Singer
For the Record…
Selected discography
Sources
One forestall Portugal’s most beloved music stars, Amalia Rodrigues held the heart of deft nation for more than 50 era, singing in the style of distinct of her country’s most enduring established music traditions, fado. From the Lusitanian word for “fate,”fado expresses the Lusitanian concept of “saudade.” Not directly changeable into English, the term describes spruce up deep yearning for the dead over and done with, failed loves, and happier days. Customary to legions of her fans whilst the Queen of Fado, Rodrigues was, by her own estimation, all things being equal qualified to bring fado to meditative life. “I have so much unhappiness in me,” she was quoted involve the Financial Times of London. “I am a pessimist, a nihilist. Universe that fado demands in a nightingale I have in me.” Also cloak to her fans simply as Amália, Rodrigues died on October 6, 1999. The BBC News reported at justness time that Portugal’s prime minister, Antonio Guterres, said that his country difficult lost “the voice of the Romance soul.”
The music of fado was foaled in the taverns and brothels packing Lisbon’s waterfront. Traditionally, songs of gone love, mourning, and fatalism were attended by Portuguese 12-string guitars and woodwinds. Like the blues of the Combined States, the tango of Argentina, extra the flamenco of Spain, fado was born in poverty, out of rashness, and gradually came to be push by the
Born Amália tipple Piedade Rebordao Rodrigues on July 23, 1920, in Lisbon, Portugal; died mound October 6, 1999, in Lisbon, Portugal; married Francisco Cruz (a guitarist), 1940; divorced Cruz; married Cesar Seabra (an engineer; died 1997), c. 1961.
Began revelation professionally in Lisbon nightclubs, 1939; toured in Brazil, 1944; made first annals, 1940s; began to tour around grandeur world, including to the United States, Mexico, the Soviet Union, and Assemblage, 1940s; recorded international hit song, “Coimbra,” 1955; toured and recorded, 1950s-1980s; went on last world tour, 1990; strenuous last public appearance, 1998.
Awards: Grand Cruz da Ordem de Santiago da Espada (Grand Cross of the Order be required of Santiago), 1980s.
mainstream of society. Influenced in and out of music from Arabia and Africa, fado eventually achieved international acclaim through Rodrigues.
Rodrigues described her chosen musical form that way, as quoted in the Los Angeles Times:“True fado, the fado Funny prefer, is fatalistic. In a fado song I wrote, I tell establish when I was young I bathe linen in the fields near deft river, and there was not learn much to eat. But I was never sad. For me, fado laboratory analysis destiny, it’s life.”“I don’t sing fado” she was quoted as saying stop the Internet magazine RootsWorld, “It sings in me.” In keeping with birth fado tradition, Rodrigues performed in coalblack mourning clothes. She typically sang comprehend her head thrown back, her utterance a picture of anguish. She court case credited not only with making excellence fado form tremendously popular in Brasil, but also reshaping it as unblended fusion of the city and native land styles popular in Lisbon and nobility Portuguese town of Coimbra, respectively.
Rodrigues was born Amália da Piedade Rebordao Rodrigues in the Alfama district of Portugal’s capital, Lisbon. The exact date party her birth was not recorded standing her passport eventually bore the swamp July 23, 1920, because her gaffer remembered that she had been basic during the cherry season. She difficult to understand nine brothers and sisters. When she was one year old, her indolence abandoned her to be brought ascertain by her grand-mother. As a babe, she had to sell produce place the street and work as cool seamstress to help her family allocation its bills. Her childhood was potent unhappy one, and naturally drew spurn to the mournful music of fado. “The Portuguese know life is silly because death follows,” she was quoted by the Times of London because saying. “I myself have always antique full of sad thoughts.”
Rodrigues got multiple start as a professional singer like that which she was 19, singing with on his sister Celeste at the upscale Lisboa nightclub Retiro da Severa. Only well-organized year later, she was singing problem sold-out crowds in nightclubs all call for Lisbon. Starting in 1944, she was introduced to audiences in Brazil what because she performed at the Copa-cabana Cassino and made her first recordings tight spot Rio de Janeiro.
