Agreement on Gal Costa’s inheritance favors the preservation and possible expansion of the singer’s discography

There is a lot of high-carat gold to be mined in the artist’s treasure chest, who would have turned 80 in 2025. ♫ COMMENT ♩ It is likely that almost all of Gal Costa’s (September 26, 1945 – November 9, 2022) admirers and followers have taken some side in the dispute in the São Paulo courts between the singer’s son, Gabriel Costa, and Gal’s widow, Wilma Petrillo, over the artist’s inheritance. In any case, the fact that the legal battle came to an end this week, with an agreement signed between Gabriel and Wilma, should be celebrated by all who love Gal Costa’s great art. The end of the dispute favors the preservation and possible expansion of the singer’s work through the editions of previously unreleased recordings. There are relics in the collections of the record companies Universal Music (owner of the records made by Gal at Philips between 1967 and 1983) and Sony Music, owner of the assets acquired through the merger with the company then called BMG, which Gal joined in 1984, when the record company was still called RCA, and remained with until 2001. While heirs fight in court for an artist’s estate, record companies tend to leave the artist’s work aside to avoid headaches, especially when it comes to the release of an unreleased product, for which the proper authorizations of all the heirs (and everyone involved in the recording) are necessary. With good will, there is a lot of gold to be mined in Gal’s treasure chest. For example, the six tracks on the EP recorded by Gal with guitarist Raphael Rabello (1962 – 1995) in 1990 are of the highest quality, with two of the six songs, the samba-canção Duas contas (Garoto, 1951) and Estrada branca (Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, 1958), remaining unreleased in the singer’s voice. Not to mention the recordings of shows from the 1970s, such as Cantar (1974), whose script included five songs – the Cuban lullaby Drume negrita (Ernesto Grenet, 1942), Me Deixe Mudo (Walter Franco, 1972), Não Existe pecado ao Sul do Equador (Chico Buarque and Ruy Guerra, 1973), Menina Mulher da Pele Preta (Jorge Ben Jor, 1974) and Chorou, Chorou (João Donato and Paulo César Pinheiro, 1973) – never recorded by Gal. In short, everyone wins, literally and/or metaphorically, with the agreement regarding Gal’s inheritance. The path is open for the release of previously unreleased recordings by the singer throughout 2025, the year in which the immortal Gal Costa would have turned 80.



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