Fado

[skrobek]

When I was in Lisboa I went to many Fado shows and I enjoyed most of them a lot. I didn't get many recordings though and now I'm a bit lost as to what to listen to. I've got some Amalia Rodrigues and Mariza compilations, which are great each in their own way (ancient vs modern ?) but I could use some rocommendations. Anyone ?

[MRS]

This gets annoying in my opinion, too much high-pitched group vocal call and response and perfunctory run-throughs, much prefer Fremeaux's awesome choro comps, but fado is great, the puttanesca sauce of music, there's recent research that it fundamentally started in South America then came back:

http://www.fremeaux.com/index.php?page= ... virtuemart

[skrobek]

That compilation looks fine, and should be easy to get here. I'll check it out, thanks.

[skrobek]

Well I guess you guys are not that much into fado... I'll try wth a flamenco thread !

[simplicio]

I'm definitely an Amalia fan, but I've never found a real fado resource in English. I've always been curious about what mutations it might have gone through over the years; the spare instrumentation and hyper-expressive vocals seem like they'd really lend themselves to work with experimental leanings, but visible modern stuff like Mariza's seems to mostly fill in all the gaps with overripe orchestral arrangements.

Took me ages to find a copy of Busto I could afford to import. Not really easy stuff to come by stateside, that I've seen.

No idea what they're saying, of course.

[pingomister]

Amália is not traditional hardcore fado, it´s more of a diva interpretation kind of thing.
Some real roots fado can be found in Alfredo Marceneiro, Hermínia Silva,
and some unknowns: argentina santos, beatriz da conceicao, tereza(or teresa) tarouca, and many many more, I don´t know their names but I know when they are good.
Try soulseek, you should be able to find most of these.

Also, please forget Mariza it´s absolute crap, as most of this modern would-be "divas", they´re just a bunch of poser bitches half dressed, pretentiously over-produced, pretending to capture the portuguese "national spirit", and actually fado has nothing to do with that.

As in all over-hyped and abused "national" folklore styles, good fado is very much mingled with absolute crap, so proceed with caution when listening.

[dave quam]

glad this thread was started, I'm interested in hearing this too.

[Steve Minkin]

Amalia and Don Byas met at World Music festival in 70s, and made a beautiful album together: