Guinga: simple genius on the fingertips
In an interview to AllBrazilianMusic, the songwriter talks about his fifth album, Cine Baronesa, which hits the stores next week
Nana Vaz de Castro
30/03/2001
Ten years after the release of his debut album, Simples e Absurdo 
, which launched the label Velas, Guinga continues to jiggle between the music and his dentist's office, where he works twice a week. Adored by musicians and little known by the public in general , his establishment on the music scene in Brazil can now be measured: his biography and a songbook are underway.
Born in Rio de Janeiro and having traded the suburbs for the beach in Leblon, Guinga cultivates non-orthodox habits, such as cleaning the floor whenever people leave the house because of the dirt on their shoes, or walking huge distances only to avoid traffic jams. He likes movies, but hasn't been to a movie theater in four years. He's one of the greatest guitarists in the country, but claims that his dream is to own a good guitar and a good guitar case to keep it. Besides all that, he won't wear pajamas or flip-flops, due to a traumatic desease that kept him in bed for a month in his childhood. He won't touch a computer or listen to CDs at home - he only listens to the radio.
In the interview to AllBrazilianMusic, Carlos Althier de Souza Lemos Escobar talks about fame, partners, musical influence, new guitarists and, of course, the upcoming album, Cine Baronesa .
AllBrazilianMusic - Cine Baronesa is your fifth solo album. What is its role in your discography?
Guinga - It tells a story, sort of like Cheio de Dedos and Suíte Leopoldina. It is Leopoldina's sibling, both discs feature a number of arrangements written by Gilson Peranzzetta. Apart from that, Cine has two arrangements by Maogani and two by Nailor Proveta. It is a bit more instrumental than the first ones, but a little less instrumental than Suíte Leopoldina.
AllBrazilianMusic - You only started to record instrumental tracks on the third album, Cheio de Dedos, right?
Guinga - I have always been a songwriter, but I have found a way to let out my view on things in an instrumental manner. I'm a songwriter, but I've always enjoyed instrumental music. In fact, I have always listened to instrumental music, more than to songs. I have listened to too many songs, I'm a songwriter, and I am better at writing songs, but I've tried to make the instrumental language feasible. On Cheio de Dedos, I wanted to know how my songs would sound if they were instrumental, because up to that moment, I had only recorded songs, and then I liked it. I liked it so much that I decided to do it again on Suíte Leopoldina, but I can say now that I'm done - I mean, in medical school we learn that we shouldn't say "never" or "always" - but from now on, I want my records to feature more songs. Because the instrumental thing on my albums is there only to make them accepted outside of Brazil.
AllBrazilianMusic - And did it happen?
Guinga - Oh, yeah, I've been to Europe three times in a row, always through instrumental projects. In a way, instrumental music is a type of universal language, everybody can understand. People might even hear the lyrics and not understand them, enjoy the sounds... I played an instrumental concert in Europe, but I sang, too.
AllBrazilianMusic - But your songs, even the ones with lyrics, are costantly being recorded by instrumental groups, such as Di Menor (recorded by Quinteto Villa-Lobos
and by Quarteto Maogani ), Choro pro Zé (recorded by Água de Moringa and Marco Pereira ) or Nítido e Obscuro (recorded by Bartholomeu Wiese & Afonso Machado , Turíbio Santos and Pife Muderno).
Guinga - True. The Quinteto Villa-Lobos' album has some of my songs, and many of them receive instrumental reviews.
AllBrazilianMusic - This year will be ten years since you made your debut album (Simples e Absurdo). Even though you had been performing and composing as a professional since the 1970s, there was a boom of recordings of your songs in the 90s.
Guinga - Yes, in the 1980s almost nobody recorded my songs, I was kind of forgotten. Now, the other day I heard the news that four singers have recorded my songs in the United States, this year, and I hadn't even been told. It stinks, because the editors won't take it on account and I won't get a penny for it. In fact, I don't even know the singers' names. I need to have my songs recorded, because that's how my work will remain, and I also need the copyright income. You see, now that it's been ten years since my first disc, I'm releasing the fifth. Plus the one that Leila Pinheiro released [Catavento e Girassol , music by Guinga and Aldir Blanc], that's six albums. 84 songs. It's a good rate, huh? And we're not including the ones recorded by other artists.
