Lucinete Ferreira, stage named Anastácia, singer-songwriter, was born in Recife, on 5/30/1941. She was interested in music since childhood, accompanying a coconut singer at the age of seven in the neighborhood of Macaxeira, where she lived.
In 1954, she began her career singing at Rádio Jornal do Comércio in Recife. She initially sang songs from the south of the country, mainly the hits by Celly Campello.
Author of “I just want a Xodó” and 212 more songs made in partnership with the sanfoneiro Dominguinhos. According to Maria (2013, p. 1), husband and wife were “lyrics and music” for 11 years:
“Domingos would wake up early, make coffee, take a shower and sit with the accordion on his chest. He'd turn on the tape recorder and record his ideas. Later, Anastácia created the lyrics based on the melodies. Dominguinhos never composed lyrics, only melodies.”
Anastácia met Dominguinhos after his first wife, Janete, with whom he had a son: Mauro. He was separated when he met the singer-songwriter on the stages of the Northeast in 1967, after getting Luis Gonzaga’s blessing and becoming “The prince of baião”. The composer and the singer fell in love during a tour that lasted 3 and a half months across the sertão, starting in Bahia. However, they did not want Luis to know. When they arrived in Aracaju, she declared her love in the form of music to reveal her passion for Dominguinhos, which originated the song “World of love”.
Anastácia does not play any instrument, but she writes lyrics and makes melodies as well as develops themes for her friends. Some famous artists have sung her songs, such as Gilberto Gil, who recorded two of her songs in partnership with Dominguinhos, which became classic: “I just want a Xodó” and “I’m thirsty”.
The song “I just want a Xodó”, according to Anastácia, was re-recorded by 440 artists worldwide.
According to Rosa (2011, p. 564), other songs by Anastácia and Dominguinhos were recorded by renowned artists such as Marinês, Gal Costa, Nana Caymmi, Jane Duboc, Gilberto Gil, among others.
One of her favorite songs in partnership with Dominguinhos is “Separation contract”, also recorded by Nana Caymmi, which was composed on a lonely night when her husband was on tour with Gal Costa:
“Look at this longing that mistreats my chest/ It’s illusion and because it’s illusion/It’s harder to erase/ It’s slowly consuming me/It plays with my chest/And always wins/I wanted to do with it/A separation contract/It refused to accept/Smiling from my illusion.”
She was the daughter of fabric factory workers, the then famous Cotonifício Othon, located on Avenida Norte, in the neighborhood of Macaxeira in Recife. Although she did not have artist relatives and was not supported to pursue this career, Anastácia became a singer at the factory where her mother, then widowed, worked. At the age of 14 she began to earn a higher salary than her mother and decided to “take” her out of the factory and become the main provider of the family, supporting her mother, sisters, brothers and niece. She worked as an actress, comedian, saleswoman and secretary, before becoming a great forró composer nationally recognized.
Rosa (2011, p. 559) comments that the book “I am Anastácia: Stories of a Queen” is not only a chronology for presenting the faces of an important Brazilian artist in her multiple artistic and personal competences.
The book clearly shows the ethnic-racial and gender relationships that were part of the life story of three generations: grandmother, mother, and daughter. Her maternal grandmother was a fatal victim of domestic violence, her mother faced widowing and discrimination because her new partner was black and Anastácia faced racism and sexism for being a Northeastern artist.
Therefore, the book contributes to the studies of Brazilian popular music and mainly to forró, by approaching what is still rare in the national music: the presence of female singer-songwriters who achieve artistic visibility (especially those from the Northeast region), as well as to studies on race and gender, within the field of feminist studies (ROSA, 2011, p. 560).
The song “World of love” recorded by Marinês and later by Gal Costa was a mark for Dominguinhos, since he discovered himself as a composer, according to his own testimony: “That’s when I discovered that I was a composer; because of Anastácia, because she was the one who started putting lyrics in my songs!” (FERREIRA; DIAS, 2011, p. 254).
Anastácia as a woman, northeastern, singer-songwriter, is fundamental in the Brazilian music scene, who gave us about 600 forró compositions, of which 210 in partnership with Dominguinhos, that express their experiences and affective memories, as we observed, for example, in the lyrics of the song “I just want a Xodó”:
How I miss someone for me
How I miss a xodó
But since I have no one
I live life so alone…
I just want a love
Who ends my sorrow
A xodó for me
On my way like this
Who brings joy to my life
Recife, July 29, 2016.
sources consulted
ANASTÁCIA, compositora pernambucana, foi parceira de Dominguinhos em mais de 200 canções. Disponível em: <http://g1.globo.com/pb/paraiba/paraiba-comunidade/videos/v/anastacia-compositora-pernambucana-foi-parceira-de-dominguinhos-em-mais-de-200-cancoes/2718761/>. Acesso em: 8 jul. 2016.
ANASTÁCIA. Foto neste texto. Disponível em: <http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B5H1h2Fw5yM/Te2Je90hLqI/AAAAAAAAD1I/P-GC1Kwd1IQ/s320/12222.jpg>. Acesso em: 19 jul. 2016.
DICIONÁRIO Cravo Albin da Música Popular Brasileira. 2016? Disponível em: <http://dicionariompb.com.br/anastacia/dados-artisticos>. Acesso em: 19 jul. 2016.
FERREIRA, Lucinete; DIAS, Lêda. Eu sou Anastácia!: histórias de uma rainha. Recife: FacForm, 2011.
MARIA, Julio. O Tesouro de Dominguinhos. 2013. O Estado de São Paulo. Disponível em: <http://cultura.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,o-tesouro-de-dominguinhos-imp-,1058173> . Acesso em: 8 jul. 2016.
ROSA, Laila. Eu sou Anastácia: histórias de uma rainha. Caderno Espaço Feminino, Uberlândia/MG, v. 24, n. 2, p. 559-565, Jul./Dez. 2011 Disponível em: <http://www.seer.ufu.br/index.php/neguem/article/viewFile/14459/9522>. Acesso em: 8 jul. 2016.
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VERARDI, Cláudia Albuquerque. Anastácia (the queen of forró). In: PESQUISA Escolar. Recife: Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, 2016. Available from: https://pesquisaescolar.fundaj.gov.br/pt-br/artigo/anastacia-a-rainha-do-forro/. Access on: month day year. (Ex.: Aug 6. 2021.)