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How a run-down Ford launched a music revolution that swept Brazil鈥檚 Carnival

Musicians and technicians set up on top of a sound truck referred to as an electric trio, in Salvador, Bahia state, Brazil, Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024. Musicians and technicians set up on top of a sound truck referred to as an electric trio, in Salvador, Bahia state, Brazil, Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024.
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RIO DE JANEIRO -

Sound begins blasting ear drums and rattling bones even before the speakers 鈥 hauled by big rigs creeping their way through Brazil鈥檚 thronging Carnival crowds 鈥 draw near.

The behemoth sound trucks known as electric trios are a Brazilian innovation that amplified music and effectively did away with front-row seats 鈥 making Carnival more accessible. In the seven decades since the first one hit Brazil's streets, they have become a fixture of the country's annual pre-Lenten festivities and draw millions to the streets. Singer Caetano Veloso's ode to the earth-shaking vehicles proclaimed that the only people not following them must already be dead.

From Salvador, on Brazil's northeast coast, trios spread throughout the country and found more disciples; an Instagram account that posts seemingly banal videos of the nation鈥檚 rigs has about 150,000 followers, with fans praising each trio's merits. They鈥檝e grown ever more sophisticated and ever larger 鈥 with lights, LED screens, dressing rooms and VIP areas.

Their appeal has never been just the novelty of amplification. Their steady, constant advance meant anyone, rich or poor, could get close enough to the music to feel it throb through their body, said Isaac Edington, who coordinates Salvador鈥檚 festivities as president of its tourism agency.

Helen Salgado, a 31-year-old actress, traveled to Salvador from Rio to immerse herself in the oceans of people churning around trios in celebrations ahead of the official start of Carnival on Saturday. She said she was driven to ecstasy without consuming so much as a drop of alcohol.

鈥淚t was very loud ... and marvelous!鈥 Salgado said by phone, laughing. 鈥淚 think that's why there's all this frenzy: The sound dominates you and intoxicates you.鈥

But long before these walls of sound took Brazil by storm, there was a Ford.

It was a 1929 Model A 鈥 the Model T鈥檚 lesser-known successor 鈥 imported from the U.S. to Salvador. For years, metalworker Osmar Macedo used the convertible to haul iron.

In 1950, Osmar, as he is universally known, and his friend Dod么, a radio technician and fellow amateur musician, outfitted the Ford with two speakers and connected their guitar and cavaquinho to the car鈥檚 battery, Aroldo Macedo, Osmar鈥檚 son, told The Associated Press. They drove the car, with its dented fender and chipping maroon paint, through the streets playing music and delighting Carnival revelers who jumped and jived in their wake, said Macedo, 65.

The duo repeated the stunt the next year, this time with a third musician, and so called themselves the Trio Eletrico.

The term stuck, and was applied to all mobile stages that rolled across Salvador, the capital of Bahia state. Soon enough, trios were the centerpiece of the city's Carnival.

They started featuring Bahia鈥檚 top artists, like Veloso, who clambered aboard one built specially for him in 1972 that resembled a spaceship. They became launchpads for the careers of musicians, including Daniela Mercury, Ivete Sangalo and Margareth Menezes, Brazil鈥檚 current culture minister, who called the trio 鈥渙ne of Brazil's great inventions.鈥

鈥淚t was a great revolution in the Carnival of the people, the Carnival of the street,鈥 Menezes said by phone from Salvador, where she鈥檚 preparing the Trio of Culture that will feature herself alongside Gilberto Gil and Chico C茅sar. 鈥淓veryone wants to shake themselves to the sound of the electric trio.鈥

That popular spirit is at the heart of Carnival, which isn鈥檛 just about cutting loose; it also represents the subversion of established order and roving street parties are a manifestation of the people taking control of the city.

Salvador鈥檚 trios were a guiding light for Rio when street parties reemerged after Brazil cast off its military dictatorship in 1985, according to Rita Fernandes, president of the Sebastiana association that organizes some of the city鈥檚 most traditional parties.

Rick Mello's Rick Sound provides trios for more than two dozen street parties in Rio and also rents the trucks to samba schools rehearsing for the traditional Sambadrome parade. There were 11 trios shoehorned into his warehouse in January 鈥 and he says he can鈥檛 run full sound tests inside because the clamor, reaching up to 180 decibels, could blow out an eardrum.

鈥淐ompared to Bahia, this is a Volkswagen Beetle,鈥 Mello said, referring to his biggest truck, which has 60 speakers. 鈥淏ut one day we鈥檒l get there.鈥

Perhaps the best known of all the trios was the Dragon. Salvador-based band Asa de Aguia (Eagle's Wing) performed atop the truck for years and immortalized it in a song as "the biggest electric trio on the planet."

But the Dragon was a handful. Its 30-meter (98-foot) length made cornering a feat, and at 5.5 meters (18 feet) tall, it often snagged power lines and toppled utility poles when touring to Rio or Sao Paulo for gigs, according to Jos茅 Mario Bordonal, whose company bought it a decade ago.

Bordonal and his siblings founded their company to build sound trucks in their tiny hometown in Sao Paulo鈥檚 rural interior, Cravinhos.

Their first trio upset the order of things about 35 years ago, with a wild street party for the working class that lured even the well-heeled to forgo a private Carnival soiree, Bordonal said. The police, and the soiree's organizer, were furious.

Roughly a quarter-century later, the Dragon caused fresh ruckus.

鈥淲hen it got to Cravinhos ... it entered the first street, and it pulled down two poles right away," Bordonal said.

He modified the Dragon鈥檚 axles to make cornering easier and reduced its height 鈥 but extended its length to 34 meters (111 feet). Bordonal eventually sold it, and has since built a bigger trio whose 200 speakers blasted Sao Paulo's biggest street party of the Carnival season on Feb. 4 鈥 and he has plans for an even larger one.

But Salvador鈥檚 vast fleet makes it the unrivaled kingdom. During Carnival this year, as many as 70 will plod through the swarming crowds each day, Edington said. Rio has roughly that amount through all of Carnival, according to its tourism agency.

In a tribute to the trios' forebears, Salvador's two main trio routes are named for Osmar and Dod么, and a replica of their Ford appears atop one of the mammoth rigs.

Coming full circle from the imported Ford that became Brazil鈥檚 first trio, singer Claudia Leitte is in the process of dispatching a trio to the U.S.

Leitte, who once sang atop a trio for seven hours straight, intends to bring a Salvador-style Carnival to Miami's Ocean Drive.

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