Musician and publisher Nuno Rodrigues, founder of the group Banda do Casaco and the publisher Companhia Nacional de Música, died this Sunday at Cascais Cascais Hospital, a source close to the family told Lusa news agency. He was 76 years old.
Nuno Rodrigues, born in Lisbon in 1949, was part of Música Novarum and Family Afair before founding, in 1973, together with António Avelar Pinho, the group Banda do Casaco, one of the most avant-garde of that decade of Portuguese music.
With Banda do Casaco, Nuno Rodrigues released albums such as “Dos Benefícios dum Vendido no Reino dos Bonifácios” (1975), “Hoje Há Conquilhas, Ajante Não Somos” (1977) or “Contos da Barbearia” (1978).
The group had “a politically unaligned attitude” and the music created was “a satirical exercise in permanent social deconstruction”, says the band’s biography in the “Enciclopédia da Música Light Portuguesa”, by Luís Pinheiro de Almeida and João Pinheiro de Almeida.
Banda do Casaco, which would last a decade, also included musicians such as Celso Carvalho, António Pinheiro da Silva, Carlos Zíngaro, Né Ladeiras, Mena Amaro, Cândida Branca Flor and Gabriela Schaff, proposing a sound that went beyond the walls of rock, jazz, folk and traditional music.
Nuno Rodrigues also composed for other artists, such as “Telepatia”, with Ana Zanatti, for the voice of Lara Li, and for several editions of the Festival da Canção, namely “Verde Pino” (1971) for the singer Daphne and, possibly the biggest hit, “Ali Babá (Um Homem das Arabias” (1981), co-written with António Avelar Pinho and performed by Doce.
For example, in a duo with Avelar Pinho, Nuno Rodrigues would also direct and co-author some of the songs on the soundtrack, later published as an album, of the RTP television program “Fungagá da Bicharada” (1976).
In addition to Banda do Casaco, Nuno Rodrigues also worked in production at Valentim de Carvalho, for Trovante, Petrus Castrus or António Variações, and directed the Transmédia label, through which albums by José Afonso, Júlio Pereira, Fernando Tordo, Luís Cília, Né Ladeiras Peste & Sida and Tarântula were released.
In the 1990s, he launched the Companhia Nacional de Música (CNM), which combined distribution and publishing, with a physical store in Lisbon and a national catalog composed of artists Amália Rodrigues, Júlio Pereira, Ricardo Ribeiro and João Braga. He also represents foreign labels in Portugal, especially in the area of classical music.
In 2016, Nuno Rodrigues released his first solo album, “Pérolas d’alma”, interpreting poems by Florbela Espanca, with the seal of the Companhia Nacional de Música.
At the time, in an interview with the Lusa agency, he said of “Pérolas d’alma”: “I walked within myself, almost to the point of exhaustion. It seems like a small journey, but I traveled millennia and immersed myself in this poetry with no return.”