Luiz Gonzaga almost single-handedly took the folkloric music of Brazil's northeast and made it a vital cultural force and an accepted part of Brazilian popular music. It takes guts and spirit to do that, and talent too: the man could play the heck out of an accordion, and he wrote songs with melodies and messages that have resonated down from the ‘40s to this day. What drove—and continues to drive—his popularity is the panting accordion, the pathos and joy, the sense that life at its worst still merits a party. No wonder everybody from Os Mutantes to David Byrne has covered him.