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Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZMEIRELLES, Helen(b Friday the 13th '24 at Jacaraca farm, Matto Grosso do Sul, Brazil, on the border with Paraguay) Guitarist. She was impressed with the music of the cowboys; began teaching herself at age five or six, by nine played with the cowboys. She first married at 17 and spent decades playing at festivals, dances, and all night long in brothels. She lived through TB and several bouts of pneumonia and began recording at age 68; the American magazine Guitar Player made her an Artist of the Month '93. She uses plectrums made of bull horn, her style so percussive that plastic ones break; her guitar is a ten-string, or five double strings, originally from Portugal, called in Brazil a country-music guitar or viola. It sounds lower than a mandolin, but she likes to play high and often sounds like a mandolin; she is responsible for a revival of the instrument. Her music is as much infl. by Paraguay (Spanish) as Brazil, the playing style related to flamenco and the rhythm derived from the Paraguayan polka; she also imitates the sounds of birds in the forests. CD Helena Meirelles on Gravadora Eldorado, dist. by Sony Brazil. |