Rather than retreat from performing, however, Rita Lee threw herself into music, founding the seminal psychedelic-rock group Os Mutantes in 1966 with Arnaldo Batista and Sérgio Dias. As a young girl born in São Paulo to an American father and a Brazilian mother, she took classical piano lessons but, according to one newspaper report, suffered from stage fright and wet herself during one audition. Rita Lee Jones de Carvalho’s first forays into the world of music did little to hint at the stardom to come.
When the appropriate LP found its way on to the turntable, the future king “already knew the words by heart,” the British newspaper claimed. In 1988, the Daily Mirror reported that during a British embassy banquet in Paris, the then Prince of Wales had asked for a Rita Lee record to be played. Rita Lee’s huge domestic following was matched by an army of international fans, reputedly ranging from the Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain to King Charles III. “What an intense and spectacular life you had. “The world has lost one of the most unique and incredible people who ever existed,” one of her sons, João Lee, wrote on social media.
Brazil’s culture minister, the singer and composer Margareth Menezes, hailed her as a “revolutionary woman.” News of Lee’s death sparked an outpouring of emotion and reverence towards one of the most important figures in contemporary Brazilian music.
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