João Gilberto

João Gilberto was a Brazilian guitarist, singer, and composer from Juázeiro, Bahia, widely credited as a pioneer of bossa nova in the late 1950s. He built the genre around a quiet, intimate guitar style and a conversational vocal approach that pulled the music far away from the louder samba traditions before it. In Brazil he was called O Mito, and internationally he was often described as the father of bossa nova.