Teenage Mutant
The Brazilian bassist and producer Liminha looks back on his early work with Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, and Os Mutantes
by David Katz
Photo by Mario Luiz Thompson/Arquivo
Arnolpho Lima Jr., aka Liminha, is one of the multi-talented individuals responsible for shaping Brazilian music over the last forty years. Everyone in Brazil knows Liminha for his production work with Gilberto Gil—it spans about thirty years—but Mr. Lima is a versatile and influential musician in his own right. When I reach Nas Nuvens, the esteemed studio he and Gil established in the 1980s, I find that there are so many gold and platinum discs saluting Liminha’s talents that the walls of his office are not able to hold them all. And in addition to the array of instruments that seem to lurk in every corner, I was pleased to find the analog reel-to-reel that remains Liminha’s preferred method of capturing his magical productions. It is this old school sensibility, coupled with an open-mindedness and willingness to try new things, that has resulted in hits for everyone from João Gilberto and Jorge Ben to younger innovators like Ed Motta and Nação Zumbi.
Nas Nuvens is housed in a secluded spot, tucked into a hillside in one of Rio’s better neighborhoods. In its relaxed environs on a Sunday afternoon, I find that the only things to worry about are the mangoes occasionally dropping off the roof, and the toxic sand flies that seek the fine wine my host is kind enough to share with me. Over the course of the evening, Liminha regales me with tales of making music since the late 1960s. What follows are some of the highlights, focusing on his early years as the bassist for Os Mutantes, one of the most notorious Tropicália acts.
How did you become involved in music?
My mother was a piano teacher, and my father was a pharmacist who played violin, guitar, and mandolin. He wasn’t able to read music, so he improv-ed a lot. I started on acoustic guitar—a sort of dobro guitar—when I was ten. I remember I went to a college park with my sister for a party for the end of the year, and I said, “Man, I have to go to this college, because I want to step on that stage.” So the next year, I was at the college, and we put a band together with five acoustic guitars. Then, when I was thirteen years old, my father gave me a bass—just a piece of wood with no frets—but electric bass at that time was a very professional thing, so I felt I had taken another step. My mother used to lock my bass up, and I was only allowed to play on the weekends, because I started doing pretty bad in school. It was just music, music, music, music. Then I started to play in many garage bands, and eventually I had a covers band called Baobás. We used to play songs by Merseybeat groups like the Dave Clark Five, a little Beatles, the Turtles, Paul Revere, plus the Kinks, the Doors—in fact, I remember the first time I went to the studio, I recorded a cover of “Light My Fire.”
When did things reach another level?
Caetano Veloso was searching for a band to support him, and I don’t remember how, but he showed up at the place where we used to rehearse, and then he contracted us to be his support band. So that was my first professional work as a musician, when I was around seventeen, in 1967 or ’68. And that was the beginning of the movement that he was creating together with Gilberto Gil, called Tropicália. We were the second band that played with him on song festivals, which were competitions shown on TV.
You joined Os Mutantes shortly thereafter. How did it happen?
I met Sérgio Dias before, when I was sixteen, and we played together. I was very impressed, because he was a really brilliant guitarist, years ahead of his time. So we became friends, and when I started playing with Caetano, we played on TV shows, and we started to share the bill on programs like [O Cassino do] Chacrinha, a TV show hosted by a crazy clown. After I left Baobás, I was invited to play on a song festival with Gilberto Gil. Gil went to one of our rehearsals with Caetano, and I remember we were rehearsing his song, “Bat Macumba,” and he was watching me playing, and we exchanged smiles. So for this song festival, we put together a duo called Gil and Gilá: Gilberto Gil was playing accordion, and I was playing my father’s acoustic ten-string guitar, and Os Mutantes were there, playing their songs. So that was the first time that I played with them. Then they invited me for another song festival, to play the same acoustic guitar.
