Toni Tornado – Toni Tornado – LP

Mad About Records

Toni began his artistic career in the 60s with the stage name Tony Checker, lip-synching and dancing on “Hoje é dia de Rock” show of Jair Taumaturgo. That time Toni imitated singers Chubby Checker and Little Richard. Even in the 60s, he traveled to the United States where he lived for five years in New York. In New York, Tony served as drug dealer and pimp,to deceive the immigration department, pretending to be an employee of a car wash. At that time, Toni met another Brazilian who also lived in New York, the also singer Tim Maia.

By the 1970s, other Brazilian musicians, such as Toni Tornado, Banda Black Rio, Cassiano, Gerson King Combo, Jorge Ben Jor and Gilberto Gil, began making soul records. DJs started throwing soul-only parties. This nova (new) music spoke to an experience—both universal and unique at the same time. The time period was known as “Black Rio. By the end of the ’70s, funk and disco would take over where soul left off, but it was the latter that helped to shape a generation of artists around a universal black identity.

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