Fina Estampa_caetano Veloso

1. Rumba Azul 2. Pecado 3. Maria Bonita 4. Contigo En La Distancia 5. Recuerdos De Ypacarai 6. Fina Estampa 7. Capullito De Aleli 8. Un Vestido Y Un Amor 9. Maria La O 10. Tonada De Luna Llena 11. Mi Cocodrilo Verde 12. Lamento Borincano 13. Vete De Mi 14. La Golondrina 15. Vuelvo Al Sur

In Fina Estampa, released in 1994, Brazilian singer and songwriter Caetano Veloso set out to recast classics of the Latin American songbook, most of them in Spanish. It is quite a challenge. Some of these songs have been dulled by rote repetition and over-singing. Perhaps it just takes an artist like Veloso, who understands the value of what not to do, to make them new. "Contigo a la distancia" gets an understated, perhaps melancholy, treatment that gives the song a long-lost feeling of yearning; "Pecado," originally a tango, becomes a sober bolero; "Recuerdos de Ypacaray," a Paraguayan classic, is performed to an austere solo bass accompaniment. Veloso might have set out just to revisit the classics, but by the album's end, he makes them his own. --Fernando Gonzalez

Price: $15.98