Meeting a Legend

Over the past four years, the University Musical Society has pulled off an amazing coup: they have brought in four of the biggest legends in Brazilian popular music history to perform at Hill Auditorium. The year before I came to Ann Arbor they hosted Gilberto Gil (Que pena!), my first year I saw Caetano Veloso in concert, last year I missed out on Milton Nascimento due to some now-forgotten conflict, and this year they have brought in Gal Costa.

If you are a fan of Brazilian music, your jaw is on the floor right now. Those four are like the Mount Rushmore of MPB (Popular Brazilian Music). History remembers them not just as amazingly provocative musicians, but as leaders of the Tropicália movement, the artistic resistance against the military dictatorship that overtook Brazil in 1964. Tropicália was considered so subversive that Caetano and Gil were thrown in prison in 1969 and eventually exiled to England until 1972.

I mentioned to Peter that I was planning on going to the Gal Costa concert on Saturday night and he forwarded me an email announcing that Gal Costa would be holding a Q & A session on campus this afternoon. I was really disappointed because it was scheduled during a time that I would be in class and then I had a lesson to teach on the other side of campus right afterward. But my class ended uncharacteristically early and my student emailed me with a last-minute cancellation, so I was able to make it to the final fifteen minutes of the Q & A session.

Afterward Gal was mobbed by people, mostly Brazilians, wanting autographs and photos with her. The size of the crowd and the fact that I'm not Brazilian discouraged me and I almost left without trying to approach her. However, I asked a Brazilian lady if she would snap the picture for me and pushed through the crowd all the way to Gal. I tapped her on the shoulder and asked (in Portuguese) if I could get a picture with her and she politely posed with me.

Just when the Brazilian lady pressed the button to take the picture, the battery died. I explained to her in Portuguese how to turn the camera off and back on again. While she was fumbling with it Gal said to me (in Portuguese), "Wait, are you American?" At that point I got a little starstruck and I told her that I spent two years in São Paulo, and then I started gushing uncontrollably saying that I love her music, that she's amazing, that she's the wind beneath my wings, etc.* She told me, "Você merece esta foto mais que as outras pessoas aqui porque você aprendeu a nossa língua e a nossa música" ("You deserve this photo more than the other people here because you learned our language and our music"). She told me at least twice that I speak Portuguese really well. I get really excited when any Brazilian tells me that my Portuguese is good, but having Gal Costa was really touching and made me super-giddy. Then the camerawoman finally got the camera to work long enough to snap a picture.

It's not the greatest picture - the flash washed us both out - but at least the camera stayed alive long enough to take it. The camera failure actually turned out to be a good thing because it lead to Gal talking to me for about a minute solid.

For the uninitiated, here are Gal's two signature songs, both from 1968:

"Baby"



"Divino Maravilhoso"



*This reminded me of the time when my friend Kevin got to meet world-famous baritone Thomas Hampson backstage after a concert. Kevin shook his hand and tried to play it cool, but out of nowhere he blurted out, "YOU'RE AN INSPIRATION TO ALL YOUNG SINGERS!" Hampson smiled awkwardly and backed away. Luckily Gal Costa was not weirded out by me in a similar fashion. Maybe it's good thing that I didn't get to meet Drew Barrymore face to face. I probably would have breathlessly told her about my weird dream about her and she would have gotten a restraining order against me.