Valucha's Music
In the winter of 1976 Valucha was living in Chicago in an apartment that looked out over a frozen Lake Michigan. It was a time of spiritual turmoil for her and, as Valucha always did, she dug deep into her soul to find direction. She composed three songs during that period: “When We Sing Our Song Together,” “I’ve Gotta Pray and I’ve Gotta Play” and “Make Up Your Mind.”
She called them “spirituals,” songs in the American folk style she came to know at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music where she taught in the 1960’s, not the sensuous syncopation of her Brazilian jazz compositions.
In 1978 Valucha recorded “Make Up Your Mind” at Soto Sound Studio in Evanston, Illinois, with the studio’s owner and engineer, Jerry Soto, accompanying her. She gave copies of the tape to close friends and family.
| You can select MP3 tracks from a variety of Valucha's albums at left. Song Title is followed by the name of the album on which the song appeared.These songs may not be saved from this secure, streaming flash player. |
In the summer of 2006, when Valucha was diagnosed with cancer, a friend, Brian Dougherty, told her how much that song meant to him, how he listened to it over and over during difficult periods in his life and how it helped him navigate those rough waters. Valucha was increasingly weak but she decided to re-record it with her family.
As they gathered with her for Christmas in Washington, D.C. she relentlessly rehearsed her three children, Paul, Gigi and Sandra, her companion Jill and Paul’s wife Lori.
For a week, every night after dinner, Valucha would gather everyone in a circle as they worked out the arrangement. Sandra, her daughter, strummed the guitar, Valucha setting the beat. For a moment, her children, now grown, were back in the 1950's, willing students of Valucha who taught them - and students at the Old Town School of Folk Music - guitar.
Even in this informal setting, Valucha was disciplined, searching for the right sound, moving from a bluesy Chicago sound to a softer, folk-influenced feeling. The harmonies came later, in the studio, in a burst of spontaneous creativity. Improvisation was something Valucha always loved.
In the recording studio Valucha, in spite of her illness, summoned her strength and sang “Make Up Your Mind” once more, adding a Brazilian rap for good measure. That part was hardly rehearsed and when she put it down on tape she exclaimed “baixo o santo!” an Afro-Brazilian expression that means “the spirit decended!”