AllBrazilianMusic - There are about 150 recordings of your music, including your own albums.
Guinga - 150? That's a lot, I guess. Maybe not that much, but what counts is the quality, right? Look at Dorival Caymmi, for instance, apparently he has made about 80 songs, and he's a genius, one of the biggest in Brazil ever. So what counts is the quality. Tom Jobim, for one, started recording by the time when he was 35, 36 years-old. Cartola started recording when he was 70. So it's nice to have my music recorded, and it helps when it comes to royalties.
AllBrazilianMusic - Which must have increased in the past ten years....
Guinga - From time to time, the income will increase, according to the amount of songs recorded, or what is played live, sometimes. I need it, because today I live off of this.
AllBrazilianMusic - What about your office?
Guinga - The office comes after the music, especially for the past 5 or 6 years. And I have consciously been giving less time to the office, so I can't make a living out of it alone. I wanted to make a living out of music, which is sort of a nutty option, but, anyway.
AllBrazilianMusic - But you did live off of dentistry for a long while.
Guinga - Certainly, for about 16 years I was only a dentist, and I made a lot more money than I do now. Now I make less money, but I'm happier. With music, we never know, all of a sudden it kicks in and you get the whole lot. For example, I got married with the money that I got from one song.
AllBrazilianMusic - What do you mean?
Guinga - Thanks to Valsa do Realejo , which Clara Nunes recorded [on the album Claridade, from 1975]. At that time, she sold 300 thousand copies of the album in one month, so I collected a lot of money, the equivalent to 15 thousand dollars, maybe. So I bought everything that I needed, electrical appliances, furniture, I rented a flat, all with one song's money.
AllBrazilianMusic - You enjoy good visibility on the media, musicians talk about you, record your songs, but you are never on the television or on the radio...
Guinga - In Rio, my songs are not on the radio. TV, forget about it. I was once introduced to Oswaldo Montenegro, somebody told him "this is Guinga", and he replied "Guinga? You are the most famous unknown character in Brazil!". Many people can't figure what I look like, but they have heard my name, they know my songs. It's somewhat on the wrong way, but it's worked out.
AllBrazilianMusic - Some MPB lyricists regret that they are little remembered or little known, that everybody knows their songs but not their faces. Do you miss being in the spotlight?
Guinga - Well, now it has decreased a bit. My life is different from the lives of my partners, like Aldir Blanc, Paulinho Pinheiro, because I do go up on stage. They stay at home writing away. Their art is made in bed, they can produce a lot and remain there. But for the musician, especially if he/she sings a bit, as I do, it doesn't bother, really.
AllBrazilianMusic - How did you start singing? How did the singer Guinga come up?
Guinga - I saw myself obliged to sing. I don't sing shit, don't regard myself as a singer, I know I don't sing well, but at the same time, I think that I'm the person who gives the most faithful reproduction of my own music. That's what songwriters are like. The best example is Nelson Cavaquinho. If you analyze his voice, it wasn't pleasant, but I love him singing his own songs, just like I adore Chico Buarque doing his own songs... Chico's best interpreter is Chico, Tom's is Tom, Cartola's is Cartola and so on.
AllBrazilianMusic - But both Nelson and Cartola became known through the voices of other interpreters, they didn't start out singing their own music.
Guinga - It's true, I sing because I need to manifest, I need to go on stage to work, you end up having to do it. It also enables the artistic product, because a songwriter whose face is a mystery, and nobody hears his/her voice, the songwriter is bound to have a thousand songs recorded but nobody knows who that person is. The lyricists that you've mentioned, Fernando Brant, for example, few people know what he looks like. About three years ago he spoke to me at the airport, he said that he liked my music, and I said "thank you, but, I'm sorry, I don't know who you are". When he said "I'm Fernando Brant" I wanted to hide my head like an ostrich, because, of course, I do know who he is, I know very much who he is, but not his face. I've never seen him on the TV, and that is nobody's fault, but it happens because the television is not interested in that kind of artist. The TV cares for pretty faces only. And only up to a certain age, after a singer gets a bit older, she/he won't appear that much, no more. You don't need to have a good voice, just a pretty face. So nobody's interested in a guy like me on the television. I have never been on the TV, no one's ever invited me to do anything.
