World Psychedelic Classics 4: The Existential Soul of Tim Maia

Luaka Bop planned this Tim Maia volume in its World Psychedelic Classics series a decade ago. Due to legal struggles, it took until 2012 to get this 15-track retrospective released. It's been worth the wait. Maia, who passed away in 1998 at the age of 55, had a wild, controversial, and creative life, personally and musically. He effectively introduced American R&B, funk, and soul into Brazilian music during the Tropicalia era, and came up with something completely new in the process. He caught the American music bug as a teen. He lived, worked, made music, and committed petty crimes in the States between 1957 and 1964 when he was deported back to Brazil. While this music isn't psychedelic in terms of its sound necessarily, it is in its outlook. Maia was an unrepentant acid head and one-time member of a UFO cult, a hedonist and a spiritual traveler. His themes of universal brotherhood, spiritual transcendence, free love, and collective partying fit the psych era in a decidedly more