Biography Liminha: portrait in motion of a musician-man by Antonio Carlos Miguel

Producer, bass player, guitar player, songwriter, studio owner, executive of the music industry... This musician-man has taken on different roles, and he still plays many parts.

Maybe we are talking about a direct descendant of homo musicus, who according to surveys, walked our planet even before homo sapiens.

Son to a classical pianist and teacher and a pharmacist who loves stringed instruments (distinguished violin player, he plays the violin and the mandolin on weekends), the ͞paulistano (how a person born in the city of São Paulo is referred to) Liminha was born and raised in a home more than musical. A passion that, in his teenage years, became a profession. Today, almost five decades after having followed his natural gift, the list of hits and classics with Liminha’s touch is huge.

As a bass player, he has been playing since the time of the legendary Brazilian band Mutantes (between 1969 and 1973). He then continued playing in key albums with, among others, Erasmo Carlos, Raul Seixas, Lulu Santos, Gilberto Gil, Marina Lima (just to mention one example, his bass line in the song "Fullgás") and Paula Toller (the recent "Transbordada", from 2014, where he exceeded himself as a guitar player, programmer, producer and songwriter).

A songwriter who had already partnered with Rita, Arnaldo and Sergio for the Mutantes

(starting with "Top Top", a track that opened his second album with the band, "Jardim Elétrico", from 1971) and with artists like Gilberto Gil ("Vamos fugir"), Vanessa da Mata ("Ai, ai, ai ...") and Arnaldo Antunes ("Ninguém no carnaval").

Estúdio — Production became his main activity only in 1977, when he debuted in the albums of other two groups, also beginners, "Frenéticas" and "Maria Fumaça" (from the Black Rio Band).

In the 80s, Liminha was the producer of the albums "Luar" (Gilberto Gil, 1981), the initial trilogy of Lulu Santos between 1982 and 1984 ("Tempos modernos", "O ritmo do momento" and "Tudo azul"), in addition to "Seu espião" (Kid Abelha, 1984), "Selvagem?" (Paralamas do Sucesso, 1985) and "Cabeça dinossauro" (Titãs, 1986), among others.

In the following decade, more emblematic titles, such as "Marina Lima" (1990), "O Canto da cidade" (Daniela Mercury, 1992), "Parabolicamará" (Gilberto Gil, 1992), "Tropicália 2" (Caetano and Gil, 1992), "Da lama ao caos" (Chico Science & Nação Zumbi, 1994), "Rappa Mundi"(O Rappa, 1996) e "Manual prático para festas, bailes e afins" (Ed Motta, 1997).

In the 21st century, he has been guiding both beginners like Vanessa da Mata ("Essa boneca tem manual", 2004) as well as living legends such as Erasmo Carlos ("Sexo", 2011) and Gilberto Gil ("Banda Larga", 2008).

At the age of nine, living in the neighborhood of Lapa in São Paulo, Arnolpho Lima Filho won his first guitar. After that he became fascinated by the deep sounds of the bass he heard from the hands of Nenê (later a member of the Os Incríveis, but who at the time played with The Rebels).

Three years later, living in the neighborhood of Pacaembu, Liminha persuaded his father to buy that instrument that "holds you by the stomach".

It was a Del Vecchio bass with amplifier that he soon learned how to master and which became his passport to getting in and out of different groups.

Between 1966 and 1968, he played with The Thunders, Os Lunáticose Os Baobás.

With the latter, he recorded a single with a version of "Light my fire", a hit by the Doors, and played with Caetano Veloso.

In the late 1960’s, making a living from music was not something that gave stability, or was acceptable, and he even tried to take another path.

He was accepted at University and completed the freshman year at the School of Business and Economics, but that same year, 1969, he was invited to join the Mutantes, then at the heyday of the their ͞tropicalista͟movement.

It wasn’t possible to cope with studying and recording studios, TV and the stages at the same time, and Liminha didn't think twice.

He was officially incorporated into the group during the next album, "Jardim Elétrico" (1971). He was also in albums "Mutantes e seus Cometas no país do Baurets" (1972), "Hoje é o primeiro dia do resto de sua vida" (this one released at the end of 1972 as a solo album by Rita Lee)

and in the tracks of two albums that are worshipped today but were put aside for nearly two decades: "Tecnicolor" (recorded in Paris in 1970, with lyrics in English, a project for an international career that was aborted) and "O A e o Z" (1973, without Rita Lee).

At the end of 1973, when Arnaldo Baptista left the group, Liminha didn’t see a reason for staying with the Mutantes, who were increasingly rusty when it came to progressive rock, and spent what he says to have been wasted time in São Paulo.

Untill he was called to take part in Cia.{j}Paulista do Rock, which became the base band for Erasmo Carlos, going on ͞Tremendão͟ tours, including his shows at the Saquaremaand Hollywood Rock festivals and in the recording of the album "Banda dos Contentes" (1976).

