Leny Eversong born 1 September 1920

Leny Eversong (1 September 1920* - 29 April 1984) was a Brazilian singer famous for her powerful and potent voice and her large size and blonde look.

Born in Santos (on the coast of São Paulo) as Hilda Campos Soares da Silva, she began her career as a child prodigy in piano and voice. At just 12 years   old, she won a contest of junior talent in the Radio Club of Santos and was immediately hired as an artist of the fixed cast of the station, despite being a girl. Since the beginning, her specialty was American music, mostly fox trots, which she would learn to sing through exhaustive record listening because she didn't speak English.  

She chose the stage-name Leny Eversong in 1935 and started singing in English. She joined Radio Atlântica, a station in her native city Santos, the large metropolis in the state of São Paulo that later saw the birth of another artist, this time a footballer: Pêle. In 1936, she had a season in Rio, performing at the Rádio Tupi and at the luxurious Cassino da Urca and Copacabana Palace Hotel. In the next year she went to São Paulo, hired for the regular cast of the Night and Day nightclub.  

For a singer in those days, joining a radio group meant the chance to appear in shows recorded in front of an audience, and seeing one’s name become a household word. For the most part, Leny Eversong’s career was divided between shows on the national radio networks, in cabarets and in the great casinos of the day.  

Her first individual album came in 1942, in which she

recorded the fox trot Tangerine, accompanied by the Orquestra de Totó. Six years after that she performed in Buenos Aires (Argentina), where she was presented as a North American singer.  

In the 50s, she resumed singing Brazilian music and made albums singing in different languages. Her greatest hit was Jezebel"

(Shanklin), first recorded in 1952. By the end of that decade, she toured the United States, recording the album "Leny Eversong na América do Norte", accompanied by Neal Heafti's orchestra. Returning to Brazil she introduced some Brazilian music into her repertory, until she went to Paris (France) in 1958, where she performed at the Olympia. Two years later she started to go to the U.S., having eight annual seasons in that country until the 'late 60s.

 

 

 

Eversong's most celebrated feature was her potent voice, and her main particularity was her devotion to the American repertory, having recorded and performed very little Brazilian music.  

Leny was very obese, and because of that, contracted diabetes, which helped to undermine her career from the early seventies, so she  retired from the public eye due to her failing health and especially after her husband was supposedly kidnapped and never returned. Later, it was discovered by chance that her husband had been killed by the military dictatorship.  

Although a figure so interesting and unique in style, she died in São Paulo 1984, in total ostracism and poor, aged 64, due to complications from diabetes. Before passing away, she  had both legs amputated.

 (Info mainly edited from All Music & Sunnyside Records).
* (IMDB give birth year as 1916)