Photo courtesy of Art Hurts Records

After 20 years singing in the spotlight at the famous samba clubs of the Plataforma in Rio de Janeiro and a lifetime singing the street and religious music of Bahia, Juju Duarte is both an encyclopedia of Brazilian music and an innovator in its many forms. He can take a silky bossa nova and belt it out like a blues man, or turn a back-alley samba de roda into a lullaby.

In his album Da Rua Dos Ossos(The Street of Bones), he paints a portrait, really a whole mural, of his hometown Salvador da Bahia, from samba standards to traditional treasures rarely heard anywhere but the street.

Da Rua Dos Ossos (ArtHurts Records, 2004)