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Since no others leap to mind, I would have to say that Joao Bosco is the greatest civil engineer turned singer/songwriter in the history of Brazilian popular music. He graduated with his degree in 1972 but since then has been concentrating on becoming one of Brazil's most formidable songwriters. For most of his early career he supplied Elis Regina with some of her best material, indeed it could be said that each one made the other's career, but since her death, Bosco has stepped into the performance limelight with a great degree of authority and has been one of the more compelling figures in Brazilian music for the last 25 years. Born in Ponte Nova in 1946, Bosco cut his musical teeth in family in which music was as important as eating and sleeping. His mother is an accomplished violinist, his father a singer of samba, his sister a concert pianist, and his brother a composer. While attending Ouro Preto University he became steeped in American jazz (Miles Davis in particular), and the...