Stevie Wonder plays before 400,000 people in Rio

Rio de Janeiro: American pop star Stevie Wonder and Brazilian singer-songwriter Gilberto Gil filled Copacabana Beach with music during a seaside concert that attracted some 400,000 people, police said.

Christmas Eve on one of Rio de Janeiro`s most famous beaches rocked to the soul and pop rhythms of Stevie Wonder, who appeared with a band of 11 musicians and opened with "What a Wonderful World This Would Be". The charismatic musician spoke in Portuguese to an audience he won from the start, and which he fully entranced with a version of "Garota de Ipanema" (The Girl from Ipanema), the classic bossa nova number created by Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim. Wonder was preceded by Gilberto Gil, who gave a touch of reggae and Brazilian pop music to the night before Christmas, and who also paid special tribute to Claudionor Viana Teles Velloso, known as "Dona Cano" and the mother of Brazilian musicians Caetano Veloso and Maria Bethania, who died Tuesday at the age of 105. "She lived a very long life and left us the most beautiful family," Gil said of Dona Cano. IANS