Beat Boys

The Beat Boys were five Argentines based in São Paulo: Tony Osanah and Cacho Valdez on guitars, Toyo on organ, Marcelo Frias on drums and Willy Verdager on bass. They had met at the bar La Cueva in Buenos Aires, and in Brazil they played international pop and rock in nightclubs. Guilherme Araújo, Caetano Veloso's manager, invited them to record and perform "Alegria, Alegria" at the III Festival da Record in 1967, at Teatro Paramount; together with Mutantes, who performed with Gilberto Gil, they were the first rock groups to appear at a festival of this kind. They released singles on RCA Victor and, in 1968, the LP Beat Boys. In 1973, Frias and Verdager played on the first Secos e Molhados album.