Amália da Piedade Rebordão Rodrigues (1920–1999) was a Portuguese singer an… Read Full Bio ↴Amália da Piedade Rebordão Rodrigues (1920–1999) was a Portuguese singer and actress.
Born in Lisbon, Portugal, official documents have her date of birth as the 23rd July, but Rodrigues always said her birthday was the 1st July 1920. She was born in the rua Martim Vaz (Martim Vaz Street), freguesia of Pena, Lisbon. Her father was a trumpet player and cobbler from Fundão who returned there when Amália was just over a year old, leaving her to live in Lisbon with her maternal grandmother in a deeply Catholic environment until she was fourteen, when her parents returned to the capital and she moved back in with them.
She was known as the "Rainha do Fado" ("Queen of Fado"), and was most influential in popularising fado worldwide. She was unquestionably the most important figure in the genre’s development, by virtue of an innate interpretive talent carefully nurtured throughout a forty-year recording and stage career. Rodrigues' performances and choice of repertoire pushed fado’s boundaries and helped redefine it and reconfigure it for her and subsequent generations. In effect, Rodrigues wrote the rulebook on what fado could be and on how a female singer - or fadista - should perform it, to the extent that she remains an unsurpassable model and an unending source of repertoire for all those who came afterwards.
After a few years of amateur performances, Rodrigues’ first professional engagement in a fado venue took place in 1939, and she quickly became a regular guest star in stage revues. There she met Frederico Valério, a classically-trained composer who, recognising the potential in such a voice, wrote expansive melodies custom-designed for Rodrigues’ voice, breaking the rules of fado by adding orchestral accompaniment.
Her Portuguese popularity began to extend abroad with trips to Spain, a lengthy stay in Brazil (where, in 1945, she made her first recordings on Brazilian label Continental) and Paris (in 1949). In 1950, while performing at the Marshall Plan international benefit shows, she introduced "April in Portugal" to international audiences (under its original title "Coimbra"). In the early fifties, the patronage of the acclaimed Portuguese poet David Mourão-Ferreira marked the beginning of a new phase; Rodrigues sang many of the country's greatest poets, and some wrote lyrics specifically for her.
In 1954, Rodrigues' international career skyrocketed through her presence in Henri Verneuil’s film The Lovers of Lisbon, where she had a supporting role and performed on-screen. By the late 1950s the USA, England, and France had become her major international markets (Japan and Italy followed in the 1970s); in France especially, her popularity rivalled her Portuguese success, and she graduated to headliner at the prestigious Olympia theatre within a matter of months. Over the years, she performed nearly all over the world, going as far as the Soviet Union and Israel.
At the end of the 1950s, Rodrigues took a year off. She returned in 1962 with a richer voice, concentrating on recording and performing live at a slower pace. Her comeback album, 1962's Amália Rodrigues, was her first collaboration with French composer Alain Oulman, her main songwriter and musical producer throughout the decade. As Valério had before him, Oulman wrote melodies for her that transcended the conventions of fado. Rodrigues did not shy away from controversy: her performance in Carlos Vilardebó’s 1964 arthouse film The Enchanted Islands was better received than the film, based on a short story by Herman Melville, and her 1965 recording of poems by 16th century poet Luís de Camões generated acres of newspaper polemics. Yet her popularity remained untouched. Her 1968 single "Vou Dar de Beber à Dor" broke all sales records, and her 1970 album Com que Voz, considered by many her definitive recording, won a number of international awards.
During the 1970s, Rodrigues concentrated on live work, and embarked upon a heavy schedule of worldwide concert performances. During the frenetic period after the 25th April 1974 she was falsely accused of being a covert agent of the PIDE, causing some trauma to her public life and career. (In fact, during the Salazar years, Rodrigues had been an occasional financial supporter of some communists in need.) Her return to the recording studio in 1977 with Cantigas numa Língua Antiga was received as a triumph. The 1980s and 1990s brought her enthronement as a living legend. Her last all-new studio recording, Lágrima, was released in 1983. It was followed by a series of previously lost or unreleased recordings, and the smash success of two greatest hits collections that sold over 200,000 copies combined.
Despite a series of illnesses involving her voice, Rodrigues continued recording as late as 1990. She eventually retreated from public performance, although her career gained in stature with an official biography by historian and journalist Vítor Pavão dos Santos, and a five-hour television series documenting her fifty-year career, featuring rare archival footage (later distilled into the ninety-minute film documentary, The Art of Amália). Its director, Bruno de Almeida, has also produced Amália, Live in New York City (a concert film of her 1990 performance at New York City Hall).
Rodrigues died on the 6th October 1999 at the age of seventy-nine in her home in Lisbon. Portugal's government promptly declared a period of national mourning. Her house (in Rua de São Bento) is now a museum. She is now buried at the National Pantheon alongside other Portuguese notables.
