Revival of vinyl records in Brazil spares a 77-year-old singer – and others – from oblivion

It took almost a half century for Brazilian singer Cátia de França to find her audience, but she finally has — with the help of a near-obsolete audio technology. Born in Paraíba, a state in Brazil’s poor northeast region, 77-year-old de França’s blend of psychedelic rock with traditional rhythms and modernist poetry long went overlooked, even as she toured the nation in the 1970s and '80s. Then one day in 2021 her phone rang. It was the co-founder of an independent label in Sao Paulo who wanted to reissue her 1979 debut album “20 Words Around the Sun” on vinyl. Recounting the story, De França recalls: “I thought, ‘This must be a prank.’ He started talking to me, and I realized it wasn’t.”