Saturday, October 02, 2010

Ana Sofia Varela, Fados De Amor E Pecado, iPlay


So I was listening to my man John Prine today and, let's face it, John Prine is not the world's greatest singer. Mostly, he more or less talks through his songs in a sing-songy way and the point isn't his pristine or rangy voice but the words and the feeling with which he delivers them. True, as well, of the late (and lamented, in my house) Harry Chapin or Mr. Tom Waits. True also of my favorite male fadista Alfredo Marceneiro, whom I hear in Ana Sofia Varela singing Quase Um Anjo (Almost An Angel), Estranha Vontade (Strange Will), O Corvo (The Crow) and a lot of other places.

She does not sing in the precious tones of Amalia or generate the aural and emotional roller coaster that is the singing of Mariza. She does not make me think of a powerful blues shouter like Jimmy Rushing, as Carminho does. But she sings captivating, expressive, emotive fado as appealing to me as John Prine doing Sweet Revenge, Harry Chapin doing A Better Place To Be or Tom Waits doing Closing Time.

Her voice is prettier than those dudes, but the end result is the same: good tunes, and better stories, well told. The album title means fados, essentially fates, of love and sin.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great review - a dude's review, grasping the essential point that Fado is the blues and it's cross-cultural, universal even. Ana Sofia Varela belongs to a growing number of Portuguese female singers who would be multinational stars in a fair world and probably are in a Parallel Universe!

Anonymous said...

Watch Cristina Branco's FADO !!! : a Minha Casa on You Tube and wait for your heart to melt into a puddle.

Anonymous said...

Great Cristina video man.