Nobody Can Live Forever: The Music Of Tim Maia

Tim Maia: Nobody Can Live Forever and Me Enganei
From: Tim Maia [Philips, 1976]

Following on from J.’s post about mixes that have caught the ear, I’ve recently been playing DJ Ferrari’s America Du Sol mix to death. Available as a free download from his website or from Waxing Deep, this mix has been constantly reminding me that I really, really, need to step up my Latin American music game.

While my collection and knowledge is shamefully small, I can claim to be familiar with the work of Tim Maia whose Nobody Can Live Forever is featured on the mix.

One of those larger than life characters who occasionally bless the music industry with their unique take on the world, Maia’s life was one lived to extremes; taking in everything from heavy cocaine and alcohol abuse to a couple of years spent in an extra terrestrial cult. I’m still waiting for a definitive biography to come out and give his story the write up it deserves though I’ve heard that Waxpoetics may be doing a feature on him soon.

However, the highs and lows of Maia’s personal life shouldn’t distract the attention away from his impact on Brazilian music and world music in general. Often credited as the man who brought soul music to Brazil, Maia put out a great collection of soul/funk albums in the seventies which covered a wide range of musical tastes and styles, unhelpfully self titling many of them Tim Maia.

My favourite two of Maia’s albums are Tim Maia from 1970 and Tim Maia from 1976 though I thought I’d focus on the latter today with it’s link to Ferrari’s mix.

Nobody Can Live Forever is a tune built round a monster of a bass riff with Maia switching to English to offer up his thoughts on life, religion, and anything else that comes into his head. Ably supported by his band, Maia mixes up the instrumentation just enough to ever stop the groove getting stale – a real headnodder of a tune.

Me Enganei operates in that lovely place where disco and funk met and cohabited for a short while. An uplifting melody is combined with vocal harmonies and strings that assist rather than overpower the tune to craft a song that was a perfect fit for my walk from the station this morning as spring sunshine blessed the pavement around me.

Flicking through his albums while preparing this post, I’d forgotten just how much good music this man crafted so be prepared for another ode to Maia sometime soon…….