Dona Onete is a remarkable person. A singer-songwriter from the Amazon in northern Brazil, she worked as a teacher and union campaigner until recording her debut album at the age of 73. Now she is rightly hailed as “the grande dame of Amazonian song”, for her wickedly feisty compositions, influenced by the carimbó dances of the region’s indigenous and Afro-Brazilian people, and her soulful boleros. She will be 78 next month, but is still in powerful and emotional voice, and still writing bravely personal lyrics. Backed by an enthusiastic band led by guitar and saxophone, she switches from upbeat songs that discuss the flavour of kisses, urge a gay friend to “be who you want to be”, or praise the “fishy-smelling water” at a riverside market. But then she slows down to explain how her heart has become a “secondhand store of happy and sad memories”.