It was also around this time, at PolyGram studios in Rio,

where he played for the tracks in "Eu nasci há dez mil anos atrás" by Raul Seixas, that Liminha was invited by producer Marco Mazzola to join the team he was putting together for Warner do Brasil.

As the assistant of the national department of André Midani’s new record label, Liminha was given as a first assignment the ͞Frenéticas and the ͞Black Rio band albums.

The ͞Frenéticas͟ were then just some waitresses who also sang at the Dancin' Days disco and no producer of the company saw much future for them.

So the challenge was left to the new guy, who scored WEA’s first Globo de Ouro (the recording company was then called WEA as it included the labels Warner, Elektra and Atlantic).

The Black Rio band album, for which Liminha worked as studio director, didn't show spectacular sales figures, but it became a classic and a fundamental reference in Brazil and in the world in terms of samba, funk and jazz fusion.

At Warner, Liminha also met Gilberto Gil again and, in 1981, with "A gente precisa ver o luar", started the series of albums he produced for Gil.

It is a list that includes titles such as "Um banda um", "Extra", "Raça humana", "Diadorim noite neon", "Parabolicamará" and "Quanta". Mixing "Luar", at Westake Audio, in Los Angeles, served to Liminha also as a Master’s Course mentored by no one less than Humberto Gatica, one of the world’s main producers and recording and mixing engineers. In addition to the master’s suggestions written in a notepad, he returned to Brazil with technical books, equipment and the idea of having his own studio.

Invited by Midani to be in charge of the artistic direction of one of WEA’s labels, Liminha accepted, provided that he could occasionally work for different companies.

It was then that in addition to hits for house artists like Lulu Santos, Ultraje a Rigor, Titãs and Kid Abelha, he also worked for the competition producing albums such as "Selvagem?", by Paralamas do Sucesso, and "Sob o sol de Parador", by Lobão. During his stay at Warner, Liminha opened the studio ͞Nas Nuvens͟, in 1984, in partnership with Gilberto Gil. It was housed in the heights of the Jardim Botânico neighborhood.

Based in L.A. - the city where one of his daughters currently lives - Liminha continued to produce a lot in Brazil, where he expanded the scope of his work. He went from the axé music sensation Daniela Mercury in 1992 to the group that launched the mangue beat, Chico Science & Nação Zumbi; from the concrete pop music of Arnaldo Antunes to the funk-jazz of Ed Motta; the neo-MPB of Pedro Luís e a Parede, to the sophisticated pop of Adriana Calcanhotto; in addition to old friends like Gilberto Gil, Marina Lima and Paralamas do Sucesso.

The life he led going back and forth between LA and Rio was interrupted in 2001, when he took an offer made by Sony Brazil. The bass player of the first and amateur bands of the 1960’s took on the position of Vice-President of a multinational company of the label. In that position, which was until then the highest in an ascending career, he found himself for the first time professionally away from studios and stages. The time he had to spend in offices, meetings and conventions had nothing to do with his life.

Hence, maybe even as therapy, he also created, in 2001, a surf music group called The Silvas.

With the grouphe played the guitar next to one of the first bass players he’d ever met, Nenê - initially from The Rebels and later from Os Incríveis - and to a friend he’d made at the time he worked with Paralamas do Sucesso, João Barone - drums.

Once again as an independent professional from 2002 onwards, Liminha started to work on what he likes most - producing albums, writing songs and playing -

Once again as an independent professional from 2002 onwards, Liminha started to work on what he likes most - producing albums, writing songs and playing - both his arsenal of bass, electric and acoustic guitars, and Nas Nuvens, a reference in recording studios and the cradle of titles that are fundamental to Brazilian discography. In 2008, he repeated the success of "sound leisure" with The Three Amigos, a group with Dadi Carvalho (Novos Baianos, A Cor do Som) and the dearest Luie, a harmonica player and singer from Rio de Janeiro who traveled the world making music for pleasure.

In 2010 Liminha joined Toninho Horta (guitar), Jaques Morelenbaum (cello) and Marcos Suzano (percussion) in the instrumental group Shinkansen (a reference to the railway line operating the bullet train in Japan). The quartet, who recorded an original album, debuted in November 2012 at the CopaFest jazz festival held at Copacabana Palace and early the following year, played at the concert House Miranda, in Rio de Janeiro.

In 2015, with Achados no Espaço (band assembled for the celebration of the 30 years of Rock in Rio on the CD and DVD for which Liminha was the director and music producer),

he once again combined eternal passion with a refined professionalism at every moment.

In 2016, Liminha was invited to be the Music Director of "Nivea Viva Rock", a project that pays tribute to the Brazilian rock.

In addition to the musical direction, he also participates as a bass player for the band that performs in free concerts in main Brazilian capitals, with names such as Dado Villa Lobos, Os Paralamas do Sucesso, Nando Reis and Paula Toller, among other artists.

In that same year, Nas Nuvens goes through its biggest change in three decades. Its main studio was expanded to better allow filming. After all, another secret to explain the youth he shows off, the homo-musicus says it's never too late to learn some more. And always do more.