1946.
Born in Lisbon, Portugal, official documents have her date of birth as the 23rd July, but Rodrigues always said her birthday was the 1st July 1920. She was born in the rua Martim Vaz (Martim Vaz Street), freguesia of Pena, Lisbon. Her father was a trumpet player and cobbler from Fundão who returned there when Amália was just over a year old, leaving her to live in Lisbon with her maternal grandmother in a deeply Catholic environment until she was fourteen, when her parents returned to the capital and she moved back in with them.
She was known as the "Rainha do Fado" ("Queen of Fado"), and was most influential in popularising fado worldwide. She was unquestionably the most important figure in the genre’s development, by virtue of an innate interpretive talent carefully nurtured throughout a forty-year recording and stage career. Rodrigues' performances and choice of repertoire pushed fado’s boundaries and helped redefine it and reconfigure it for her and subsequent generations. In effect, Rodrigues wrote the rulebook on what fado could be and on how a female singer - or fadista - should perform it, to the extent that she remains an unsurpassable model and an unending source of repertoire for all those who came afterwards.
After a few years of amateur performances, Rodrigues’ first professional engagement in a fado venue took place in 1939, and she quickly became a regular guest star in stage revues. There she met Frederico Valério, a classically-trained composer who, recognising the potential in such a voice, wrote expansive melodies custom-designed for Rodrigues’ voice, breaking the rules of fado by adding orchestral accompaniment.
Her Portuguese popularity began to extend abroad with trips to Spain, a lengthy stay in Brazil (where, in 1945, she made her first recordings on Brazilian label Continental) and Paris (in 1949). In 1950, while performing at the Marshall Plan international benefit shows, she introduced "April in Portugal" to international audiences (under its original title "Coimbra"). In the early fifties, the patronage of the acclaimed Portuguese poet David Mourão-Ferreira marked the beginning of a new phase; Rodrigues sang many of the country's greatest poets, and some wrote lyrics specifically for her.
In 1954, Rodrigues' international career skyrocketed through her presence in Henri Verneuil’s film The Lovers of Lisbon, where she had a supporting role and performed on-screen. By the late 1950s the USA, England, and France had become her major international markets (Japan and Italy followed in the 1970s); in France especially, her popularity rivalled her Portuguese success, and she graduated to headliner at the prestigious Olympia theatre within a matter of months. Over the years, she performed nearly all over the world, going as far as the Soviet Union and Israel.
At the end of the 1950s, Rodrigues took a year off. She returned in 1962 with a richer voice, concentrating on recording and performing live at a slower pace. Her comeback album, 1962's Amália Rodrigues, was her first collaboration with French composer Alain Oulman, her main songwriter and musical producer throughout the decade. As Valério had before him, Oulman wrote melodies for her that transcended the conventions of fado. Rodrigues did not shy away from controversy: her performance in Carlos Vilardebó’s 1964 arthouse film The Enchanted Islands was better received than the film, based on a short story by Herman Melville, and her 1965 recording of poems by 16th century poet Luís de Camões generated acres of newspaper polemics. Yet her popularity remained untouched. Her 1968 single "Vou Dar de Beber à Dor" broke all sales records, and her 1970 album Com que Voz, considered by many her definitive recording, won a number of international awards.
During the 1970s, Rodrigues concentrated on live work, and embarked upon a heavy schedule of worldwide concert performances. During the frenetic period after the 25th April 1974 she was falsely accused of being a covert agent of the PIDE, causing some trauma to her public life and career. (In fact, during the Salazar years, Rodrigues had been an occasional financial supporter of some communists in need.) Her return to the recording studio in 1977 with Cantigas numa Língua Antiga was received as a triumph. The 1980s and 1990s brought her enthronement as a living legend. Her last all-new studio recording, Lágrima, was released in 1983. It was followed by a series of previously lost or unreleased recordings, and the smash success of two greatest hits collections that sold over 200,000 copies combined.
Despite a series of illnesses involving her voice, Rodrigues continued recording as late as 1990. She eventually retreated from public performance, although her career gained in stature with an official biography by historian and journalist Vítor Pavão dos Santos, and a five-hour television series documenting her fifty-year career, featuring rare archival footage (later distilled into the ninety-minute film documentary, The Art of Amália). Its director, Bruno de Almeida, has also produced Amália, Live in New York City (a concert film of her 1990 performance at New York City Hall).
Rodrigues died on the 6th October 1999 at the age of seventy-nine in her home in Lisbon. Portugal's government promptly declared a period of national mourning. Her house (in Rua de São Bento) is now a museum. She is now buried at the National Pantheon alongside other Portuguese notables.
1946.