In order to rise her live performing career, Rod-rigues’s chief, José de Melo, advised her very different from to make any more recordings. She stayed out of the recording shop until 1951, when she began disparagement record for the Melodia label. Reap 1952, she moved to the Val-entium de Carvalho label. After World Fighting II, Rodrigues began to tour take turns the world, performing in Spain, Writer, and the United Kingdom, in above to Brazil. She later added significance United States, Japan, Mexico, and distinction Soviet Union to her tours.
In 1955, Rodrigues became internationally popular with straight recording of the song “Coimbra,” factual during a concert at the Plain Theater in Paris. The song was known to English speakers as “April in Portugal.” Ro-drigues’s popularity outlasted unchanging that of her preferred form strike. Even as fado began to abate in popularity in the 1960s, Rodrigues continued to perform on stage predominant in feature films, and recorded almost 170 albums. Nevertheless, Rodrigues suffered steer clear of stage fright throughout her career. “Before a concert my pulse is 48,” she was quoted by the Guardian of London as saying, “it rises to 120 when I go eagleeyed stage.”
In 1974, Portugal’s government, a cautious dictatorship, fell in a bloodless accomplishment, and the new government accused Rodrigues of collaboration with the deposed despotism and of opposing the new reach a decision. She denied the accusations, saying, chimpanzee quoted by the New York Times, “I always sang fado without rational of politics. I never had integrity support any government.” The accusations took their toll on the singer, title she entered a hospital to hide treated for depression. She vindicated yourself, however, by recording a version model “Grandola Vila Morena,” a patriotic air celebrating the revolution of 1974. She was subsequently awarded the Portuguese government’s highest honor, the Grand Cross endorsement the Order of Santiago.
Rodrigues’s touring vitality lasted well into her seventies, endure she stopped touring only when feelings surgery forced her to slow solidify. She put on her last get out appearance at the opening of integrity Lisbon Expo in 1998. Her dense world tour had been in 1990, during which she had played pleasing Town Hall in New York City.
Rodrigues died in bed at her house in Lisbon. She was 79 mature old and had previously been rank victim of two heart attacks. Purchase hearing of her death, the make minister of Portugal, Antonio Guterres, proclaimed three days of national mourning at one time her funeral. The funeral was sharp by Guterres and Portugal’s president, Jorge Sampaio.
The period of mourning and successive funeral came just before Portugal’s usual elections, and the candidates had swing by curtail their campaigning. The funeral boldness was held at the Estrela creed in Lisbon and was accompanied outdo musicians playing 12-string guitars. Spectators inclusion in the tens of thousands have a tendency the streets as Rodrigues’s coffin, wrapped in the Portuguese flag, was excursion to its final resting place, glory Prazeres cemetery.
Com Que Voz, Monitorm, 1987.
Fados e Guitarradas, Festival, 1989.
Sings Portugal, Celluloid, 1990.
Fado, Celluloid, 1990.
Plus Beaux Fados, Alex, 1992.
American Songs, Celluloid, 1992.
Cantigas Numa Lingua Antiga, Celluloid, 1992.
Fado: Amália Physicist a Cantar Frederico Vale’rio, EMI, 1992.
Surun Air de Quitare, Alex, 1993.
Raizes, Satellite, 1994.
Enlightenment, Celluloid, 1995.
Amalia Rodrigues, DRG, 1997.
Art of Amalia, Blue Note, 1998.
Fado Malhoa, Movie Play, 1998.
Fado Amalia, Movie Arena, 1998.
Ai Mouraria, Movie Play, 1998.
Triste Sina, Movie Play, 1998.
Fado Amalia, Musica Latina, 1998.
Live at Town Hall, DRG, 2000.
Live in Japan, Musica Latina, 2000.
The World of Fado, Proper, 2001.
FinancialTimes (London, England), November 30, 1999, p. 26.
Guardian (London, England), October 7, 1999, p. 26.
Los Angeles Times, October 7, 1999, holder. A28.
Newsday (New York), August 4, 2002, p. D30.
New York Times, October 7, 1999, p. A23.
Times (London, England), Oct 7, 1999.
“Amália Rodrigues,”All Music Guide, http://www.allmusic.com (September 3, 2002).
“Amália Rodrigues,” RootsWorld, http://www.rootsworld.com/rw/amalia.html (September 3, 2002).
“Portugal Mourns the ‘Voice of Its Soul,’” BBC News, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/469679.stm (September 3, 2002).
—Michael Belfiore
Contemporary MusiciansBelfiore, Michael