Maria Bethânia: “In my mind, I was Gil’s girlfriend”

My first memories come from Caetano’s admiration for him. As his younger sister, I was very connected to him. Caetano had a very deep admiration for him. Gil was already working in television, he was a singer in Bahia. Caetano used to say: “You have to see, he's extraordinary!”

So it was from watching him singing on television, doing the Carlos Coqueijo show. And soon after, very soon, he was already a friend of Caetano’s, already close, writing at our home, going out many nights with Caetano.

Oh, Gil already showed himself as an extraordinary musician. Before he was a singer, because he always sang very well, but it was already clear his guitar, his musical capacity, the musical novelty that existed in him.

I never played an instrument, I learned to play the piano, because at home I was a girl who learned to play the piano, but I didn’t go deeper. Gil started teaching me guitar. He liked my right hand, thought I had a good tempo.

The rest is math, which I hate, so I didn’t really learn. I was dazzled by his guitar. I felt an endless capacity in him. That was Gil’s second arrival, and it was very strong. 

And so did I. I had a crazy passion for him. In my mind, I was his girlfriend. I had it in my head that he was my boyfriend. So to my school friends, I would say: “See, my boyfriend is Gilberto Gil.” 

And they laughed, they said they never saw this boyfriend. I was a girl, that’s when I got to secondary school, I was 13 going on 14. It was all very early in my life. I turned pro at 17. I’ve been working from an early age. And all that experience… Being Caetano's sister is already an event, right?

Caetano was very connected to all thigs artistic. He wanted everything with music, with cinema, with literature, it was a comprehensive desire. And he led me a lot. He didn’t miss the opportunity to introduce me, to provoke me with these things. And Gil came like this.  

Picture us leaving the countryside, arriving in Salvador, and life changing, teaching us when Bahia was the splendor of Brazil artistically, because of the Bahia School of Theater, the School of Dance, the Rectory (UFBA). It was an example to the whole world.

Artists came to Bahia to perform, all the great ones. Dancers came. Caetano and I took a modern dance course. Bahia was very hot. There was Lina Bo Bardi in architecture, Glauber in cinema, and Gil comes into this set with his musicality, understanding, and wisdom.

You know, I don’t remember how that happened… I remember we all used to gather, Gal Costa, Piti (musician), Tuzé (from Abreu, flutist), Gil, Caetano, in the house of an actress from the Theater School. She was rich, she had a beautiful house, she had a garden.

This concert was based on bossa nova. I never even thought I would sing, that I was professional, but I loved to sing. Caetano said I was going to do this and that, and I did it without thinking it was a real thing. The musical direction was theirs. I told Caetano:

“I don't know and I don’t like singing bossa nova. I like singing Noel Rosa, Carmem Miranda, Aracy de Almeida, Maysa...” The bossa nova beat was never my thing. So I told them to do the bossa nova show and I would come in singing Noel Rosa. 

And I came in singing “Feitio de oração.” Gal and I entered singing “Quinze pras duas,” still unrecorded, by Caetano, her in black and me in white. When I came in, I took off my shoe, I don’t know why. But from then on I never sang with my shoes on. Maybe I needed to take out the scenic rigor.

And the critique of this concert was an exuberant one by Coquejo, who was the greatest authority on music in Bahia, especially bossa nova. He said everything was beautiful, the guitars, the arrangement, Gil's ability, the quality of Gal’s voice, the talent of the boys, the greatness of what happened there.

He said: "Maria Bethânia surprises by singing Noel Rosa and puts her signature on the concert.” Something like that. After that concert, the comment was: “We lost Bethânia.” Which is a Bahian way of saying “she's leaving.”

And I did come right after that. The second concert, Velha Bossa Nova, Nossa Bossa Velha, was when Nara passed through Bahia, met me and went back to Rio and called me to do Opinião.

I think Caetano always had Gil on a step up. We all have. Me included. But Caetano, because he is the most knowledgeable and understanding on the subject, globally, the meaning of an artwork, he had Gil on one step up.

It was very clear and so in everything related to music, Gil would know more than everyone else.

It was a work with Augusto Boal, which we did after Opinião. We did the Arena Canta Bahia, and Boal wrote a concert for me called Tempo de Guerra.

That was when Gil had wrote this song, “Viramundo,” which I already knew. And I wanted to do a song from my repertoire. I love epic songs, “Rosa dos ventos,” “Quereres,” I like music like that.

Caetano always liked to hear me not as a student, as I was his. He was interested when I called his attention because I paid attention to things to which he didn’t for lack of time. And the Jovem Guarda was one of those things. I loved to see the Jovem Guarda.

