Family remembers Gonzaguinha
The songwriter’s offspring prepare a concert with their father’s repertoire. Gonzaguinha is remembered as a sensitive and caring person
Rodrigo Faour
27/04/2001
Gonzaguinha left this world at age 45, after 20 years in music, but he made words like struggle, courage, hope, work, sweat, race, strength and faith remain in Brazilian music forever. When he died, his four children were small. Daniel, Fernanda, Amora and Mariana are respectively 25, 22, 20 and 18 years old, now. The first three follow their daddy’s steps - the youngest wants to be a gynecologist - and should star on the concert Comportamento Geral in June, doing 25 of Gonzaguinha’s songs so as to remember his 10th death anniversary.
"The concert will offer a retrospective of my father’s career. It starts out with Comportamento Geral (from his first album) and closes with Cavaleiro Solitário, which is the last song that he ever wrote.", says Daniel Gonzaga, the first of his children to become a musician. He has already put out two albums and is a follower of his father’s awareness. Fortunately, according to Daniel, his father’s music did not fall into oblivion after he died. "His songs are used in advertising. And the family owns unreleased songs which are slowly being recorded by other artists", he explains, adding that he intends to promote a tribute-concert to his grandfather, Luiz Gonzaga.
Singer and actress Amora Pêra, daughter of Gonzaguinha with actress Sandra Pêra, remembers how careful and caring he was. "My father was extremely caring and also quite strict toward the discipline that he thought his children should follow. He was very attentive to our health. He demanded that we eat right and not spend the day watching TV, and that we should play everyday". When her father was alive, Amora couldn’t measure the importance of his music, but she understood that he was popular and noticed the quality of his work. "As I was growing up, I realized how talented he was, and the things that he had to say. He’s one of the people I admire the most in MPB", she says, proudly, pointing out the songs Sementes do Amanhã and Ponto de Interrogação.
Amora’s mother, Sandra Pêra, tells that she met her former boyfriend in 1977, during a plane trip, when she was singing with the group As Frenéticas. "I was crying and he came up to me and said: ‘Why are you crying? We only die once.’ That hit me. We drew apart until having our love affair, more or less between 1980 and 1982. But we were always together, even because we had our daughter", she says. When Amora was born, Gonzaga was still married, and took a few years to register her as his daughter. The result? Music, of course. He wrote Ser, Fazer, Acontecer.
Even before meeting with the songwriter, Sandra picked A Felicidade Bate à Sua Porta, from Gonzaguinha’s debut album, so that her all-girl group could take a test at Warner. "It ended up being our first hit. A year later, he wrote one special for us, O Preto Que Satisfaz, another hit, although it talked about racism." Sandra claims that many people did not understand his temper. "He always kept to himself, so some people didn’t think he was nice, but that was his defense, because deep inside he was as fragile as crystal.", she says.
"The concert will offer a retrospective of my father’s career. It starts out with Comportamento Geral (from his first album) and closes with Cavaleiro Solitário, which is the last song that he ever wrote.", says Daniel Gonzaga, the first of his children to become a musician. He has already put out two albums and is a follower of his father’s awareness. Fortunately, according to Daniel, his father’s music did not fall into oblivion after he died. "His songs are used in advertising. And the family owns unreleased songs which are slowly being recorded by other artists", he explains, adding that he intends to promote a tribute-concert to his grandfather, Luiz Gonzaga.
Singer and actress Amora Pêra, daughter of Gonzaguinha with actress Sandra Pêra, remembers how careful and caring he was. "My father was extremely caring and also quite strict toward the discipline that he thought his children should follow. He was very attentive to our health. He demanded that we eat right and not spend the day watching TV, and that we should play everyday". When her father was alive, Amora couldn’t measure the importance of his music, but she understood that he was popular and noticed the quality of his work. "As I was growing up, I realized how talented he was, and the things that he had to say. He’s one of the people I admire the most in MPB", she says, proudly, pointing out the songs Sementes do Amanhã and Ponto de Interrogação.
Amora’s mother, Sandra Pêra, tells that she met her former boyfriend in 1977, during a plane trip, when she was singing with the group As Frenéticas. "I was crying and he came up to me and said: ‘Why are you crying? We only die once.’ That hit me. We drew apart until having our love affair, more or less between 1980 and 1982. But we were always together, even because we had our daughter", she says. When Amora was born, Gonzaga was still married, and took a few years to register her as his daughter. The result? Music, of course. He wrote Ser, Fazer, Acontecer.
Even before meeting with the songwriter, Sandra picked A Felicidade Bate à Sua Porta, from Gonzaguinha’s debut album, so that her all-girl group could take a test at Warner. "It ended up being our first hit. A year later, he wrote one special for us, O Preto Que Satisfaz, another hit, although it talked about racism." Sandra claims that many people did not understand his temper. "He always kept to himself, so some people didn’t think he was nice, but that was his defense, because deep inside he was as fragile as crystal.", she says.
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