Brazil Music News
RIO DE JANEIRO – “Girl From Ipanema” hit the airwaves 50 years ago and the song’s muse, Helô Pinheiro, recalls how the song changed her life. Tom Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes a wrote “Garota de Ipanema,” or “Girl from Ipanema,” in 1962 while drinking whiskey at the Veloso Bar in Ipanema.
‘Girl from Ipanema’ Released 50 Years Ago
Now 67, Pinheiro says that she had to rush her marriage to appease the jealousy of her boyfriend when he heard that she had been the muse for Jobim and de Moraes. The “Girl” of flesh and bone told EFE in a recent interview that her then-boyfriend and current husband wanted to confront the songwriters, although “in the end we all became friends.”
The muse confesses that her boyfriend had reason for jealousy because Tom asked her “several times” for her hand in marriage, despite the 18-year difference between them. “He loved me and caused me a lot of confusion, but eventually we ended up as friends in a relationship filled with affection and gratitude,” she said.
“My life changed when they revealed that I was their inspiration. I didn’t believe them, but it moved me emotionally and it took me some time to understand the significance,” said Helô, who had so dazzled the creators of Bossa Nova.
In 1962, Jobim and Vinicius spent hours as dedicated whiskey refugees in the Veloso Bar, on old Montenegro Street (now Rua Vinicius de Moraes) in the Ipanema neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro. Each day, a sweet, shy 16-year-old girl, who would pass by the bar each day on her way to and from the beach, mesmerized the two songwriters.
Fifty years after that scene in Ipanema, Helô is an entrepreneur and broadcaster who presents a health program for seniors. Five decades on, the Girl from Ipanema still retains the spontaneity and elegance that fascinated the masters of Brazilian music for half a century.
“I was very shy, I never responded to his compliments. I only went into the bar to buy cigarettes for my parents or walked past to enjoy my days off sunning myself,” she said.
, released on August 2nd, 1962, was the quintessential Carioca song. It was an instant success and gained true international fame when, three years later, some American artists released an English version.
At the time, many young women appeared and proclaimed themselves the “Girl from Ipanema,” explains Helô. But all that ended when Vinicius published a letter naming the real inspiration for his best known work.
“I was raised in a very strict and conservative family. My father was military and he did not like that I had become a focus of worldwide press and the target of older-men’s eyes,” she recalled.
The Bossa Nova is the soundtrack of her life and “Girl from Ipanema” is now her cellular ring-tone. Eventually, Helô became a soap-opera actress, beauty-pageant organizer and businesswoman.
At the height of her fame, she posed for the magazine “Playboy.” She posed for the magazine again ten years ago, next to her then 24-year-old daughter.
Helô said that the worst moment for her came in 2001, when the heirs of Jobim and Vinicius sued her for commercially exploiting the name “Girl from Ipanema,” which she uses in her clothing store.
The heirs and Helô resolved the conflict last year, but the episode, she says, caused her “an economic and psychological injury.”
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