AllBrazilianMusic - But you get to be known because you tour around the country.
Guinga - Oh, yeah, lots of concerts, I travel a lot. I do appear on the newspapers all the time, thank G"D. I have plenty of articles on me, at home... Lots of things.
AllBrazilianMusic - And do people recognize you on the streets, do they stop you, ask for your autograph?
Guinga - A little bit, but a lot more than I would have figured. On the streets, walking around the neighborhood, by the beach, quite a few people stop and talk to me, wave me goodbye. I don't know most of them, some might have talked to me in some other occasion, but I can't reallly remember, and they come very friendly, so I talk to them. Sometimes they'll honk the horns in their cars, or talk to me at the airport, it's very usual. That's not the center of my life, but I do enjoy it, because it is in small doses, so I can enjoy it. I believe that if it were tearing my private life apart, or if I had to stop and talk to someone every other five minutes, I would be very scared.
AllBrazilianMusic - Are you a shy person?
Guinga - Yes, very shy. Have you though of how horrible it is not to be able to go to the movies, to have to wear a disguise, as Roberto Carlos would do... I'm not comparing myself to him, but I figure it must be terrible. One of the few people that I see walking down the streets at ease is Chico Buarque. He walks on the promenade, if he has to go to the drugstore, he'll do it, I have met him at the supermarket... This is not very usual, someone as notorious as him, the most famous songwriter in Brazil. There are less famous artists who ride around in limousines, with security guys. Deep down, these people love to have their privacy invaded, but they pretend that they don't.
AllBrazilianMusic - So a certain fame is good, after all?
Guinga - It is. A lot worse than being stopped on the streets all the time is to be an anonymous artist. Even when people annoy you, because sometimes they'll do it. Once, I was walking down the street and some guy yelled "Guinga!Guinga!Guinga!". When I looked at him, he said "I met you in Rio Grande do Sul, I saw your concert, thought it was very cool". Then he went "Guinga, for Christ's sake, I think I have hurt my arm, take me to the hospital, I don't know anything around here!". I took him to the hospital, he ruined my walk (laughs). On the humane side, I had to do something, the guy was in pain, didn't know anybody, recognized me... Then I met this same guy in Porto Alegre, he went to see my show, and became my pal. So it's like I was saying, a lot worse than being stopped on the street because of your public persona, because people like you and want to spend time with you, is when you are a nobody. I have spent most of my careeer being one.
AllBrazilianMusic - So you do like fame.
Guinga - Of course. But, see, it's not like I'm after it, or I'm a slave to it. But I like it, and if anyone says that they don't, they are lying. I can't believe in famous people who claim to be angry with being famous. The person does everything in this life to become famous, and when fame comes, they say they hate it? Some demagogy. Famous people are famous because they have done whatever they could to turn famous. Even outlaws who become notorious, they work on the dark side because they want t attract attention. So don't tell me that the famous musicians hate being famous. They have done all that they could to pursue the fame! Have you imagined an artist dying anonymously, like Van Gogh? The amount of suffering caused by being a nobody?
AllBrazilianMusic - And now someone's writing your biography...
Guinga - Right.
AllBrazilianMusic - Journalist Mario Marques is writing yout biography, how is it going?
Guinga - Almost complete, but as far as I'm concerned, Mario still has to talk to a lot of important people in my life, my wife, daughters. But he has spoken to me and most of the people who matter. What I know is that it's almost done, there's only a few interviews left.
AllBrazilianMusic - Having a biography written on you at age 50 is one step forward in relation to what we were talking before, about being in the spotlight?
Guinga - This biography thing gives me two different feelings: the first is of wonder, the second is a bit gloomy, because usually people write biographies on dead persons, or when they are about to die... But, anyway, it shouldn't be a rule, and I'm ok with being the exception, getting a biography at age 50, but usually when the object of the biography is alive, it's got to be a very famous person, which is not the case with me.
AllBrazilianMusic - So why do you think that he wanted to write a book on you?
Guinga - Well, there's got to be some pride, for the quality of my music. Because I keep thinking of the guy who looked at me and, following his journalistic sense, envisioned the possibility to become part of the history of Brazilian music thorugh me. He is placing a bet on what he sees, without knowing whether it will really turn real. It's an insight. Like the songbook that is being prepared by the guys at Uni-Rio (music college).
