Portuguese Guitars
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Artist:
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Album:Fado's Archives (The 1928-29 HMV Sessions) Vol. IV
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Track:Fado Em Mi Menor
After enjoying Baudolino's recent >"post":http://mog.com/Baudolino/blog/189055< featuring Carlos Paredes, I couldn't help barging in with some similar stuff by other Portuguese guitarists. Because Portugal is west of Spain, this music sounds more western European than does flamenco. The timid ear will taste it and hug it. The track (above) is "Fado Em Mi Menor" (1928) by Armandinho, who also recorded under his real name Salgado Armando Freire.
Armandinho
If you haven't overdosed yet, check out a more recent cut, "Variações em Sol (Variations in G)" played by Conjunto de Guitarras de Raul Nery. The back cover of their LP, Guitars of Portugal on the Request Records label, doesn't have a date but does show them playing on the cover of a different LP. In the photo, the men accompanying in the rear are playing what the Portuguese call violos, which are the same as the Spanish guitars we know, while the men in front play lead on what the Portuguese call guitarras.
The LP's liner notes say that Nery accompanied Amalia Rodrigues for many years. Excuse the way some unknown person felt the need to have the music veer back and forth between the left and the right channels, and just enjoy the novelty of that.
Finally, I had to foist on you José Joaquim Cavalheiro playing "Fado Maior," recorded within 1926-1936 and reissued on a 1994 CD on the Kardum label from France.
Comments (10)
To me this is one of the elemental guitar sounds. There's nothing else like it. It's immediate and visceral and inevitable. It certainly doesn't hurt that these gentlemen are all virtuosi, and that the compositions do a sterling job of showing them off....
Glorious. And another reason MOG rules. The grand tapestry of the world's music at our fingertips - literally.
ivylander and Mike, you guys have a way with words!
Here is a track by Antonio Moniz Palme, of the Fado Association of Former Coimbra Students, a group who perform in traditional Portuguese monastic-style robes, all in black. It was written by Antonio Portugal, and is called "Aguarela Portuguesa"
Baudolino, that's a sweet tune. I like their name. Dictionary.com translates "aguarela" into English as "aguarela." It as if Tony America wrote "American Waterela."
Spike
On one of the main streets of Lisbon's Baixa, there is a tiny shop called "Discotecas Amalia", devoted entirely to pre-1974 fado and traditional music, and its modern equivalents, run by an elderly couple who haven't changed their dress style since Salazar was in power.
If I go back there in a couple of years time, I'l;l certainly be looking for this type of album
Me too. If the person behind the counter is old, they usually know the good stuff.
This stuff is fantastic. I could pour myself a glass of vinho verde and listen to this all day.
kat3260, that sounds like a good plan. After a while one could drift to some classical guitar, similar stuff from Spain, maybe some oud music, African guitar, Hawaiian slack key, early Luis Bonfa and John Fahey.
a splendiferous musical journey!