Djo d’Eloy
Jose Alberto Rodrigues Silva
Mindelo, São Vicente, 1953 – New Bedford, USA, 2005
Songwriter, singer
Djô d’Eloy grew up in a musical family (nephew of Eddy Moreno and Djuta Silva) and this is how his cousin Val Xalino remembers certain family nights: “My father Armando on the guitar, his mother Guida on the guitar, our uncle Eduardo on the guitar, and my brother Zuca on the cavaquinho, they all sang with great melancholic voices and it was a limitless cry of mornas, they were our music school”, describes the musician in an interview with the newspaper A Semana online (03.16.2008).
This school made Djo d’Eloy a composer sought after by different performers, such as Bana, Cesária Évora, Djosinha, Dudu Araújo, among others.
Despite being a constant presence at musical nights in the Cape Verdean community in Massachusetts, Djô d’Eloy never made a living from music. He was working as a security guard at a bank when he died in a car accident. In Cape Verde he worked at the National Travel Agency on his home island and temporarily on the island of Fogo, as mentioned on the website Caboverdeonline.com (06.04.2005, no longer available), at the time of his death. This publication states that the lyrics of his mornas and koladeras “depict the day-to-day life of the people from Mindelo, in the same vein as Manuel d’Novas and other composers from São Vicente”.
Discography
- Cabo Verde nos Berço, cassete, ed. de autor, Canadá, date?
- Celina, ed. de autor, EUA, 1997.
- Participation, with the song “Matrimónio d’agora”, CD First Edition’ 97 (Paley Spencer, Jack da Rosa and others), 1997.
Compositions
Ba bo Vida; Bo Dor; Canalim tchaina; Celina; Contame bo Vida; Fexe de Paia; Gilda; Ina; John d´Guida; Lucy d´Nho Morgode; Nhos e linguarode; Reanima; Tchal bai; Terra di Nhas Pais; Tudo sis nome.