, which launched the label Velas, Guinga continues to jiggle between the music and his dentist's office, where he works twice a week. Adored by musicians and little known by the public in general , his establishment on the music scene in Brazil can now be measured: his biography and a songbook are underway.Born in Rio de Janeiro and having traded the suburbs for the beach in Leblon, Guinga cultivates non-orthodox habits, such as cleaning the floor whenever people leave the house because of the dirt on their shoes, or walking huge distances only to avoid traffic jams. He likes movies, but hasn't been to a movie theater in four years. He's one of the greatest guitarists in the country, but claims that his dream is to own a good guitar and a good guitar case to keep it. Besides all that, he won't wear pajamas or flip-flops, due to a traumatic desease that kept him in bed for a month in his childhood. He won't touch a computer or listen to CDs at home - he only listens to the radio.
In the interview to AllBrazilianMusic, Carlos Althier de Souza Lemos Escobar talks about fame, partners, musical influence, new guitarists and, of course, the upcoming album, Cine Baronesa
.AllBrazilianMusic - Cine Baronesa is your fifth solo album. What is its role in your discography?
Guinga - It tells a story, sort of like Cheio de Dedos
and Suíte Leopoldina. It is Leopoldina's sibling, both discs feature a number of arrangements written by Gilson Peranzzetta. Apart from that, Cine has two arrangements by Maogani and two by Nailor Proveta. It is a bit more instrumental than the first ones, but a little less instrumental than Suíte Leopoldina.AllBrazilianMusic - You only started to record instrumental tracks on the third album, Cheio de Dedos, right?
Guinga - I have always been a songwriter, but I have found a way to let out my view on things in an instrumental manner. I'm a songwriter, but I've always enjoyed instrumental music. In fact, I have always listened to instrumental music, more than to songs. I have listened to too many songs, I'm a songwriter, and I am better at writing songs, but I've tried to make the instrumental language feasible. On Cheio de Dedos, I wanted to know how my songs would sound if they were instrumental, because up to that moment, I had only recorded songs, and then I liked it. I liked it so much that I decided to do it again on Suíte Leopoldina, but I can say now that I'm done - I mean, in medical school we learn that we shouldn't say "never" or "always" - but from now on, I want my records to feature more songs. Because the instrumental thing on my albums is there only to make them accepted outside of Brazil.
AllBrazilianMusic - And did it happen?
Guinga - Oh, yeah, I've been to Europe three times in a row, always through instrumental projects. In a way, instrumental music is a type of universal language, everybody can understand. People might even hear the lyrics and not understand them, enjoy the sounds... I played an instrumental concert in Europe, but I sang, too.
AllBrazilianMusic - But your songs, even the ones with lyrics, are costantly being recorded by instrumental groups, such as Di Menor (recorded by Quinteto Villa-Lobos
and by Quarteto Maogani ), Choro pro Zé (recorded by Água de Moringa and Marco Pereira ) or Nítido e Obscuro (recorded by Bartholomeu Wiese & Afonso Machado , Turíbio Santos and Pife Muderno).Guinga - True. The Quinteto Villa-Lobos' album
has some of my songs, and many of them receive instrumental reviews. AllBrazilianMusic - This year will be ten years since you made your debut album (Simples e Absurdo). Even though you had been performing and composing as a professional since the 1970s, there was a boom of recordings of your songs in the 90s.
Guinga - Yes, in the 1980s almost nobody recorded my songs, I was kind of forgotten. Now, the other day I heard the news that four singers have recorded my songs in the United States, this year, and I hadn't even been told. It stinks, because the editors won't take it on account and I won't get a penny for it. In fact, I don't even know the singers' names. I need to have my songs recorded, because that's how my work will remain, and I also need the copyright income. You see, now that it's been ten years since my first disc, I'm releasing the fifth. Plus the one that Leila Pinheiro released [Catavento e Girassol
, music by Guinga and Aldir Blanc], that's six albums. 84 songs. It's a good rate, huh? And we're not including the ones recorded by other artists. AllBrazilianMusic - There are about 150 recordings of your music, including your own albums.
