The Sounds of Brazil’s 1500th Show Rebroadcast

The Sounds of Brazil celebrated its 1,500^th weekly radio show on February 28th, 2021. Listen to it all over again.

________

The Sounds of Brazil’s 1500^th show is called ‘Always Looking Forward‘ and it chronicles 29 years of musical highlights from our weekly radio program.

By Scott Adams

May I steal a minute of your time to extend a special invitation? The Sounds of Brazil turned 1,500, dating back to its radio debut on April 5, 1992.

Let me put that number in perspective:

Friends ran for 10 seasons and consisted of 236 episodes. The Simpsons is the longest-running sitcom in United States television history. Total weekly episodes? 695. Google began searching in January 1996. Amazon opened its doors in July of 1995 and Facebook started up in 2004.

Even before The Sounds of Brazil’s first show, I was already looking forward. In fact, I spent most of late summer, the fall, and winter of 1991 filling up a pair of spiral-bound notebooks with ideas, thoughts, and goals.

Chicago’s TV/Radio/Media Columnist Robert Feder salutes The Sounds of Brazil.
How to listen to the rebroadcast of our 1500th radio show, below.

I had made my first trip to Rio de Janeiro in 1987 and returned home with a suitcase of record albums and an unexpected passion for Brazil and its music.

So, I began making mix tapes for friends and it wasn’t long before I was getting requests from people I didn’t even know.

Chicago’s WNUA had just signed on as one of the very first New Age/Smooth Jazz radio stations and their programming complemented what I was doing with my mixtapes.

I thought it might work as a radio show. And now, here we are at 1500.

This special rebroadcast of The Sounds of Brazil’s 1500th Show is titled Always Looking Forward. It is a two-hour radio retrospective, setting the table for The Sounds of Brazil’s 30th-anniversary celebration in 2022.

I’ll tell you how you can listen, below.

Musical highlights

Program #1500 literally looks back at the musical results of looking forward. Each spot on the playlist features a carefully chosen song to mark a special occasion or a milestone moment; in roughly 100-week intervals.

Here are a few highlights of The Sounds of Brazil’s 1500th Show.

Show #615 introduced us to Elis Regina’s biography (in English, rescued from world wide web oblivion) with all 385 pages published and archived at Connect Brazil.

Show #1363 celebrated Bossa Nova’s 60^th anniversary by telling the musical story of Bossa Nova’s first song, ‘Chega de Saudade’.

The 1000^th show gave away trips for two to Rio for The Sounds of Brazil’s ‘Most Popular Song’ contest.

And I have very fond memories of show #17, Saturday, August 1^st, 1992.

It was my second week at WNUA, and two nights later I was invited by the station to co-host a meet and greet with Sergio Mendes at Chicago’s Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba! Mendes was in town to promote his new Brasileiro album and he graciously introduced me to each autograph-seeking fan. Were you there that night? View the pictures.

Sergio and I reunited to celebrate The Sounds of Brazil’s 10^th and 25^th anniversaries, too.

How to listen

This program will be rebroadcast and streamed worldwide beginning Sunday, September 25^th through Sunday, October 2nd, and available on-demand from September 25^th through October 9th.

Listen on The Sounds of Brazil’s Playlist Page

Listen in Connect Brazil’s Listening Lounge

An invitation

It’s natural at times like this to reflect, and with The Sounds of Brazil it’s a lot like the comfort of old friendships: We’ve been through a lot together, the highs and the lows of everyday life and many historic moments, too.

2021 reminded us once again of the healing, comforting power of music. There’s no doubt my life would be very different without Brazilian music in it.

I’ve made countless new friendships along the way with musicians and fans – and in a few I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening instances, those “seven degrees of separation” that we always wonder about disappeared with a simple phone call or a handshake.

None of this is what I imagined the first time I stood in front of the microphone in Public Radio WDCB’s studios on the campus of the College of DuPage, and then soon after with commercial radio, at WNUA’s Michigan Avenue broadcast studio.

I remember thinking how exciting it would be to share Gal Costa’s beautiful voice with radio listeners who had never heard of her before. What a thrill!

And it still is for me, even though Brazilian music (like everything else) is everywhere these days.

That’s why I’d prefer to look forward. To anticipate ‘what’s next’ and to invite you along for The Sounds of Brazil’s 1500^th show.

And our 30th year in 2022.

Happy Listening!

Scott Adams