brazilian composer and singer of MPB.He started his musical career in 1963 with singer Mizinho, and worked as a typographer, salesman and musician in nightclubs. In 1964 he had formed the groupd called "Os Instantâneos", with Manoel, Nazareno and...
, three of Mello's idols.
Career
In 1981, Mello and eight friends founded the band Titãs, at that time called Titãs do Iê-Iê.In 1982, he was one of the presenters of TV Eclipse, a spectacle that parodied programs and featured almost all nine members that would later found the Titãs do Iê-Iê. At this spectacle Mello would play the role of a presenter who was a mixture of Flavio Cavalcante and Hebe Camargo
Hebe Camargo
Hebe Maria Monteiro de Camargo Ravagnani is a Brazilian TV presenter. She is also a singer and actress.-Early years:...
.
His works for the cinema came up again in 1985, at the movie Areias Escaldantes, playing a small role of a sushi chef and a manicure
Manicure
A manicure is a cosmetic beauty treatment for the fingernails and hands performed at home or in a nail salon. A manicure treatment is not only a treatment for the natural nails but also for the hands. A manicure consists of filing, shaping of the free edge, treatments, massage of the hand and the...
.
At the first great break of the band, Mello joined Sérgio Britto
Sérgio Britto
Sérgio Britto is a Brazilian musician. He is best known as the keyboardist and vocalist for the band Titãs, and also for his solo albums, in which he played the acoustic guitar...
, another member of the band, and the drummer Roberta Parisi and formed the band Kleiderman, where he sang and played the bass. The group presented strong lyrics and aggressive sound, and released an album called Con el Mundo a mis Pies (With the World at my Feet). In 2000, he formed the band S. Futuristmo. Although the objective of the band was only fun, they were invited to perform at Tenda Brasil do Rock 3, in January 2001.
At the end of the same year, Mello released a children project: the book/CD "Eu e Meu Guarda-Chuva" (Me and My Umbrella), which tells the story of boy named Eugênio and his trusty umbrella. The CD comes with 10 songs made by him together with Ciro Pessoa
Ciro Pessoa
Ciro Pessoa Mendes is a Brazilian singer-songwriter, journalist and poet. Formerly a member of rock band Titãs and the founder and lead vocalist of the now-defunct post-punk band Cabine C, he currently follows a solo career, releasing two albums as of yet.-Early life:Ciro Pessoa was born in São...
, one of the founders of Titãs. The songs feature many famous artists, like Arnaldo Antunes
Arnaldo Antunes
Arnaldo Antunes , is a writer and composer from Brazil. He began as a member of the band Aguilar e Banda Performática in the late 1970s. For most of the 1980s he was a member of the rock band Titãs. After 1992 he had six solo albums. Since 1992 he has been an award winning poet, but he was first...
, Elza Soares
Elza Soares
Elza Soares is a Brazilian samba singer. She was married to Brazilian football player Garrincha.Born and raised in a favela in Rio de Janeiro, Soares took part in a singing contest presented by the renowned Brazilian musician Ary Barroso, and received the highest marks. In the late 1950s, Soares...
, Cássia Eller
Cássia Eller
Cássia Rejane Eller was a Brazilian musician. She performed a fusion of rock and MPB.- Biography :After spending most of her adolescence in Brasília, Eller dropped out of high school and returned to her birthplace of Rio de Janeiro, where she began a career as a recording artist...
, Roberto Frejat
Roberto Frejat
Roberto Frejat , is a musician, composer, singer and co-founder of the band Barão Vermelho.Frejat, who was born in Rio de Janeiro, is considered one of the most important persons in the Brazilian Rock scene. He co-founded the band Barão Vermelho in 1981 playing the guitar and writing songs, then...
, Toni Garrido and Marcelo D2
Marcelo D2
Marcelo D2 is a Brazilian rapper.- Biography :A former vocalist of the band Planet Hemp, he started his solo career in 1998 with the album Eu Tiro É Onda. The album was recorded in his studio by David Corcos, and was mixed in New York and Los Angeles by Carlos Bass and Mário Caldato Jr...
. A movie with the same name was filmed based on the novel.
Personal life
Mello lives in Rio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, with his wife, the actress and producer Angela Figueiredo, his two sons, Bento, born in 1991, and Joaquim, born in 1999, and his stepdaughter, Diana Bouth.