Daniel Eugénio de Sousa Bacelar was born at home, in Lisbon, on May 26, 1943.
In 1960, at just 17 years old, he was the winner, in the solo artist category, of the first edition of the “Caloiros da Canção” contest on Rádio Renascença, organized by Aurélio Moreira and Pozal Domingues. In the sets category, the winner was Os Conchas. The prize was the recording of a joint album, “Caloiros da Canção”, released in September 1960, considered the first Portuguese Ié-Ié recording of all time, with songs by Os Conchas and Daniel Bacelar, accompanied by the group Jorge Machado, “Fui Louco Por Ti” and “Nunca”, both by Bacelar.
This first EP was recorded for Columbia (Valentim de Carvalho). – According to Daniel Bacelar’s explanations to the blog Ié-Ié, “I chose Columbia because when I was 17 and recorded my first EP, Pozal Domingues asked me, possibly jokingly, where I wanted to record for, Columbia or Decca (Valentim de Carvalho represented both). I replied that since Cliff Richard (another of my passions) recorded for Columbia, I wanted to be his colleague!”
In 1961, still for Valentim de Carvalho, he recorded his second EP, with the group Abril in Portugal. After a 3-year hiatus, during which he fell out with Valentim de Carvalho, he recorded his third EP, for Alvorada, accompanied by the Gentlemen.
“The recording of this album for Alvorada was an invitation from Jaime Filipe. Since Valentim was still going strong after the recording of the second EP, I accepted the invitation, including to mess with Pozal. It had a great result, things started to change right away!”
In 1964, the 4th EP was released, the first by the Marfer label. “Barata, owner of the Grande Feira do Disco in Lisbon, on Rua Forno do Tijolo, MARFER’s representative for Portugal, challenged me to record with him one day when I went there to buy some records. They imported some stuff from abroad. As Valentim de Carvalho continued to refuse to record a new record, I said yes again and ended up recording 3 EPs for Marfer, with the sound technician Moreno Pinto. When Pozal Domingues, from Valentim, went on the air and in the Tipo Shadows Competition, in 1964, at the Roma cinema, in Lisbon, he came up with the idea that I was an exclusive Valentim artist, but that was not written anywhere.
In any case, Daniel Bacelar’s 5th EP was recorded in 1965, in Paço de Arcos, again for Valentim de Carvalho. The album, again with the Gentlemen, includes “Um Mundo Sem Amor” (the Portuguese version of “A World Without Love”, by Paul McCartney and performed by the duo Peter and Gordon) and also “Miudita”, “Deixa-me Só” and “Se Eu Enlouquecer”, a song that has already been covered by Capitão Fantasma (1991) and the Brazilians Autorama (2009).
“Of everything I’ve recorded, my favorite EP is exactly this one, the last one for Valentim de Carvalho. Maybe because Pozal was pissed off with me and also because the studio in Paço de Arcos was new, it helped with the final product. The sound was different, and to this day it doesn’t embarrass anyone. Back then, we used to joke among ourselves that the recordings had a “bathroom sound” and it was true. This one came out really well.”
Marfer released two more albums by Daniel Bacelar, one in 1966 (6th EP, with Siderais and the other in 1967 (7th and last EP, with Fliers). Daniel Bacelar’s work is represented in several collections such as “Biografia do Pop-Rock” (Movieplay, 1997), in vol. 4 of the joint EMI/Público edition “50 Anos de Música” (2007) and in the three volumes of the collection “Por tuguese Nuggets”.
Daniel Bacelar died on September 29, 2017 (aged 74) due to oncological problems.
