Gilberto Gil: A Life's Work

Gilberto Gil is not just a singer and musician. He has been his own personal project, heading down various paths and transforming into different Gilberto Gils in the process. Behind the singer who started his career in Bahia, and the accordion player who trained at an academy in Salvador, lies a man of many talents.

There is the qualified business manager who worked at Gessy Lever, and whose career was just taking off when he decided to become a full-time musician.

One of musician Gilberto Gil's first jobs was writing jingles for the advertising agency owned by the Bahian musician Jorge Santos. Santos would go on to set up his own label and studio under the name JS Discos, where, incidentally, Gil would make his first records. 

For example, his song Indigo Blue appeared in a jeans advertisement in 1984. Gil also lent his voice to some commercials.

While still a little boy, Gilberto Passos Gil Moreira was already telling his parents that he wanted to be a "musgueiro," which is how he pronounced the Portuguese word músico, for musician. From first hearing the art of improvised singing known as repente, at fairs in Ituaçu, he set about learning the accordion—his first musical instrument. 

After becoming a fan of João Gilberto, he switched to the acoustic guitar as his main instrument for writing and playing songs. Influenced by bossa nova, baião (from northeastern Brazil), reggae, and rock, he always followed wherever the music—and any new professional and creative opportunities—led him.

Besides Portuguese, Gilberto Gil also speaks, reads, and understands English, French, and Spanish. His world tours brought him into contact with these three languages, and he was able to improve his English while living in exile. 

The British singer Terry Reid was Gil's housemate when he first arrived in London, saying in one interview that he started teaching his new friend a few things and he soon became fluent. He also recalled that Gil tended to refer to almost everything as "diabolical."

Terry went on to have a solo career in the 1970s and was even asked to be the lead vocalist for the New Yardbirds, who would later become Led Zeppelin, but he turned them down.

As well as Gil the musician, there is Gil the actor, who has even appeared in big-screen productions like O Demiurgo (The Demiurge), a film written and directed by Jorge Mautner. Filmed in 16 mm in London, in 1970, Mautner has described the main theme of the film as being a longing for Brazil. 

Gil played the god Pan, in what he himself described as one of the crazier times in his life. Caetano Veloso and Mautner also appeared in the film.

Gil also appeared in the 1983 film Corações a Mil (Heart Pounding Beat). It tells the story of a communications professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC) who decides to study the life of a popular singer, Gil, in an attempt to uncover the secret of mass communication. 

Caetano Veloso was also involved in the production.

The film was directed by Jom Tob Azulay and the cast included Regina Casé. Gil's fans have also been able to see the singer acting in several of his own music videos. 

In Vamos Fugir, he appears alongside his wife, Flora, relaxing in front of chroma key (green screen) backdrops—the technology used in the 1980s.

As well as working with some of the big names in production, like Liminha and Mazola, Gil is also a record producer himself. He set up the Geleia Geral label, releasing albums by names like Jorge Mautner.

Gil also produced Mautner's 1974 self-titled album, which included a cover version of Gil's song Maracatu Atômico. In collaboration Liminha, Gil and Caetano Veloso also produced their Tropicália 2 album in 1993, which brought the two Bahian musicians back together again.

Gilberto Gil and the multi-instrumentalist Sérgio Chiavazzoli during recordings of the album As Canções de Eu, Tu, Eles. 

Gil's writing about the work produced by Jorge Mautner.