With a career spanning 60 years, Carlos Macedo was a fado singer, guitarist, author of poems – a side he started as a boy -, composer and guitar builder.
Fado singer and guitarist Carlos Macedo, elected king of fado in Mozambique in 1972, died this morning, aged 79, at Santa Maria Hospital, a source from the .
The musician recorded his first albums in Mozambique, while he was carrying out his mandatory military service.
His musical activities, however, began earlier, when at the age of 17 he formed a typical group with his name, with which he performed on national radio.
José Carlos de Campos Macedo was born on December 9, 1946, in Lousado, Vila Nova de Famalicão, in the district of Braga. At the age of 15, he started working in a textile factory, where he remained until his military service in Mozambique, where he lived until 1975.
Upon returning to Portugal, he performed at Clube Mil e Um, in Lisbon, and, later, at Chaparro, in Cascais. In 1976, he was part of the cast of the fado house Mal Cozinhado, in Porto.
At the end of 1977, he left for France, to start performing at the fado house Saudade, in Versailles, later returning to Portugal, to sing and play at the houses Senhora das Preces, Tabuinhas and Kopus Bar, in the Greater Lisbon area.
In 1982, he performed at Embuçado, in Lisbon, and began a long period at the fado house of fado singer Maria da Fé and poet José Luís Gordo, Senhor Vinho, where he stayed until March 2008.
With Maria da Fé, Carlos Macedo went on several national tours, throughout Europe and South America, either as a guitarist or as a fado singer.
On one of these tours, to Brazil, in 1984, on the occasion of the so-called “Ponte Cultural”, his performance, “done as an emergency”, in Rio de Janeiro, “conquered Brazil”, according to the weekly Tal & Qual reported at the time.
“He conquered Brazil while Maria da Fé went to change her dress”, the weekly newspaper titled, explaining: “Suddenly, the great Portuguese singer Maria da Fé needs to change her dress and asks the guitarist Carlos Macedo to replace her momentarily. He sings three fados ‘Rapsódia’, ‘Recordação do Passado’ and ‘Até o Rei ia ao Fado’ and puts the audience in delirium. Vibrant and endless applause. These moments were of true glory for the great artist Carlos Macedo, the entire standing audience applauded enthusiastically. At the end, the Brazilian singer Alcione greets the fado singer and says: ‘You were simply wonderful!’.
In 1975, he recorded his first album, which includes the hit “Até o Rei ia ao Fado” (Tó Moliças/Carlos Macedo).
Until the end of the 1980s, he recorded eight albums, including “Fado”, “O Nosso Amor Está por um Triz”, “Desejos”, “Este Meu Fado” and “Entre Nós e o Fado”, released in 2010 and which ended a ten-year absence from the studios. As a guitarist, he recorded with several Portuguese artists.
His hits include “Campa Florida”, ” Nosso Amor, Meu Amor “, ” Quero ir à Minha Terra ” and ” Sou Peregrino “.