Guinga - 150? That's a lot, I guess. Maybe not that much, but what counts is the quality, right? Look at Dorival Caymmi, for instance, apparently he has made about 80 songs, and he's a genius, one of the biggest in Brazil ever. So what counts is the quality. Tom Jobim, for one, started recording by the time when he was 35, 36 years-old. Cartola started recording when he was 70. So it's nice to have my music recorded, and it helps when it comes to royalties.
AllBrazilianMusic - Which must have increased in the past ten years....
Guinga - From time to time, the income will increase, according to the amount of songs recorded, or what is played live, sometimes. I need it, because today I live off of this.
AllBrazilianMusic - What about your office?
Guinga - The office comes after the music, especially for the past 5 or 6 years. And I have consciously been giving less time to the office, so I can't make a living out of it alone. I wanted to make a living out of music, which is sort of a nutty option, but, anyway.
AllBrazilianMusic - But you did live off of dentistry for a long while.
Guinga - Certainly, for about 16 years I was only a dentist, and I made a lot more money than I do now. Now I make less money, but I'm happier. With music, we never know, all of a sudden it kicks in and you get the whole lot. For example, I got married with the money that I got from one song.
AllBrazilianMusic - What do you mean?
Guinga - Thanks to Valsa do Realejo
, which Clara Nunes recorded [on the album Claridade, from 1975]. At that time, she sold 300 thousand copies of the album in one month, so I collected a lot of money, the equivalent to 15 thousand dollars, maybe. So I bought everything that I needed, electrical appliances, furniture, I rented a flat, all with one song's money.AllBrazilianMusic - You enjoy good visibility on the media, musicians talk about you, record your songs, but you are never on the television or on the radio...
Guinga - In Rio, my songs are not on the radio. TV, forget about it. I was once introduced to Oswaldo Montenegro, somebody told him "this is Guinga", and he replied "Guinga? You are the most famous unknown character in Brazil!". Many people can't figure what I look like, but they have heard my name, they know my songs. It's somewhat on the wrong way, but it's worked out.
AllBrazilianMusic - Some MPB lyricists regret that they are little remembered or little known, that everybody knows their songs but not their faces. Do you miss being in the spotlight?
Guinga - Well, now it has decreased a bit. My life is different from the lives of my partners, like Aldir Blanc, Paulinho Pinheiro, because I do go up on stage. They stay at home writing away. Their art is made in bed, they can produce a lot and remain there. But for the musician, especially if he/she sings a bit, as I do, it doesn't bother, really.
AllBrazilianMusic - How did you start singing? How did the singer Guinga come up?
Guinga - I saw myself obliged to sing. I don't sing shit, don't regard myself as a singer, I know I don't sing well, but at the same time, I think that I'm the person who gives the most faithful reproduction of my own music. That's what songwriters are like. The best example is Nelson Cavaquinho. If you analyze his voice, it wasn't pleasant, but I love him singing his own songs, just like I adore Chico Buarque doing his own songs... Chico's best interpreter is Chico, Tom's is Tom, Cartola's is Cartola and so on.
AllBrazilianMusic - But both Nelson and Cartola became known through the voices of other interpreters, they didn't start out singing their own music.
Guinga - It's true, I sing because I need to manifest, I need to go on stage to work, you end up having to do it. It also enables the artistic product, because a songwriter whose face is a mystery, and nobody hears his/her voice, the songwriter is bound to have a thousand songs recorded but nobody knows who that person is. The lyricists that you've mentioned, Fernando Brant, for example, few people know what he looks like. About three years ago he spoke to me at the airport, he said that he liked my music, and I said "thank you, but, I'm sorry, I don't know who you are". When he said "I'm Fernando Brant" I wanted to hide my head like an ostrich, because, of course, I do know who he is, I know very much who he is, but not his face. I've never seen him on the TV, and that is nobody's fault, but it happens because the television is not interested in that kind of artist. The TV cares for pretty faces only. And only up to a certain age, after a singer gets a bit older, she/he won't appear that much, no more. You don't need to have a good voice, just a pretty face. So nobody's interested in a guy like me on the television. I have never been on the TV, no one's ever invited me to do anything.
AllBrazilianMusic - But you get to be known because you tour around the country.
