Gal Costa was MPB’s biggest vocalist and Tropelia icon – 09/11/2022 – Photographer

Singing was a unique profession Gal Costawhat or what He died in Sao Paulo at the age of 77for unknown reasons.

In the neighborhood of Graça, in Salvador, her young Gracin, daughter of Maria and Arnaldo, and her absent father, took a frying pan to the bathroom to regain her voice. As a child, with the encouragement of her mother, she wanted to become a radio star. In 1958, his vocal style changed with The experience of listening to Joao GilbertoIn “Chega de Saudade”. From that shock, his voice found a school, a modern orientation.

The early 1960s intensified their transformative encounters. Gal was hastily held by gossip columnist Silvio to her secretary, and it was her first meeting with Idol Joao Gilberto🇧🇷 After running home for the guitar, the samba girl sang for Mangueira, and it only took a few more songs for the master to say in ecstasy, “Gracinha, you are the greatest singer in Brazil.”

So early on, she had already won the most praise. But he was still waiting for repertoire, to discover physical performance, sex, and to reveal his stage name.

The path to creating a personal style would be completed in the 1970s, but it was there in Salvador that she soon discovered her poet and brother in spirit and arms. Before the 1964 coup d’état, in the same circumstances in which he met his girlfriend Diddy, Caetano Veloso He saw Gracinha for the first time.

You will be his ultimate voice, capable of changing his game with words, rhythms, and the life he dreams about. Between the two, and until the end of Gale’s life, there was a silent “Guagilbertiano” pact, an aesthetic alliance that was radicalized in Troplia.

In Bahia, under the influence of Joao Gilberto and Tom JobimThe revolutionary kernel of MPB has been created. In 1964, Gal made his debut at the Villa Felha theater with Caetano, Bethany, Jill and Tom Zee.

On “We, for example”, he did a duet with Bethânia in “Sol Negro”, where he had an intimate relationship with a contrasting voice, but a sister.

In his first solo single since 1965, he recorded generation youth compositions “Eu Vim da Bahia” and Caetano’s “Sim, Foi Você”. When he immigrated to Rio de Janeiro, he was soon noticed by the sound of calm seas, melodic reinforced by “Coração Vagabundo”, on the debut album “Domingo”, from 1967, which he shared with Cayetano Veloso. John’s disciples appeared together. It’s time for Gal to inhale her name. At the suggestion of businessman Guilherme Araújo, Gal Costa became.

The foundational album of his future, “Domingo,” was released exactly when Trobelia began reworking her past and rocking her aesthetic project. In the album statement “Tropicalia or Panis et Circencis”Since 1968, she has appeared with “Mamãe, Coragem” by Caetano and Torquato Neto, and has become the definitive voice of “Baby”.

Tropical designer Rogerio Duarte said the victory of a singer like Gal Costa was the movement’s greatest achievement. With a shy mood and silent eyes, but with brave gestures, Gal was the only one, of all the Tropics, who did not feel safe in her career. In São Paulo, consider returning to Bahia.

In November and December, at the 4th Recording Festival, on the brink of AI-5, Institutional Act No. 5, Gal Costa appeared with the song “Divino Maravilhoso”, absorbing the rebellious atmosphere of 1968.

Before the festival, Didi Veloso locked her in a dark room in her apartment, on Avenida São Luis, freeing her body expressions through the Billie Holiday record. Under the influence of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and James Brown, Gal’s performance exploded with her strong black hair and psychedelic red dress, designed by Regina Boni. If Bibi had given her eternity, then the “divine wonder” was now giving her the earth.

In the tropical, superstitious stage, the young singer developed the habit of sleeping in her stage clothes, lest she lose the magical formula of her magic. “I’ve never been afraid of the theater. The theater is where I feel the most comfortable, the most complete. I’ve never been afraid of the theater. Quite the opposite. I’m afraid of many things, right. The fear of dictatorship, the fear of death. Fear is kind of weird,” Gal told this reporter last year.

