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 Da Adiça
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
O fado não é canalha
Não é fadista quem quer
Só é fadista quem calha
O destino é linha recta
Traçado à primeira vista
Como se nasce poeta
O fado é sexto-sentido
Que distingue o português
Para ficar aprendido
Basta cantar-se uma vez
Soa a guitarra cantando
A alegria que fingimos
O fado que nos cantamos
É sina que nos cumprimos
Amália Rodrigues's song Fado Da Adiça is a powerful tribute to the art form of fado, which is a traditional genre of music in Portugal. These lyrics beautifully convey the essence of fado, asserting that it is not a lowly form of music but rather a profound expression of the Portuguese soul. The first verse states that no matter what people say, fado is not a dishonorable genre of music. Anyone cannot just become a fadista (fado singer); it is a destiny that only a chosen few can reach.
The second verse explains that destiny is straight-line traced at first sight, just like how one is born to be a poet, one is born to be a fadista. The third verse goes on to explain that the fado is the sixth sense, which separates the Portuguese and distinguishes it. This sense is present in and learned through singing fado.
The final verse describes how the sounds of the guitar can emit the happiness that we pretend we have but also fills the fado we sing- which is our fate.
Overall, Fado Da Adiça is a graceful and powerful song that explains the depth of fado so that it can be learned through singing.
Line by Line Meaning
Por muito que se disser
Regardless of what is said
O fado não é canalha
Fado is not vulgar
Não é fadista quem quer
Not everyone who desires to sing fado is a fadista
Só é fadista quem calha
Only those who are lucky can be fadistas
O destino é linha recta
Destiny is a straight line
Traçado à primeira vista
Drawn at first sight
Como se nasce poeta
Just as one is born a poet
Também se nasce fadista
One can also be born a fadista
O fado é sexto-sentido
Fado is a sixth sense
Que distingue o português
Which distinguishes the Portuguese
Para ficar aprendido
To be learned
Basta cantar-se uma vez
It is enough to hear it once
Soa a guitarra cantando
The guitar sound is singing
A alegria que fingimos
The happiness that we pretend to have
O fado que nos cantamos
The fado that we sing
É sina que nos cumprimos
Is our destiny that we fulfill
Writer(s): rodrigo de melo
Contributed by Lauren F. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
@MariaDasGracas-su8hk
Adoro Amália Rodrigues!!! Lembro das minhas viagens a Portugal lugar abençoado e maravilhoso!!
@MariaDasGracas-su8hk
Amo essa música!!! Saudades de Portugal
@g.pieromura7703
Divina Amalia, da sessant'anni la tua voce mi emoziona. Ti ricordo ancora al teatro lirico di Milano, affascinante nel tuo vestito lungo di raso nero, mentre cantavi con l'anima. Ricordo ancora il tuo profumo forte che mi rimaneva nella mano dopo avermi salutato. Obbrigado Amalia.
@cristinadauria5285
/ * INIGUALABLEEE,,...."HERMOSA VOZ.."...!!! * /
@aliciadiaz7732
AMÁLIA 🌻❤️🇵🇹 é muito mais do.que uma voz