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Gal Costa

About this Artist

GAL COSTA was born in Salvador, Bahia and was brought up listening to music – on the radio always turned on in the house, in the record store where she worked as a teenager, at the Tenis Baiano Club – with friends, until she got in touch with the group of rising stars such as Caetano Veloso who in the early ’60s was already pioneering the new Brazilian Popular Music. Later came the courage to come down to Rio and São Paulo. The first show in São Paulo, “Arena Canta Bahia,” wasn’t exactly a hit but who ever saw it, will never forget it. Gal, who still called herself “Gracinha,” was quiet and thoughtful, listening most of the time and being listened to only when she sang bossa nova standards. When everything became psychedelic and marvellous with Tropicalismo, Maria de Graça turned into Gal (from the nickname “Gau,” given by a younger cousin). Brazil was going through a dictatorship totally against new ideologies and concepts, and Gal and Caetano chose to become political exiles in London, with Gal taking part in politically radical concerts.

The campus stages and those of alternate show places suddenly became too small. It was time to cross the borders. And in the early ’80s, several countries received her, setting up an international bridge, with concerts in Japan, France, Israel, Argentina, the U.S., Portugal, Italy, and others.

O Sorriso do Gato de Alice is the 20th album of a career that has turned into one of the most successful in the international music world.