Guinga - Oh, yeah, lots of concerts, I travel a lot. I do appear on the newspapers all the time, thank G"D. I have plenty of articles on me, at home... Lots of things.
AllBrazilianMusic - And do people recognize you on the streets, do they stop you, ask for your autograph?
Guinga - A little bit, but a lot more than I would have figured. On the streets, walking around the neighborhood, by the beach, quite a few people stop and talk to me, wave me goodbye. I don't know most of them, some might have talked to me in some other occasion, but I can't reallly remember, and they come very friendly, so I talk to them. Sometimes they'll honk the horns in their cars, or talk to me at the airport, it's very usual. That's not the center of my life, but I do enjoy it, because it is in small doses, so I can enjoy it. I believe that if it were tearing my private life apart, or if I had to stop and talk to someone every other five minutes, I would be very scared.
AllBrazilianMusic - Are you a shy person?
Guinga - Yes, very shy. Have you though of how horrible it is not to be able to go to the movies, to have to wear a disguise, as Roberto Carlos would do... I'm not comparing myself to him, but I figure it must be terrible. One of the few people that I see walking down the streets at ease is Chico Buarque. He walks on the promenade, if he has to go to the drugstore, he'll do it, I have met him at the supermarket... This is not very usual, someone as notorious as him, the most famous songwriter in Brazil. There are less famous artists who ride around in limousines, with security guys. Deep down, these people love to have their privacy invaded, but they pretend that they don't.
AllBrazilianMusic - So a certain fame is good, after all?
Guinga - It is. A lot worse than being stopped on the streets all the time is to be an anonymous artist. Even when people annoy you, because sometimes they'll do it. Once, I was walking down the street and some guy yelled "Guinga!Guinga!Guinga!". When I looked at him, he said "I met you in Rio Grande do Sul, I saw your concert, thought it was very cool". Then he went "Guinga, for Christ's sake, I think I have hurt my arm, take me to the hospital, I don't know anything around here!". I took him to the hospital, he ruined my walk (laughs). On the humane side, I had to do something, the guy was in pain, didn't know anybody, recognized me... Then I met this same guy in Porto Alegre, he went to see my show, and became my pal. So it's like I was saying, a lot worse than being stopped on the street because of your public persona, because people like you and want to spend time with you, is when you are a nobody. I have spent most of my careeer being one.
AllBrazilianMusic - So you do like fame.
Guinga - Of course. But, see, it's not like I'm after it, or I'm a slave to it. But I like it, and if anyone says that they don't, they are lying. I can't believe in famous people who claim to be angry with being famous. The person does everything in this life to become famous, and when fame comes, they say they hate it? Some demagogy. Famous people are famous because they have done whatever they could to turn famous. Even outlaws who become notorious, they work on the dark side because they want t attract attention. So don't tell me that the famous musicians hate being famous. They have done all that they could to pursue the fame! Have you imagined an artist dying anonymously, like Van Gogh? The amount of suffering caused by being a nobody?
AllBrazilianMusic - And now someone's writing your biography...
Guinga - Right.
AllBrazilianMusic - Journalist Mario Marques is writing yout biography, how is it going?
Guinga - Almost complete, but as far as I'm concerned, Mario still has to talk to a lot of important people in my life, my wife, daughters. But he has spoken to me and most of the people who matter. What I know is that it's almost done, there's only a few interviews left.
AllBrazilianMusic - Having a biography written on you at age 50 is one step forward in relation to what we were talking before, about being in the spotlight?
Guinga - This biography thing gives me two different feelings: the first is of wonder, the second is a bit gloomy, because usually people write biographies on dead persons, or when they are about to die... But, anyway, it shouldn't be a rule, and I'm ok with being the exception, getting a biography at age 50, but usually when the object of the biography is alive, it's got to be a very famous person, which is not the case with me.
AllBrazilianMusic - So why do you think that he wanted to write a book on you?
Guinga - Well, there's got to be some pride, for the quality of my music. Because I keep thinking of the guy who looked at me and, following his journalistic sense, envisioned the possibility to become part of the history of Brazilian music thorugh me. He is placing a bet on what he sees, without knowing whether it will really turn real. It's an insight. Like the songbook that is being prepared by the guys at Uni-Rio (music college).
read more excerpts from Guinga's interviews:
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