combination of accordion, zabumba, and triangle (which became later the basic ensemble for Forró) one of the western world's first "small pop music ensembles", ten years before the popularization of the rock music ensemble by the Beatles. He is widely recognized for single-handedly taking the baião style and the accordion to a wide audience. RCA (now BMG), his recording label, was almost exclusively dedicated to printing his singles and albums . During the 1960s, as the public taste shifted to bossa nova and iê-iê-iê, he found himself increasingly stranded from big city stages, so he toured the countryside, where his popularity never abated. In the 1970s and 1980s, he slowly re-emerged, partly due to covers of his songs by famous artists like Geraldo Vandré, Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, his son Gonzaguinha and Milton Nascimento. Some of his greatest hits are "Vozes da Seca" ("Voices From Drought"), "Algodão" ("Cotton"), "A Dança da Moda" ("The Dance in Fashion"), "ABC do Sertão" ("The ABC of Sertão"), "Derramaro o Gai" ("They Spilt the Gas"), "A Letra I" ("The 'i' letter"), "Imbalança" ("Shake It"), "A Volta da Asa-Branca" ("The Return of The Picazuro Pigeon"), "Cintura Fina" ("Slender Waist"), "O Xote das Meninas" ("The Girls' Schottische", written with Zé Dantas, and "Juazeiro", "Paraíba", "Mangaratiba", "Baião-de-Dois", "No Meu Pé de Serra" ("There in My Homeland"), "Assum Preto" ("Blue-back Grassquit"), "Légua Tirana" ("Tyrannical league"), "Qui Nem Jiló" ("Like Solanum gilo", written with Humberto Teixeira. Other successful collaborations resulted in "Tá Bom Demais" ("It's So Good") (with Onildo de Almeida), "Danado de Bom" ("Damn Good") (with João Silva), "Dezessete e Setecentos" ("Seventeen And Seven hundred") and "Cortando o Pano" ("Cutting Cloth") (both with Miguel Lima). The surname Gonzaga is an ancient noble surname in Brazil, Portugal and Italy. Gonzaga died of natural causes in 1989 at the age of 76. Discography A dança da moda, Luiz Gonzaga and Zé Dantas (1950) A feira de Caruaru, Onildo Almeida (1957) A letra I, Luiz Gonzaga and Zé Dantas (1953) A morte do vaqueiro, Luiz Gonzaga and Nelson Barbalho (1963) A triste partida, Patativa do Assaré (1964) A vida do viajante, Hervé Cordovil and Luiz Gonzaga (1953) Acauã, Zé Dantas (1952) Adeus, Iracema, Zé Dantas (1962) Á-bê-cê do sertão, Luiz Gonzaga and Zé Dantas (1953) Adeus, Pernambuco, Hervé Cordovil and Manezinho Araújo (1952) Algodão, Luiz Gonzaga and Zé Dantas (1953) Amanhã eu vou, Beduíno and Luiz Gonzaga (1951) Amor da minha vida,