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.

Fado Corrido
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

lá porque tens cinco pedras
num anel de estimação
lá porque tens cinco pedras
num anel de estimação
agora falas comigo
com cinco pedras na mão
agora falas comigo
com cinco pedras na mão

enquanto nesses brilhantes
tens soberba e tens vaidade
enquanto nesses brilhantes
tens soberba e tens vaidade
eu tenho as pedras da rua
para passear à vontade
eu tenho as pedras da rua
para passear à vontade

mas não passes sorridente
a lardear satisfeito
mas não passes sorridente
a lardear satisfeito
pois hei-de chamar-te à pedra
pelo mal que me tens feito
pois hei-de chamar-te à pedra
pelo mal que me tens feito

hás de ficar convencido
pela afirmação consagrada
hás de ficar convencido
pela afirmação consagrada
quem tem telhados de vidro
não deve andar à pedrada

quem tem telhados de vidro
não deve andar à pedrada

Overall Meaning

The song "Fado Corrido" by Amália Rodrigues is about the dangers of pride and vanity, and how they can lead to a downfall. The lyrics speak to an individual who wears an expensive ring with five stones, thinking that it is a sign of importance and prestige. They approach the singer with the ring in hand, ready to use it as a weapon against her. However, the singer tells them that she is not impressed by their display of wealth, as she has the stones of the street to walk on as she pleases. The singer warns the individual not to be too proud of their possessions, as they may cause harm to others and themselves. The final words of the song emphasize the idea that those who have fragile "glass roofs" should not engage in violent behaviors, as they have potentially more to lose.

The use of stones in this song is significant as they are often associated with violence and aggression. However, when the singer speaks of her own "stones", she is referring to the trials and tribulations of life that she has overcome. The idea that material possessions do not equate to true value or worth is a common theme in fado music, which often focuses on the struggles of everyday people.

Line by Line Meaning

lá porque tens cinco pedras
Don't think too much of yourself just because you have a prized ring with five jewels

num anel de estimação
that you cherish so much

agora falas comigo
You come to me now

com cinco pedras na mão
with your fists closed around five stones

enquanto nesses brilhantes
You revel in the glory of those diamonds

tens soberba e tens vaidade
with pride and vanity in your heart

eu tenho as pedras da rua
I, on the other hand, have the stones from the streets

para passear à vontade
and I can carry them without a care in the world

mas não passes sorridente
Don't walk around smiling

a lardear satisfeito
with a smug satisfaction

pois hei-de chamar-te à pedra
because I will call you out and challenge you