SONG -A CONTINOUS ACT.PART 5.

Like I´ve told you before in SONG -A CONTINOUS ACT.PART 3. Fado as evolved and adapted over the years. In It´s original formation Fado music is always presented in the same fashion.


You have a male or female singer accompanied by one or two classical guitar musicians and one or two Portuguese guitar musicians. If you´ve watched that late footage of the song “Estranha forma de vida” performed by Amália Rodrigues you will see Fado music performed In It´s purest most classical and most tradicional form. Now, that is Fado pure and simple !; But over the years Fado as evolved and adapted. So In our days You can see Fado music performed In different ways. Usually there will still remain the formation of singer plus classical guitar plus Portuguese guitar but

Joining them could be a piano or a flute or a pan pipe or even a full orchestra. And after the year 2000 sky was the limit. I´ve been listening to versions of Fado played with electrical guitars, basse

guitars, drumsets , and all sorts of technological and electrical Instruments. And not only that but even the very structure of Fado was changed, so know It´s common to hear It with with influences from jazz , rock n´d roll, Brazilian music, African music , pop music , and so on.

It´s not up to me to tell you If this Is a good or a bad thing , I don´t consider myself a traditionalist. It´s my belief that all things should evolve and adapt and this includes all music styles according to my perspective. There is only one thing that really bothers me , you see some of these versions of Fado have distanced themselves so much from It´s origins that even If they have a similar appearance with this music genre they aren´t really Fado songs. They are like sheep in wolves clothing. Let me show you an example of what I mean : If you are a gourmet and love Italian cuisine you probably know the difference between Lasana and noodles. So, If you walked into an Italian restaurant and ordered a plate of Lasana and the waiter brought you back a Plate of noodles covered with ketchup you probably wouldn´t eat It, because even If they are similar they aren´t the same thing , do you see what I mean ?.

But this poses no objection to the big music corporations that use as motto peculiar and stupid phrases like: If you cook something long enough you can eat It (we don´t care If It´s edible or not). Simply because they don´t and never will have love for music. These sort of characters love only one thing - money.

You see, this bothers me because over the years I´ve learned to love this music style.

I know that this may sound confusing to you especially If you are a very practical person. You may wonder -What does he mean with learning to love ? You do, or you don´t !. -So I humbly beg of you, to please allow me to explain.

Like I´ve mentioned to you earlier Fado after a period of decreased popularity is becoming once again popular. And why is that happening ?. -Well, there really isn´t an explanation, or there Is but I´m afraid that It will sound silly. Well, but silly or not here goes - Fado isn´t just a simple music style, Fado Is In fact something very mystical and with a personality of It´s own. - Are you laughing ?, No ? -Laughing or not I´ll keep going -Fado is the very representation of the Portuguese spirit In It´s very essence, In other words It´s the soul of my country ( because every country has a soul , believe It or not ) , And since all souls are attached to something living this one cannot be detached from Portugal , because Portugal like all other countries as life In It.

So what happened was that for a certain period of time The Portuguese people became unattached with this spirit because they were experiencing something very new and wonderful called freedom after a long period of oppression , and we fell In love with other foreign things and almost forgot the beauty we had in our one backyards. Almost like a teenage love affair, but as I´m sure you are aware teenage Love affairs don´t last long, because they lack maturity and responsibility.

You see the very same thing happened to me. Once I too fell In love and after falling out of love I felt the need to express the feeling of loneliness and void inside of me. I didn´t know how to until I listened to Fado. You see, before this happened I heard Fado dozens of times but I never really “listened”. And there Is a big difference between hearing and listening no matter what others may tell you. And like magic there It was the explanation to all of those aches and pains I felt but could not explain. I had a friend that once told me that you can look for Fado everywhere but you will never find It , It will find you when you least expect It.

Little did I knew, that he was right !...but I´ll explain this better to you In my next post.

For now I´ll leave you with the voice of one of my very favourite Fado singers.

Ladies and Gentleman here is... Camané.