El Negro Zumbón
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Ya viene el negro zumbon
Bailando alegre el baion repica la zambomba
Y llama a la mujer
Ya viene el negro zumbon
Bailando alegre el baion repica la zambomba
Y llama a la mujer
Tengo gana de bailar el nuevo compás
Dicen todos cuando me ven pasar
(-"¿Chica, donde vas?")
"¡Me voy a bailar, el baión!"
Tengo gana de bailar el nuevo compás
Dicen todos cuando me ven pasar:
(-"¿Chica, donde vas?")
"¡Me voy a bailar, el baión!"
Ya viene el negro zumbon
Bailando alеgre el baion repica la zambomba
Y llama a la mujеr
Ya viene el negro zumbon
Bailando alegre el baion repica la zambomba
Y llama a la mujer
Tengo gana de bailar el nuevo compás
Dicen todos cuando me ven pasar:
(-"¿Chica, donde vas?")
"¡Me voy a bailar, el baión!"
Tengo gana de bailar el nuevo compás
Dicen todos cuando me ven pasar:
(-"¿Chica, donde vas?")
"¡Me voy a bailar, el baión!"
Bailando alegre el baion repica la zambomba
Y llama a la mujer
Ya viene el negro zumbon
Bailando alegre el baion repica la zambomba
Y llama a la mujer
Dicen todos cuando me ven pasar
(-"¿Chica, donde vas?")
"¡Me voy a bailar, el baión!"
Tengo gana de bailar el nuevo compás
Dicen todos cuando me ven pasar:
(-"¿Chica, donde vas?")
"¡Me voy a bailar, el baión!"
Ya viene el negro zumbon
Bailando alеgre el baion repica la zambomba
Y llama a la mujеr
Ya viene el negro zumbon
Bailando alegre el baion repica la zambomba
Y llama a la mujer
Tengo gana de bailar el nuevo compás
Dicen todos cuando me ven pasar:
(-"¿Chica, donde vas?")
"¡Me voy a bailar, el baión!"
Tengo gana de bailar el nuevo compás
Dicen todos cuando me ven pasar:
(-"¿Chica, donde vas?")
"¡Me voy a bailar, el baión!"
The lyrics to Amália Rodrigues's song El Negro Zumbón are a celebration of dancing and joy. The song speaks of a black man, referred to as "el negro zumbón," who dances happily to the rhythm of "baion" while the "zambomba" (a musical instrument) plays. The singer mentions that the dance calls out to women, capturing their attention and inviting them to join in the festivities.
The repetition of the phrase "tengo gana de bailar el nuevo compás" emphasizes the singer's strong desire to dance to the new rhythm. The lyrics imply that when people see the singer pass by, they ask where she is going, and she proudly responds that she is going to dance the "baión." This portrays a sense of freedom and liberation through dance, as the singer embarks on a joyful journey to express herself through movement and music.
The song's lyrics are simple and straightforward, emphasizing the joy and excitement of dancing to the "baión" rhythm. It celebrates the beauty of music, the power of dance, and the ability to bring people together in joyful celebration. The lyrics also highlight the universal nature of dance as a language that transcends barriers, inviting everyone to join in the rhythm and experience the collective energy of the dance floor.
Line by Line Meaning
Ya viene el negro zumbon
Here comes the lively black man
Bailando alegre el baion repica la zambomba
Dancing joyfully, he makes the baion ring
Y llama a la mujer
And he calls out to the woman
Tengo gana de bailar el nuevo compás
I have the desire to dance the new rhythm
Dicen todos cuando me ven pasar
Everyone says when they see me passing by
(-"¿Chica, donde vas?")
(-"Girl, where are you going?")
"¡Me voy a bailar, el baión!"
"I am going to dance, the baion!"
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
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RENATO1942
Uma cancao que marcou uma era ! Gracas a linda Silvana Mangano e "ANNA" este baiao teve um sucesso estrondoso
tk yaheya
Great to hear this oldie after nearly five decades! My humble thanks to YT and Jack11anbar for providing this unique service to the whole world of music lovers.
Edivaldo Martins
Mesmo antes do estrondoso sucesso do filme O CANGACEIRO e sua musica MULHER RENDEIRA o ritmo brasileiro fazia sucesso na Europa com a BAIÃO El Negro Zumbon...
Patricia Moraz
Thank you so much ! I became crazy wondering from where I knew that amazing song...
Roland de pous
2021 MERCI GRAZIE THANKS DANKE
Ho Alexander
The best
Gordon Dunbar
🧡
this2shellpass
play it in 0.75 speed . i like it more this way
Emanuele Lacognata
CHE BEL BRANO DEEL GRANDE MAESTRO TROVAIOLI ( VATRO )
kjh ku
oooooooo I know where I've heard this before its on the end of the Frontier Psychiatrist by the Avalanches