With Cayetano and Gil going into exile in 1969, months went by, grief-stricken, though it was an unusual year, as she released her tropical album Gal Costa and also the rock band Gal, her entry through a psychedelic introduction. With “Cinema Olympia” by Caetano, “Cultura e Civilização” by Gil and “Meu Nome É Gal” by Roberto and Erasmo.

In Trobelia Cliff, he performed with Tom Zee, got close to Jardis McCally and became the voice of Despond, directed by poets Duda Machado and Wali Salumao. In “Gal a Todo Vapor,” or simply “Gal Fa-Tal,” her most legendary performance, the singer ramped up the tropical show and went even further by expressing the sexuality and existential truth of the post-AI-5 counterculture. She also changed her performance on stage and showed the young composer Louise Melodia from “Pirola Negra” and the poetics of Wali in “Vapor Baratu”.

More naked, the gal has finally found her audience. in stage Cheap sand dunes and “Fa-Tal”In Rio de Janeiro, the singer was a legend devouring the original basket on her forehead. She dated men and women, fell into the sea and extended the boundaries of the liberated woman. Despite the solar trials, I felt sad in Ipanema. Gain political expression without being an activist.

“I’ve never been very interested in hard-line politics, but all of Madari’s work and my work at the time was political in the sense of disrespect, breaking down barriers,” she said a year ago. “I’ve never been much involved in politics, but there are times when you have to take a stand. Right now. It’s a terrible government out there, horrible thing. We have to say ‘get out, Bolsonaro.'”

On her return from exile, Caetano leads her to the sound of calm seas on the album “Kantar”. Both wanted to reformulate the “Guaugilbertiano” charter.

Caetano did some extreme work with me. At the time, he did ‘Kantar’, which critics were talking about very poorly at the time. It was a radical break. Transition through India [de 1973] It came “rich”. ‘corner’ [de 2011] Last year, Gal said, it was quite an extreme.

Another bossa nova mentor, Tom Jobim, came to be the artist as his favorite singer. If she wants, she can be a bird, as in the movie “Passarinho” by Tuzé de Abreu. Poetic courage, desire for renewal, leap in the dark, body in sound, constant renewal. Gal has always wanted to get past that gal from last week, recording her star with her musician brothers Jill, Bethania, and Caetano.

With extensive recordings, Gal released some erratic, but always expressive, albums on the pop stage, from the late 1970s to the end of the 1980s.

“He invited Oludom to play with me, it was great, but Caetano did more drastic things. He had such a strong presence in the direction of these two shows that he did with me. Wally was also a great director, and he contributed a lot to the track,” Gal said.

In 1994, in the exhibition Alice’s Cat’s Smile, directed by Gerald ThomasShe became scandalous again, showing off her breasts while singing “Brazil” to Kazuza. Sexuality expresses itself in his body.

Directed by Caetano, the album “Recanto,” with Cassin electronic bases, is among his most daring albums – and deserves to grow in critical reputation. The last influential artistic director of her career, journalist and producer Marcos Prieto worked with the singer on the albums “Estratosférica”, from 2015, and “A Pele do Futuro”, from 2018. Britto was committed to bringing the singer closer to new generations of musicians and composers, wishing Gal identified her on the 2005 album “Hoje”, directed by Cesar Camargo Mariano.

She was waiting for the release of a movie based on her life, “Meu Nome É Gal”, directed by Dandara Ferreira and Le Politi, starring actress Sophie Charlotte. The film is expected to be released in 2023.
In “Minha Voz, Minha Vida”, authored by his translator, Caetano approaches his enigma. “My voice, my life / My secret and my revelation / My hidden light / Compass and confusion / If love enslaves / But it’s the only version / My voice is subtle / Life is nothing less than a song.”

Gal Costa is survived by his son Gabriel and partner and manager Wilma Petrillo. The greatest singer in the history of Brazilian folk music, the Immaculate Cow, the true bahi, our greatest vocal phenomenon, our most lonely star – Maria da Graca has died. girl. red lips.