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.
Mi Sardinita
Amália Rodrigues Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Con mi saya remangada y luciendo la pantorrilla
Vengo deprisa corriendo porque me oprime el corsé
Voy gritando por las calles ""?""
Mis sardinitas qué ricas son
Son de Santurce, las traigo yo
La del tercero me dice ""?""
Si yo le digo que a ? ella me dice que a ?
Cojo la cesta y me marcho, ?
Mis sardinitas qué ricas son
Son de Santurce, las traigo yo
Mis sardinitas qué ricas son
Son de Santurce, las traigo yo
The lyrics of Amália Rodrigues's song "Mi Sardinita" portray a woman who is en route from Santurce to Bilbao. She has rolled up her skirt and is showing off her calves while running along the shore. The woman is in a hurry and is shouting something out onto the streets that we, as the listener, are not privy to. We then discover that she is carrying a basket of sardines, which she declares are delicious.
The chorus, which is sung twice, is about these sardines. The woman claims that they are from Santurce and that she has brought them with her. She then goes on to describe how the first and second women whom she meets also find the sardines delicious, but the third woman is hesitant. The woman explains that if she tells the third woman she is going to give the sardines to her friend (whose name is not mentioned) instead of keeping them for herself, then the third woman will also want them. In the end, the woman takes her basket of sardines and departs.
Line by Line Meaning
Desde Santurce a Bilbao vengo por toda la orilla
I'm coming from Santurce to Bilbao along the entire shore
Con mi saya remangada y luciendo la pantorrilla
With my skirt rolled up and showing my calf
Vengo deprisa corriendo porque me oprime el corsé
I'm coming quickly and running because my corset is tight
Voy gritando por las calles ''?''
I'm shouting in the streets for what? (unspecified)
Mis sardinitas qué ricas son
My little sardines, how delicious they are
Son de Santurce, las traigo yo
They're from Santurce, and I brought them
La del primero me llama y la del segundo también
The first one calls me and the second one does too
La del tercero me dice ''?''
The third one asks me what? (unspecified)
Si yo le digo que a ? ella me dice que a ?
If I tell her that I like? she asks me that I like? (unspecified)
Cojo la cesta y me marcho, ?
I take the basket and leave, (unspecified)
Mis sardinitas qué ricas son
My little sardines, how delicious they are
Son de Santurce, las traigo yo
They're from Santurce, and I brought them
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: LOPEZ QUIROGA MIQUEL, MANUEL
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind