FD / Fado Museum
Fado singer Amália Rodrigues
New edition of “I would like to be who I was”. The echo that disguised the fado singer’s voice, who “no longer had the clear and brilliant voice of previous decades”, is not in the original reels, which are now presented to the public for the first time.
A new double disc edition of the album “I would like to be who I was”by Amália Rodrigues, includes 14 unreleased and recordings of live performances in 1980.
Speaking to the Lusa agency, researcher Frederico Santiago, who carried out the project, highlighted the “unreleased sound” of this new edition, “without a characteristic echo of the editions in the 1980s”.
“It has its own sound that is unprecedented, because the album at the time, and the 1st edition on CD, was made with that very period echo — which was used in the 1980s —, but the original reels don’t have it, they have the sound pure and much more intimate. That echo was a bit to disguise Amália’s voicewho was 60 years old, and no longer had the clear and bright voice of previous decades, but they removed a lot of detail and especially the diction”, he said.
“Everyone thinks that Amália [no fim de carreira] I couldn’t understand it, and I think this was largely caused by the excessive echo used in the recordings, because when we hear the pure sound, we realize that the diction is perfectand there is no such problem, a sound that could be heard not only in the voice but also in the guitars”, he stated.
Album of poems by Amália
The album, originally published in 1980, is the first completely filled with poems by Amália Rodrigues (1920-1999), who had already signed “Estranha Forma de Vida”, decades before.
Frederico Santiago exemplified with fado “I Had a Heart and Lost It” (A. Rodrigues/José Fontes Rocha), in which this echo sound in previous editions “made something disappear that is very evident now, Amália was only accompanied by a guitar, it is a duet between Amália and the [guitarrista] José Fontes Rocha, who is impressive.”
Among the unpublished poems are Amália’s poems “To live is to be lost”, “Menina da Saia Verde”, “Postigo”, “O Carapau e a Sardinha”, “Cabra, Cabrita” and “Saia Amarela”.
There are also, by Mário Martins, “Uma Réstia de Sal”, by Belo Marques, “Tareco Tem” and “Dona Pata”, by António Jorge Fontes, “Escadinhas de Alfama”, and, by João Cutileiro, “Habito o my country”, in addition to the live performances, in 1980, in Lisbon.
Period of “therapy” for Amália
These actions come after heart problems felt by the fado singer, in 1979, at the end of a performance at Casino Estoril, which caused her to be hospitalized and cancel several shows. During this period of convalescence, Amália dedicated herself to collecting her poems and recording the album “Gostava de Ser Quem Era”.
Frederico Santiago remembers that Amália referred to this period as “a kind of therapy”.
Fado “Lavava on the Lavava River”, a poem by Amália with music by Fontes Rocha, opens the album “Gostava de Ser Quem Era”, but Amália even rehearsed it to the melody of Fado Cravo, by Alfredo Marceneiro, revealed Santiago.
“These poems by Amália, ‘these verses’, as she said, are very simple, but they are profound. ‘Lavava no Rio, Lavava’, for example, is very profound, about this inability to have the will, because she says that, when she was young and had a lack of things, she had much more desire than at that time”, stated Frederico Santiago, who described this album as “very special”.
“They tried to erase it a little”
For the researcher, it was “a very dense and deep moment in the life of Amália who has the career she has, and still has at this time, kind of sad about what happened in the ongoing Revolutionary Period [PREC] and all the jealousies that tried to link her to a regime of which she was only a contemporary, she had no connection, and only took advantage of it”.
“From 1975 onwards, many people tried to reach the place she had, which was so high that many people could not forgive her. […] She had some unpleasantness, but she always won over the public, she had this desire to be in front of the public and prove that she was just an artist and had all that gift and that was all”, said the investigator.
“There was never any such betrayal from the public, but in official terms they tried to erase it a little”, said the researcher who referred to “a very sad period of Amália’s life.”
There are still many more themes to reveal
To Lusa, Santiago stated that there are still many Amália recordings to bring to light: “Whenever she recorded in the studio, she did many sessions, and the albums had 10 or 12 songs and then things stayed there”.
In this edition, a CD is dedicated to essays on 11 themes, including “Mr. Extraterrestrial” (Carlos Paião), recorded in December 1979.
This CD includes two performances, both in 1980, one at the demolished Teatro Monumental, in Lisbon, on January 28th, and another at the celebration in honor of radio director José Castelo, at Coliseu dos Recreios, on February 2nd.
Amália Rodrigues debuted at the age of 18 at Retiro da Severa, in Lisbon, having had a career spanning more than 50 years that took her to the most prestigious stages in the world, from the Copacabana Casino to the Olympia, in Paris.
Amália sang her poems, but also those of Luis de Camões, David Mourão-Ferreira, Alexandre O’Neil or Pedro Homem de Mello, among many others.
