Hermeto Pascoal, the eccentric and prolific Brazilian multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger known affectionately as “The Sorcerer of Sounds” and “The Mad Genius,” has died. He was 89.

“With serenity and love, we announce that Hermeto Pascoal has passed on to the spiritual realm, surrounded by family and fellow musicians,” his family and team said in a statement late Saturday (Sept. 13) on Instagram.

The statement did not provide a cause of death or say where he had died.

Pascoal was an instantly recognizable figure with his mane of white hair and thick beard. He created music that defied fixed labels and blended jazz, samba, Brazilian popular music (MPB), bossa nova, chorinho and forro.

An accomplished pianist, accordionist and flautist, Pascoal also used more unconventional objects to produce sounds, including pints of beer, dolls, body parts, tea cups, and — perhaps most famously — live pigs.

On his 1977 album Slaves Mass, Pascoal squeezed a piglet to make it squeal for the opening of a track. A photo of him with the animal in his arms appeared on its back cover.

Born on June 22, 1936, in Alagoas, a state in Brazil’s poor northeast, his albino condition allowed him to escape working in the fields under the harsh sun. He taught himself to play his father’s accordion instead.

At age 14, Pascoal moved with his family to the port city of Recife, where he continued to develop his skills and performed on local radio stations.

He later headed to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. During the 1960s, he worked with drummer and percussionist Airto Moreira, who took Pascoal on tour to the U.S., where he met Miles Davis. Pascoal played on Davis’ 1971 album Live-Evil.

The meeting with Miles kickstarted an international career that continued well into Pascoal’s 80s.
“I was born music; I haven’t done anything without music,” he told Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo in 2024. “What I write on a toilet bowl is as important as what I write on any paper, because music is sacred.”

As noted by the Barbican, a London venue where Pascoal was due to play in November, the artist was known as an “iconic Brazilian composer” who created more than 10,000 compositions.

Tributes for Pascoal poured in after the announcement of his death.

“Brazilian music and culture owe a great deal to Hermeto Pascoal,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil said Saturday on X. Pascoal’s “talent and tireless creativity (…) earned him international acclaim and influenced generations of musicians around the world,” he added.

Caetano Veloso said on Instagram that Pascoal is “one of the highest points in the history of music in Brazil.”

Pascoal leaves behind six children.

With the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack reaching No. 1 on the Billboard 200 (dated Sept. 20) after seven nonconsecutive weeks at No. 2, it completes the longest wait an album has endured in the runner-up spot before hitting No. 1 in nearly a half-century.

The last No. 1 album to wait as long or longer at No. 2 before ascending to the top was Linda Ronstadt’s Simple Dreams in late 1977. The set debuted at No. 43 on the chart dated Sept. 24 of that year and then spent its next nine weeks locked at No. 2 (Oct. 1-Nov. 26) before finally hitting No. 1 on the Dec. 3 chart.

For all nine weeks Simple Dreams was at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 before hitting No. 1, it was blocked from the top by Fleetwood Mac’s monster hit Rumours, which spent a total of 31 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in 1977-78.

The Simple Dreams album launched four top 40-charted hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including two top 10s. Its first single, “Blue Bayou,” hit No. 3, and was followed by “It’s So Easy” (No. 5), “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” (No. 31) and “Tumbling Dice” (No. 32). “Blue Bayou” also scored Ronstadt a pair of Grammy Award nominations, for record of the year (her only career nomination in the category) and best pop vocal performance, female.

Simple Dreams marked Ronstadt’s second of three No. 1s and spent five total weeks at No. 1, all consecutive (Dec. 3-31), the most weeks atop the list of her leaders. Heart Like a Wheel and Living in the USA each spent one week on top, in 1975 and 1978, respectively.

In Between Simple Dreams and KPop Demon Hunters, two albums spent nearly as lengthy a time at No. 2 before hitting No. 1 — and they were both by the same act. Celine Dion’s Falling Into You and Let’s Talk About Love both spent five weeks at No. 2 before climbing to No. 1, in 1996 and 1998, respectively.

On the Oct. 5, 1996 chart, Falling Into You rose 4-1, after having spent five nonconsecutive weeks at No. 2. Falling Into You became Dion’s first of five leaders and spent three nonconsecutive weeks on top. Before it hit No. 1, Falling Into You was blocked from the top by Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill for four of its weeks at No. 2 and Pearl Jam’s No Code for one week.

Dion’s next album, Let’s Talk About Love, also had five nonconsecutive weeks in the runner-up position before hitting No. 1. It climbed 2-1 on the Jan. 17, 1998, chart. Before it reached No. 1, Let’s Talk About Love was blocked from the top by Metallica’s ReLoad for one week and Garth Brooks’ Sevens for four weeks.

Let’s Talk About Love had great timing when it reached No. 1 for its one and only week atop the list. The week it hit No. 1, the Titanic soundtrack (which shared a song with Let’s Talk About Love in Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”) sailed 31-11. The next week, on the Jan. 24 chart, Titanic steamed 11-1, for its first of 16 weeks (all consecutive) at No. 1 (Jan. 24-May 9). For 12 of those weeks, Let’s Talk About Love was No. 2 behind Titanic.

With all this talk of albums spending a long time at No. 2 before reaching No. 1, one might be wondering what album holds the record for the most weeks at No. 2 without going to No. 1. The answer is Stray Cats’ Built for Speed, which spent 15 weeks at its No. 2 peak in 1982-83. It was blocked from No. 1 by Men at Work’s Business as Usual (13 weeks) and Michael Jackson’s Thriller (two weeks).

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