Vassourinha was a young Black kid worked at Radio Record when it was the most popular radio station in São Paulo. He did menial jobs like taking messages and sweeping the floors of the premises. As he liked to sing along while performing his duties he ended up performing those same songs at the microphone of Radio Record - leaving his job as a cleaner and office-boy for ever.
Vassourinha became such a popular figure in São Paulo in the late 1930s that Carmen Miranda would always include him in her recitals when she visited São Paulo.
Vassourinha finally recorded a few 78 rpms in Rio de Janeiro which became pretty popular around the country. 'Juracy' and 'Emilia' were his greatest hits. Vassourinha had a bright future before him except for the fact that he had tuberculosis and succumbed from it dying in in 1942, when he was only 19 years old.
His mother thought he had been the victim of voodoo but he had been the victim of too many nights out drinking liquour since the early age of 13 or 14.
Vassourinha was re-buried at the Protestant Cemetery - Cemitério Christo Redemptor at Avenida Dr. Arnaldo in São Paulo after his mother converted from an Afro religion to a Calvinist sect.
Vassourinha died when he was 19 years old.
The lettering in the tombstone is fading away...
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