Margareth Menezes: 'Gil was a Bahian-style punk'

The first, most defining memory that I have of Gil was when he did a concert here at the Ginásio Fonte Nova, when he brought along Jimmy Cliff. I was still a student at the time. It was 1980, I was 17 or 18, and it was the first time that I saw Gil live. 

I was a member of a school theater group and I had this really cool friend called Silas Henrique and he took me. There were so many people! It was amazing! It was the first big concert, with such a huge crowd, that I'd been to. 

At that time, Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley, Peter Tosh were the big names but I went because of Gil, because he already meant a lot to me. I had just got a guitar off my mother, I loved playing his songs, my gang got a buzz out of that. 

Look, all that generation was very symbolic. They were huge … There was Gil, Caetano … This was just four years after he had been in prison… So everything was symbolic, everything was amazing! It was like the bands Legião Urbana and Paralamas do Sucesso would be for the next generation. 

We had Belchior, too. He was questioning, telling us so many things, and he brought an irreverence and some deep questioning. There was Alceu Valença, another revolutionary. and Raul Seixas … And there was Rita Lee. I went to one of her concerts when she came with Nina Hagen. 

Gil's ideas were already libertarian and he symbolized everything for us. He was always a guy who … His manner, his attitude, his way of speaking … They were against everything that was limiting or constraining. He knew no boundaries. He was a punk, a Brazilian-style, Bahian-style punk. 

And, for us Blacks, Gil represented that. He may not have been a political flag, but he represented us. Him, Jorge Ben, Luiz Melodia ... That flag was for the freedom to be, and that was a big deal. 

These guys had been in prison just for talking about freedom! That was just too inconvenient. When they performed, when they appeared, they rallied people to the cause of urban identity while also introducing a nationalist context. That said a lot to people. 

They changed the face of Brazilian music.  

We met several times after that. PercPan was a key moment. When Gil was celebrating 30 years in show business, the Montreux Festival paid tribute to him and I appeared on the main stage with Hermeto Paschoal and Paralamas do Sucesso …

… Caetano, Gil, Chico Buarque, and the Trio Ternura group were all there in the theater. Then, we all got up on stage to sing together in a tribute to Gil. I was the only female vocalist from Bahia there. I went three times. 

I did two years back to back, which was somewhat unprecedented in the history of the festival. During one of those, I was singing on the same night as Gil and he called me up onto the stage. Apart from that, I took part in the Viva São João!, tour, in the concerts he gave in cities around the Northeast of Brazil and at Praia do Flamengo in Salvador. 

I invited him onto the top of my Movimento Afropop Brasileiro sound truck so I could pay tribute to him, along with the other samba blocks from the Brazilian Afropop theme. More recently, he also came onto my Mercado Iaô truck. 

At Carnival time, both Gil and Caetano were always here, busy doing things and supporting the Carnival. Then Flora launched their Expresso 2222 camarote (viewing box), which became a Carnival hallmark. He invited us, that's to say me, Tatau, Daniela Mercury, Ivete, onto his Expresso 2222 sound truck.

And Gil brought Bono and so many other people, always teaming up with others and wanting to work together. Together with Flora—who plays a huge part on the administrative side and is always on the ball—they score some marvelous goals every year at Carnival. 

The first song I recorded was Domingo no Parque, with Hermeto Pascoal, on the SongBook album. Then I invited him to appear on my album Naturalmente, where he sang Mulher de Coronel with me. Gil's album, O Eterno Deus Mu Dança, was very significant in my life. 

It included Mulher de Coronel and, then, I resurrected Índigo Blue in a concert at Salvador's Praça Castro Alves theater in 1989. Paraguassu was written for an edition of the PercPan Festival that featured myself, Ivete Sangalo, and Daniela Mercury. He did a song for each of us. 

She was a female figure with huge strength, so much so that she left her mark on Brazilian history. And, besides, this was also a previously unheard song by Gil. It was a huge privilege for me to record it. 

From there, it all took off. I returned several times to Rio de Janeiro. I toured with this concert for four years and recorded the DVD in Vivo Rio with Caetano and Gil. Caetano was traveling and so we did the recording later in Gil's studio. And Gil recorded on stage and it was really cool …

… because I invited Bem Gil and Moreno Veloso to join the band, as well as Preta Gil to sing Refazenda with Gil and myself and Panis et Circensis with me, Bem, and Moreno. And Gil appeared on other tracks. Flora Gil and Paula Lavigne provided huge encouragement and never did anything to block the recordings.

Every time I think about it, I see what I did and I am very grateful for the part they played in it all. 

Gil's albums were always compilations. Gil's head is a kaleidoscope of thoughts and ideas. He's rather esoteric. He always talks about his vision in his songs. It's so nice when you hear a human being who is feeling something and is able to express that feeling …

... as part of the message in a song like Drão, which he wrote for his ex-wife ... What a magnificent way of talking about a relationship that's over! He gives a timelessness to what they created together.

What I see is a lot of spiritual ancestry, where he dives deeply into what binds the spirit to creation. 

One thing I find cool about Gil is that he never put himself in my shoes. But he did. His ideas about humanity, his way of speaking about his love for things, his love for human beings. That beautiful song Sandra —where he sings "Maria Aparecida because you appeared in my life"—is something else! 

The way he talks about women is so lovely. He is speaking as a man, but as a man lacking any machismo, lacking that need to be superior to women. He is a human being who is crying, who is opening up, who is feeling tenderness. 

He is valuing motherhood, and all womankind. That's it. What makes him special is that he is, of course, a human being, with all his qualities and faults, but without any need for vanity. 

As a minister, Gil managed to do something, together with Juca Ferreira, that no-one had ever done before. For the first time, a minister visited different cities to meet with local artists, producers, and representatives. It was the first time I ever saw a culture minister do this. 

They created these Pontos de Cultura (Cultural Hotspots) everywhere, in large and small cities alike. They set up a network. The problem was that, just when he was making those connections, starting to build on the idea of the network and put his vision into practice, there was a change of ministers and culture was once again low down on the list of priorities.