RIP Rita Lee

[Danik 2016]

The great Rita Lee, my favorite Brazilian Rock singer died today at 75!

https://www.google.com/search?q=Rita+Lee+Songs+in+English&oq=Rita+Lee+Songs+in+English&aqs=chrome..69i57.39351j0j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:0cc4798c,vid:TbIF4t9vQc4

[tailor STATELY]

So sorry to hear... a great voice lost.

:tailor

[Danik 2016]

I just learnt from her bio that she descends from North Americans on her father´s side.

[tailor STATELY]

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_Lee

Quite an accomplished life during and after the turbulent years for rock in Brasil. Another link on these times... https://www.waxpoetics.com/connections/saudade-brasil/article/os-mutantes-mutant-music/

Interesting. I hadn't heard of the Confederates in the terms of being expatriates. Like our Revolutionary war, the war of 1812, and Civil war I most likely had family on both sides of the conflict(s)... makes me wonder if there were any expatriates in my family line ?

[Danik 2016]

Thanks for the link, tailor. Unfortunately it´s behind a wall.

Not having read the link I didn´t understand the question about the Confederates in relation to Rita Lee. But you probably will be able to trace the migration of your family. It seems there are US sites specialized in it.

[tailor STATELY]

Wikipedia snippets:
Rita Lee was born in São Paulo, Brazil, to an American-Brazilian father, Charles Fenley Jones,[3] a dentist descended from the Confederates, and Romilda Padula, a Brazilian mother of Italian ancestry and a pianist. She studied classical piano with the renowned pianist Magdalena Tagliaferro. In place of the traditional adolescent debut ball, she asked to receive a drum set....

Confederados (Portuguese pronunciation: [kõfedeˈɾadus]) is the Brazilian name for Confederate expatriates who fled the Southern United States during Reconstruction, and their Brazilian descendants. They were enticed to Brazil by offers of cheap land from Emperor Dom Pedro II, who had hoped to gain expertise in cotton farming.

It is estimated that up to 20,000 American Confederates immigrated to the Empire of Brazil from the Southern United States after the American Civil War.

[Danik 2016]

I'm absolutely amazed. I think most of these 19C US emigrants (The Empire of Brazil lasted from 1808-1889) must have found their way back to US or gone somewhere else, because US emigrants are never referred to among the many emigrant groups and English surnames are so seldom that I thought Lee was an artistic name adopted by the singer to indicate her proximity to North American Rock and not her family name. But she looks very North American, even before adopting the iconic red hair.

Some pics:

https://g1.globo.com/pop-arte/musica/noticia/2023/05/09/rita-lee-fotos.ghtml

[tailor STATELY]

Lovely photos. I prefer her in gray :) She reminds me when she was younger ever-so-slightly of one of my favorites: Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane/Starship / Starship, and prolly just as outrageous :)

The wikipedia page for the Confederados was pretty informative... sorry you cannot access wikipedia.

[Danik 2016]

Outrageous defines Rita Lee so well. But hers was a sunny outrage. She was a very strong woman. She was into drugs like many of these rock stars, but she didn't allow them to destroy her. Beside her music she maintained a marriage for 47 years and raised three sons.