And I knew that Caetano was very attached to João Gilberto, to Gil’s guitar, to the Northeastern quality, at the same time jazzy, Brazilian, Jamaican—everything you can imagine, Gil's guitar has—and Caetano was focused on that.

One day, talking to him, kind of in a bad mood, I said: “Drop this acoustic guitar, go play the electric guitar. Go hear the Jovem Guarda, they’re good.” 

It’s the same as me not wanting to sing bossa nova at the first bossa nova concert. I didn’t want to be part of a movement, because I had to adjust the way I dressed, my behavior, go to Chacrinha. When they had music they wanted me to perform, I’d sing.

Or I’d ask when I wanted something. I loved all that, I always thought Tropicalism was essential to our artistic understanding, to Brazilian music, and that’s what was bothering me a little bit in their direction.

It was just bossa nova, which Caetano, in particular, had. Gil was more liberated, because he always had a strong feeling from the backlands, an international look.

Everybody was already everybody. It was lovely, delicious, funny. We laughed at ourselves, at the tricks we learned, at the wisdoms we had forgotten.

It was beautiful to see everyone mature, all established, with careers already well defined. It was happy.

The only sad thing was Gil’s arrest, that was something that shook us all violently.

It was horrid. It was one of the worst periods we’ve ever experienced. It managed to be worse than what we have now. At the time, it was a declared dictatorship. It was very bad for me. I went to London twice to see them, mainly because of Caetano, who was very depressed.

Gil was joking, there was the World Cup and I remember him joking. He was looking for some positive energy, sort of saving himself in a beautiful, poetic way. Caetano was very angry, very sad, with good reason. 

It was an attempt not to die, to survive all this craziness. You may be right, yes. Their friendship has always been very firm, I think it stands. Unfortunately, I see them very little.

I have a countryside lifestyle, as if I lived in Santo Amaro. So I see them very little, even my brother. Gil, I haven’t seeing him for too long. I don’t really like going out.

More old than big (laughs). Look, it was interesting to meet again, but each one with a life so defined already…

Yeah... Just so you can see how smart João was, he knew that and he called me. He called me, the only female voice, and put me there to sing eight tones below my range. And he even told me: “Maribeth, you've got the whole thing on your head!” João did what he wanted with me.

He would call Caetano at night, wake him up. He would tell crazy stories. He said he was going to marry me. And Caetano took it seriously. Musically, Gil was right up there with him. He was the only one with authority. He was the only one who could say: “João, I don’t understand the chord.” 

Gil did those miraculous things with his voice. Once, João said: “Gilson, you’re heading the ball really well.” Everybody sat on the floor, it was like the 1970s, on João’s cushions, on his carpets…

João was a charmer, besides his genius, he was a delightful company. I only went to his house because he asked us to go and rehearse. João came out of the bathroom all wet and put on a suit to welcome me. Then he called me to the kitchen to find the tone.

He kept going lower, lower, I said I didn’t know if any sound would come out. It worked, I love that recording. The recording was late, eleven at night, and it was raining. Caetano said: “I’ll go with Gil and you go with João. He drives as well as he sings.”

And I was worried whether he knew how to drive. And I almost died in that car. He would stop cold, run a red light, say, “Shoo, carioca!” Caetano and Gil were laughing when we arrived. They had a beautiful brotherhood.

In the studio, everybody was singing and playing without knowing when they were recording. I kept singing and repeating. At a certain point, he stopped and said: “We got it.” I couldn’t see any difference from one to the other, but if he said we had it, then we had it.

It made me proud to have been invited and to have participated so differently than what I am. He taught me to deepen my love for bossa nova, for the beat of his guitar. 

We did a big tour, in Italy, in England, some countries… It was a long tour. Gil, a gentleman! He was already a minister, very elegant. In a hotel where we stopped, I remember him leaving me the only available suite.

Very kind. I gave him a tie as a gift back then. He thought it was funny and I said: “That’s because you're a minister.” When he was a minister, he honored the samba de roda of the Reconcave region. I’m very grateful to him for that.

And I’m strict, but I have endless musical confidence in Gil. And he has such an extraordinary ear that he can hear it for his taste and do it for mine.

It's a joke to call me a songwriter! I wrote two sounds that Caetano set to music. And I wrote a song for Gal, the only one I wrote sitting, thinking, wanting her to sing. And she sang, she made a record. With Gil, I don’t think I ever dared. Caetano did it without me thinking too much.

There are moments when he moves me too much. Gil is very intelligent, sensitive… He’s an artist who I will always revere. And I thank for the opportunity to get to know him so closely. 

I think I would tell him to continue being an extraordinary musician, the songwriter he is, because Brazil needs him more than ever. And the world will be grateful for his musical genius.