Lô Borges, Pioneering Brazilian Musician and ‘Clube da Esquina’ Founder, Dies at 73
Belo Horizonte, Brazil – Lô Borges, a foundational figure in Brazilian popular music (MPB) and a key member of the influential Clube da Esquina collective, has died at the age of 73. According to Folha de S.Paulo,the musician had been hospitalized for a drug-related infection,and his family announced he “fought bravely for 17 days.”
Borges, born Salomão Borges Filho in 1952 in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, rose to prominence alongside his brother Márcio and a circle of musicians who frequented the corner of Rua Divinópolis and Rua Paraisópolis in the Santa Tereza neighborhood. This “corner club” became a breeding ground for a unique sound blending MPB with jazz, psychedelic rock, and the baroque pop of The Beatles.
He is best known for his pivotal role in the creation of 1972’s clube da Esquina,a landmark album alongside Milton Nascimento. Borges received writing credits on eight of the album’s 21 tracks, including “O Trem Azul,” “Tudo que Você Podia Ser,” and “Paisagem da Janela,” a song initially censored by federal authorities. The album became a cornerstone of Brazilian musical history, arriving during the country’s oppressive junta dictatorship.
That same year, Borges released his self-titled solo debut, often referred to as the Tennis Disc. Though he briefly stepped back from recording in the 1970s, he continued to contribute to music, appearing on Nascimento’s Clube da Esquina 2 (1978) and releasing his second solo album, The Milky Way (1979).He released four more albums in the 1980s and 1990s, and experienced a late-career resurgence with “Two Rivers” in 2003, a song he co-wrote for the Brazilian ska-punk band Skank.
Borges’s innovative compositions and contributions to MPB cemented his legacy as one of Brazil’s most critically important and beloved musicians. as he sang in “Paisagem da janela,” “When I would speak of those morbid things/When I would speak of those sordid men…You didn’t listen/You don’t want to believe/But that’s so normal.”
