The art of Amalia Rodrigues

Album Summary

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Amália da Piedade Rebordão Rodrigues (23 July 1920 – 6 October 1999) was a Portuguese fado singer (fadista). Dubbed Rainha do Fado ("Queen of Fado"), she was instrumental in popularising fado worldwide and travelled internationally throughout her career. Rodrigues remains the best-selling Portuguese artist in the history of recorded music. Rodrigues started singing around 1935. Her first professional engagement in a fado venue took place in 1939, and she was a guest in stage revues.[6] Around that time she met Frederico Valério, a classically trained composer who recognised her potential and composed numerous melodies for her, such as "Fado do Ciúme", "Ai Mouraria", "Que Deus Me Perdoe", and "Não Sei Porque Te Foste Embora". By the early 1940s, Rodrigues had become a famous singer in Portugal. She began acting with a debut film in 1946 titled Capas Negras, followed by her best known movie, Fado (1947). She gained popularity in Spain and Brazil, where she spent some time, and in Paris where she resided. In 1950, while performing at the Marshall Plan international benefit shows, she introduced the song "April in Portugal" to international audiences, under its original title "Coimbra". In the early 1950s, the involvement of Portuguese poet David Mourão-Ferreira marked a new phase in her career where leading poets were writing specifically for her.