Elis Regina Carvalho da Costa (March 17, 1945 - January 19, 1982) was among the most popular female singers in Brazil in the 1960s and '70s.

Elis Regina was born in Porto Alegre, where she began her career as singer at age 11 on a children's radio show, Rádio Farroupilha. In 1959, she was contracted by Rádio Gaúcha and in the next year she travelled to Rio de Janeiro where she recorded her first LP, Viva a Brotolândia.

She won her first festival song contest in 1965 singing "Arrastão" by Edu Lobo and Vinícius de Moraes. Her second LP with Jair Rodrigues , Dois na Bossa, set a national sales record.

In the late '60s and early '70s, Regina helped to popularize the work of the tropicalia movement, recording songs by such musicians as Gilberto Gil. Her 1974 collaboration with Antonio Carlos Jobim, Elis & Tom, is often cited as one of the greatest bossa nova albums of all time. She also recorded songs by Milton Nascimento, João Bosco , Chico Buarque, Jorge Ben and Caetano Veloso. She possessed an exciting voice and superb intonation, and excelled at up-tempo numbers. Her nickname was "Furacao"--"the hurricane.", and also "pimentinha" --"little pepper"

Elis Regina sometimes criticized the Brazilian dictatorship which had persecuted and exiled many musicians of her generation. In a 1969 interview, she opined that Brazil was being run by "gorillas". Her popularity kept her out of jail, but she was eventually compelled by the authorities to sing the Brazilian national anthem in a stadium show, drawing the ire of many Brazilian Leftists.

Elis Regina finally succumbed to a cocaine addiction in 1982, at 36 years old, having recorded dozens of top-selling records in her career.

She is interred in the Cemitério do Morumbi in Sao Paulo.

Elis Regina's daughter with second husband Cesar Camargo Mariano, Maria Rita, released her first album in 2004. It has gone platinum in her native Brazil. Maria Rita won two Latin Grammies in 2004 for her self-titled debut album.

Discography

• Dois na Bossa (1965)
• O Fino da Bossa (1965)
• Elis (1966)
• Elis Regina in London (1969)
• Elis & Tom (1974)
• Saudade do Brasil (1980)
• O Melhor de Elis (1979)
• Vento de Maio (1983)