Costa, Gal Maria da Graça Penna Burgos born Maria da Graça Costa Penna Burgos on 26 September 1945, better known as Gal Costa, was a Brazilian popular music singer.
During her pregnancy, her mother, Mariah Costa Penna, spent hours listening to classical music in the hopes that Gal would be interested in music. Arnaldo Burgos, Gal’s father, died when Gal was 15 years old, and the two never met.
Gal met Sandra and Andréia Gadelha, the future wives of singer-songwriters Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, when she was 10 years old. This earned her the moniker Gau, which was later shortened to Gal.
At the age of 14, she grew fascinated in Bossa Nova after hearing Joo Gilberto’s “Chega de Saudade” on the radio. To be closer to music, she moved on to work as a clerk in Salvador’s biggest record store.
Andréia Gadelha introduced her to Caetano Veloso when she was 18, and they became good friends.
What is Gal Costa best known for?
Costa’s beautiful mezzo-soprano voice was a marvel of elegance and vigor, capable of defying gravity, acidic teasing, jazzy agility, and rock intensity.
She championed new Brazilian composers and cross-pollinated Brazilian regional styles with international pop and rock over a recording career spanning more than 50 years and three dozen albums.
Costa was in the forefront of the tropicália movement, which introduced psychedelic experimentation and anti-authoritarian irreverence to Brazilian pop music in the 1960s.
When Brazil’s government put the renowned tropicália songwriters, Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso, into exile from 1969 to 1972, Costa recorded their songs for Brazilian listeners.
