Bob Telson: I’m Calling You

Written by Clarice Assad

Composer / Performer

In category: Song of the Day

Published February 7, 2019

When I first heard this song and saw this movie, I was maybe 10 years old, and lived in the middle of nowhere:  a rural part of the third world country Brazil, where culture was really hard to come by. I managed to lay my hands on a pirate copy of this movie and the video looped for days on our newly acquired VHS machine. What a song, what a desert, what a beautiful story. Had I ever heard a voice like that ? NO.  It is one of those things I will never forget.

“I’m Calling you” (From the movie Badgad Cafe)
author: Clarice Assad

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A bold composer, a brilliant pianist, and an inventive vocalist all rolled into one, Clarice Assad floats freely across musical idioms, drawing on an array of sounds from Amazon forest wildlife to operatic arias. A classically-trained pianist, Assad is deeply rooted in the earthy, folkloric rhythms of Brazil, capturing the attention of international audiences with her stunning talent. The term “world music” is redundant when applied to her style, a reflection of Brazil’s musical melting pot heritage of African rhythms mixed with European melodies and harmonies.

Assad’s songs will be featured in Hyphenated-Americans on February 20 at Merkin Hall in NYC.

1 Comment

  1. Alon Shimon Shai-Kaspi on November 21, 2025 at 6:18 pm

    It is a beautiful song…
    Arranging it for the piano was straight forward enough, but understanding the harmonic trick of dropping a non root note to the bass has taken my simple mind a while…
    Tricks are… mostly, tricks…
    But for me, in the case of Calling you it is a golden powerful engine.

    And that lonely melody…
    Like most people my first exposure to the song was through the movie. And so I loved Jevetta Steele’s version. On the soundtrack Cd I heard a male version not knowing it was the writer and thinking, ‘this man know how to do shy loneliness…’
    Thank you Bob Telson

    Reply

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