Francisco Alves

Francisco Alves was maybe the most successful singer of all time in Brazil. In his career span of 35 years of success (interrupted by his death in a car accident), he was the singer who recorded more 78 rpm albums in Brazil than anyone: 526 albums with 983 songs. As a composer, he left around 132 songs, but many of them were later proved to have been bought from composers. Even then, just one of his certified creations (his signature tune, "A Voz do Violão," with lyrics by Horácio Campos) is enough to accredit him in this field. The son of a Portuguese immigrant who played the...