Canadian pays tribute to Guarulhos in album inspired in experiences, contact with people, language, cuisine and travel

Back to Brazil. That’s it, written with an S as Brazilians write the name of the country instead of the usual Z in English, is the way Mick Dougall found to show appreciation for Portuguese

Experiences, contact with people, cuisine and trips to Brazilian cities such as Guarulhos, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Petrópolis filled the imagination of Canadian musician Mick Dougall, who overflowed all his affection for the country in Back to Brasil, full length with 7 tracks, available on all streaming platforms. Back to Brasil, the second album of the composer’s career, has songs that combine English and Portuguese, sung with strength and at the same time delicacy.

Back to Brazil. That’s it, written with an S as Brazilians write the name of the country instead of the usual Z in English, is the way Mick found to show appreciation for Portuguese. “I’m very proud of this work, it’s the best songs I’ve written in my life”. He says he started writing a song about Petrópolis, another city he visited. “We took the tour of the Imperial Palace and I saw the most amazing thing: the first model of a piano ever made. I was so impressed that I wanted to play it but the guard said no, no,” said Mick, making some fun.

Some musicians and friends joined the band in Back to Brasil, Jamie Dean, recording engineer, guitars, percussion and vocals, Darryl James, bass guitar, guitars and vocals, Mark Swan, drums and percussion, Jesse Nestor, lap steel guitar, guitars, and Hélinho Castelhano, a Brazilian guitar player who recorded his part at Studio 438, in São Paulo, and sent it to Jamie to mix it in Canada.

Strongly influenced by country-folk and rock’n’roll music, the main inspiration to Mick was Neil Young. He remembered that at grade four, his teacher taught the students to sing Heart of Gold. About the polemic around Neil Young’s music removed from Spotify as a protest over COVID-19 disinformation espoused on the Joe Rogan podcast, Mick remembered that Neil Young had always been a strong and powerful voice protesting against racism and government oppression. 

“He has several songs about those themes and I want to support his cause and salute him for standing up for what he believes in. The ability to protest and make some kind of difference makes me feel hope for the world, there are opportunities to really speak your mind. Right now in Canada, Canadians really want to speak their mind to the government but the government it’s not listening. Doing what he did, Neil Young gives people hope that maybe they can be heard”. 

Extension of God’s hand 

Mick is a deeply spiritual and very intuitive person. He believes there’s a lot of positive energy in Brazil. He wrote the song Guarulhos three years ago. He recorded and sent it to Sonia Guandalini, a Brazilian friend who lives in Guarulhos, and she fell in love with the song. One evening, she was enjoying a glass of wine and, as she is also an acoustic guitar player, she decided to make a song of her own. She had never written a song before. 

“When I first listened to Sonia’s song called Você, I just cried. She sang in Portuguese and even I didn’t understand a single word,I cried, because it was so beautiful. After that, she translated the song to me and I’ve learned the song and I felt like I was born again in a rainbow of love connecting Canada to Brazil”.

In Brazil, Mick wants to do what all the musicians want, to open doors.”Sonia is the dream chaser, she is pushing me, supporting me and helping me to find a path of my dream which was to play on a big stage. I want to play the song Rock in Rio at the Rock in Rio Festival. When I wrote it I was trying to emulate one of my favorite bands, which was Beach Boys”.

Take me home was the first song he wrote about Brazil, the first time he went to Bertioga, his very first time he got into the sea and drove a car on the 101Highway Rio-Santos. “When a song comes to me, it is like lightning, it didn’t take me more than five minutes to write any of these songs, it’s like the words are already written and I’m only an extension of God’s hand”. 

Don’t even know, like a lot of songs, came from his dreams. One day, while driving his car in Ontario, he daydreamed about Brazil. “I was parked at a stop side looking and I had no idea where I was, I could not remember where I was going and this motivated the first line of the song “I don’t even know where I am,  I’m driving now in the fog heights”. 

Guarulhos: a second home

Mick met Sonia at a wedding in London-Ontario in 2019. They became good friends and she invited him to come to Brazil. Several months later, he was landing at the International Airport of São Paulo in Guarulhos. 

“When I got off the plane, I saw palm trees for the first time. I have never seen hot weather before. I lived in the cold in Canada for 50 years of my life, I have never been to Florida, nowhere warm. That day was like 40º Celsius degrees. The trees, the plant life, and then I see some dogs, you never see dogs in the streets in Canada. To me everything seemed very free, Brazil was open to me and I was open like a flower. I fell in love immediately with the culture and the people that I met, even the oficial border in the customs at the airport, instead of interrogating me, she looked at my passport for a few seconds, looked at my face and stamped the passport smiling: welcome to Brazil, and I said: Yes! Here I am. I brought my guitars, all my equipaments because I want to play my music to anyone who wants to listen to it”. 

Mick could not believe the size of São Paulo. That makes Toronto, the biggest city in Canada, tiny compared to it. He spent a couple of weeks in São Paulo and found the city very beautiful, especially at night. After that, he went to Rio de Janeiro and saw Corcovado, the colorful water, the trees and the blue sky, many things he had never seen in his life before. “Coming from São Paulo to Santos Dumont’s Airport I saw the statue of Jesus Christ. I’m very spiritual and being in Corcovado was an incredible experience”. 

Mick is getting used to saying that Guarulhos is his second home and he wants to turn it into his first one. “Every night I look up this window and I see all the beautiful lights. During the daytime I see all the roof tops, the green and the trees and the sounds of a big city”.

 “I want to be a rockstar“

Taurus in the zodiac, Mick Dougall is very calm. His spirit is also very loving, kind and giving, and this is reflected in his music. He was born in Orillia, a small city in the province of Ontario, in Canada. At 5 years old, his family moved to London – Ontario where he was introduced to music, to the passion of the music.

“I used to lay in bed awake listening to my mom and daddy playing music, my mom at the piano and my father at the guitar, they always sang together. I began singing with my mom while she was playing the piano. I played with my father’s guitar until I was 15”.  At age 16, in High School, Mick met a friend called Nick Cash, and one day he asked him what he was going to do after class. Nick Cash said he was participating in a music audition to play his guitar at the Christmas assembly at school. 

“So, I went to his audition and he played one of my favorite songs, Neil Young’s Heart of Gold, and I thought: ‘Oh my God, my daddy has a guitar, I’m gonna be a rockstar now, that’s it! That was the moment and I never turned back the music. From that moment, I began to read poetry, write poems, I learned a few chords and I just felt that the most motivation in the world came from my friends. In a few weeks I was playing my own songs, I was so motivated to play the guitar that I just made it happen”. 

Mick received all the support from his parents that just loved the idea to have another musician in the family. “For Christmas, my mom put a lot of presents under the tree, accessories for the guitar, harmonica holder, guitar strings, tablatures, they supported me, came to my shows, they absolutely loved that I was playing music.  When they passed, I wrote songs for both of them. I owe all my music passion to my mom and daddy”.

He’s doing a very good job trying to learn Portuguese and thinking about every little progress he is making with the language. “Sometimes it’s hard and confusing  when I realize I can’t translate English into Portuguese. To make Portuguese works, I can’t think in English words while I’m speaking because people are not understanding what I’m saying, I think I’m saying the right words but when you connect them there’s a completely different way to say this”.

About the great cultural experiences Mick already had in Brazil, he highlighted Aline Rissuto’s concert in the beautiful theater of Sesc Guarulhos. “Listen to a wonderful Brazilian pianist singing her own music in Portuguese inspired me to keep composing in this amazing language”.