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As it says in the lyrics of Cabelo no Pente, Alceu Valença walked through the streets of the past. But without leaving home. The 73-year-old singer and songwriter is guarded at his residence in Rio de Janeiro and quarantines the guitar, recalling songs that stimulate memories of the places he has been. “I spend all my time traveling in these stories,” says Alceu.
This Sunday, May 3, at 6 pm, he performs live through his YouTube channel in support of an action to distribute resources to music professionals who are not working due to the quarantine. Follow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfdu56g3FNM
In this interview, Alceu talks about the current moment and explains why his work spans generations.
How has your quarantine been?
I have been in quarantine since the beginning of quarantine. I started playing the guitar. When I lived in Paris in the late 1970s, I had nothing to do and continued to play the guitar. Now, all day long with nothing to do, I keep playing things from my repertoire and some from Luiz Gonzaga. I still remember São Bento do Una, where I was born. Then I remember Olinda and start singing Olinda things. Then I remember São Paulo, songs I made in the city (sing excerpts from Dia de Cão and Na Primeira Manhã). Then I sing a song I made in Minas Gerais, Solidão, and a song I made in New York, Tesoura do Desejo. I spend all my time traveling in these stories.
What are you preparing for life?
Paulo Rafael (guitarist) participates playing five songs with me. Life is free and I keep doing things. But all the time I think about a script, connections that I see. When I’m singing a song that talks about hair, like Girassol, I remember Hair in the Comb. When I sing Pau De Arara, by Luiz Gonzaga, I remember São Bento do Una. If I remember there, I will sing a hammer of a heck (I recite a passage from Heard). Everything in my head is the HD of memory, projecting a better future in which humanity destroys the coronavirus.
How is your relationship with the internet and technology?
The Internet is wonderful. In confinement, if there were no WhatsApp, people would go crazy inside the house. I am communicating with family and friends around the world. But I have some care. I am not part of groups and this is very good for me because I like to be a free thinker. It seems to me that the group question on the Internet makes thinking almost always a group thought. I also watch movies, but I prefer the big screen.
This is live support for the Juntos Pela Música project, an initiative by Spotify and the Brazilian Union of Composers (UBC) to distribute resources to musical artists at this time of the pandemic. What is the situation for singers and songwriters right now when there are no shows?
It is difficult for the culture and music group. I see the situation of those who work as sound and roadie technicians. It is difficult for this class. People still can’t understand what the creative economy is. I saw a report saying that São João da Bahia had ended and that it was moving R $ 1 billion. People sometimes stigmatize this type of event.
A characteristic of his shows is that in the audience there are people who accompany him from the beginning of his career to young people of 20 years. What prompted this gathering of generations?
My music was never about movement. I was never part of them. When I studied law, I was a journalist for Jornal do Brasil and Editora Bloch. I didn’t know if I was going to be an artist. I arrived in Rio in an incredible shyness in that sense, I didn’t know if my music was good, if it wasn’t. Geraldo Azevedo liked my music and gave me strength. My work is in time three: present, past and future, all at the same time. The Beatles are an eternal thing. But if I followed the path of the Beatles, it was going to be a by-product of the Beatles. If I looked for movements, I would stay within that movement. So instead of belonging to the movement, I move and my music moves. La Belle de Jour, on YouTube, has 91 million views. With the internet, the father who liked it passes it to his son and then the Holy Spirit blesses him.
Four years have passed since the resumption of O Grande Encontro, a show with Geraldo and Elba Ramalho. When you saw you again, did you think the project would last that long?
It is a pleasure for us to be together. Geraldinho is my friend, but he doesn’t come to my house and I don’t go to his house either. He is a great guy. Elba also only lives on the road and I also only live on the road. In the Great Meeting we meet, a meeting of three people who have a similar history. Geraldinho was my partner on the first album. People request the show in advance and our managers communicate. The Great Encounter takes place, but there is also my São João show, the carnival show, the Ouro Preto Orchestra show, the acoustic show and Amigo da Arte, which has not yet been to São Paulo and Rio, where the repertoire. an allusion to a poet or writer that stuck with me.
You and Moraes Moreira toyed with the fact that the public sometimes confused them with each other. I imagine that his death must have been a shock to you.
It was sad. I had talked to a friend of mine from Recife, already locked up, and I was happy. The same day, this friend told me to call Moraes and I ended up not calling. Rio de Janeiro had a meeting of poets, musicians like Moraes, my friends. There was no need to book, you went to the Diagonal bar and there were people there, or in a Gávea bar. No one else goes to Diagonal and the meetings were difficult. It also came from the field, it had to do with the rope. He really admired the Novos Baianos, because they used the electric guitar in a genuinely Brazilian song.
Have you been following the contemporary scene in Pernambuco? What is it you like the most of her?
Juliano Holanda, Almério, Isabela Moraes, a girl from Caruaru. They are very talented people. We need to welcome these people. Today anyone can record. That is good. When I came to Rio de Janeiro, Geraldo and I auditioned for the Philips record label and we didn’t approve, maybe they weren’t interested in the songs. At that time, the relationship was much easier, the record company put a song on the radio, the person listened and bought the album. For those who start today it is difficult to appear, because on the Internet the menu is very large.
What is your assessment of Brazil at the moment?
We are going through this pandemic and I do the opposite of what the President says. When he says to go to the street, I don’t, I stay inside the house. Is it influenzazinha? No, the flu is strong. Many people are dying.
What do you plan to do when the quarantine ends?
Doing shows, traveling and spending time in São Bento do Una, in the middle of the forest, listening to the birds and the sounds of nature.
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