Oriana Maria

Sometime after the end of her marriage and musical partnership with Marcos Valle, Anamaria Valle moved back to Brazil. In the beginning of 1970's, her musical taste had change, and she was no longer interested in the kind of music she did with Valle, Sérgio Mendes & Brasil '65, and Walter Wanderly Set. For instance, a report of the newspaper Correio da Manhã (Rio de Janeiro) from April 14, 1970, says that she would return in September that year to the United States, in order to sing for Blood, Sweat & Tears during a tour across American universities.

During 1972 and 1973, still using Anamaria Valle as her artistic name, she sung for Rock Ebó, a band in the same vein of Novos Baianos that included Perinho Santana (later a member of “A Cor do Som”, which also backed artists such as Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tim Maia, Doces Bárbaros, Gal Costa, Marisa Monte, and Jards Macalé) on guitars, Luciano on bass, Paulinho Camafeu on percussion and Carleba (the original drummer for “Os Panteras”, the backing band of Raul Seixas in the early days of his carrer) on drums. It was her first psychedelic rock band.

After Rock Ebó ended in 1973, she decided to relaunch her musical career as “Oriana Maria”. Between September, 1973, and June, 1974, she travelled to Argentina, in order to record songs and to offer them to Record Companies. In those record sections, she was helped by Billy Bond and the musicians of “La Pesada”. She even recorded a Portuguese version of Manal’s classic “Jugo de Tomate”. She pressed a very small quantity of 7” EPs with three songs of those sections, titled Arembip I (allusive to the hippie community of Arembepe, located in Bahia, Brazil, where she lived). In October, 1974, a short story about her career moment was published on the Brazilian magazine “O Cruzeiro”. Although every effort was made to sign a contract with a Record Company, she did not make it.

Still in 1978, it was possible to find reports on newspapers about her concerts under the alias of Oriana Maria.