On June 24, 1976, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa, Gilberto Gil and Maria Bethânia took the stage at the Palácio das Convenções do Anhembi, in São Paulo, as the group Doces Bárbaros. The group’s tour, which brought together four of the main names in Brazilian popular music at the time, gave rise to the double album that marked the disruptive spirit of the time.
The group’s name appeared as a provocation to the labels placed by the press in the Rio-São Paulo axis on the presence of Bahian artists in the music scene of the 1970s. The newspaper “O Pasquim” referred to them as “the Bahians” in a pejorative way, insinuating an “invasion” of the cultural elite that met in concert halls in the capitals of the Southeast. As a way of mocking prejudice, the group transformed pecha into bold visual and musical elements.
The first show was produced by Guilherme Araújo and Perinho Albuquerque, in addition to the general direction led by Caetano and the musical direction, by Gil. The two had already accumulated a counterculture repertoire created with Tropicália in the 1960s, which mixed northeastern popular culture with rock’n’roll and psychedelia, and respected the conservatism of the Military Dictatorship.
The historic presentation in São Paulo brought together a unique language in the group’s album of the same name, “Doces Bárbaros”, which includes among the tracks “Fé Cega, Faca Amolada”, by and Ronaldo Bastos, “Chuck Berry Fields Forever”, by Gil, which makes reference to North American rock’n’roll and the black diaspora, and “Pássaro Proibido”, a rare composition by Maria Bethânia in partnership with Caetano Veloso, in reference to the repression of the military regime.
The opening track, titled “Os Mais Doces Bárbaros”, was conceived by Caetano Veloso as an introduction to the group. Interestingly, the original title of the song was “Os Mais Doces dos Bárbaros”, but a spelling error by the record company consolidated the version without the preposition. The tracks on side B, which contain classics such as “Esotérico” and “O Seu Amor”, feature the powerful voices of Gal e, reinventing love in times of hate and censorship.
The album cover is signed by photographer Orlando Abrunhosa, who brought the artists together in the same frame, arranged in a circle. The position of the musicians forms a continuum, which represents the horizontality and permanence of their legacy for Brazilian music.
