Interview with Carminho

If there’s one thing that unites us as Portuguese, it’s the umbilical cord of fado; an almost inexplicable bond that makes us feel like it’s our second skin. And while Amália Rodrigues was one of the indispensable names of this musical genre that is so uniquely ours, the generation that followed leaves no doubt that her legacy is fully assured.

Carminho is one of the voices of this generation, looking at fado with a new perspective and new hope. Carminho is the voice that resonates in our senses, envelops us and makes us fall in love with fado every day anew.

Photo: Frederico Martins
Words: Cláudia Pinto

A feeling of dizziness. Touching a perfect place in the description of an emotion. A perfect place. A poem. Touching the divine. Being in another dimension. This is how Carminho greets us with her music. Whether in concert or in the songs that echo in our ears.

But until we’re in that magical place that few can touch, we’ll never know what it’s like. We can only receive what they give us. Access to this magical place is reserved for very few. For Carminho, this place of dizziness was (almost) predestined.

“My first fado house was in my mother’s tummy.”

“My mother has always sung. We moved to the Algarve when I was very young and there were no fado houses there. My parents began to organise fado evenings in our house… and used to invite friends. I remember going to those evenings when I was very young. We have several photos with fadistas and guitars, and I would have been 5 or 6 years old.”

Being born into this universe didn’t open the door for her, but it planted the dream. “It was very influential on my upbringing; it became very natural: the musical language itself, the codes that are sometimes harder to learn. But when you’re a child, it’s like a new language. Children who are exposed to this language quickly become bilingual, and that happened to me with fado.” It’s very rare for a fadista to learn fado as an adult. There are fado listeners, but a performing fadista is rare.

Later, my father – a civil engineer – quit his job and the family left the Algarve to return to Lisbon to fulfil my mother’s lifelong dream of opening a fado house. “It was then that I began to attend the Taberna do Embuçado, the fado house my parents opened, where I met Amália Rodrigues, Beatriz Conceição, Celeste Rodrigues… and where I began to listen to fadistas like Camané.”

Immersed in a world full of the best, “at some point I realised that fado could be the future. Growing up with the language and speaking the language, I didn’t realise that it could be a profession, my profession. It was very simple and intuitive. It was there.” So, Carminho went on to study marketing and advertising. “But then I realised it wasn’t. I realised that it was a privilege to be able to do what I love, but even though it was intuitive, it wasn’t going to be that easy and it was going to take a lot of work. Sometimes we think that just because things are intuitive, they don’t take effort… but they do.”

A trip and a new life for fado

She finished her degree, put her backpack on and went out into the world. Literally. “I travelled across the world with a backpack, alone, without a phone, just me. It was very important for my vocation. This trip was very enriching, also in terms of discovering my humanity and my artistic position. Perspectives that became clearer and ideas that came more consistently to give me tools to defend an album.”

In addition to overcoming some of her greatest fears and insecurities, the fadista admits to having discovered “some abilities that I didn’t think I had. And suddenly we realise that man adapts, discovers and finds himself at the limit. In moments of limitation and deprivation… we discover the extra strength we have.”

While travelling was a turning point in Carminho’s life, the world of fado was also preparing for a profound transformation. “Fado was something that my friends and my generation did not think much of, and that was very noticeable. That trip gave me the confidence to assert myself as a fado artist.” It’s a cycle. In Alfredo Marceneiro’s time, for example, fado was almost equated with pop music. It had a great impact nationally because it was on the radio every day. But that came to an end.”

During the dictatorship in Portugal, “fado was associated with the propaganda of the regime, and that created various misconceptions about the musical genre. And so, in the April generation, all the artists were more associated with protest music, and fado fell into a certain bitterness… it almost went back to where it came from.”

Carminho believes she is part of the change. “I am part of the generation that has transformed fado again. When my generation ‘arrived’, the idea was that fado was ‘old’, but we couldn’t explain why. We have the reference of our parents and the counterculture, the generation that reacts to the previous one. We, the new generation, encourage its return, because we simply couldn’t explain why fado didn’t work. Attempts to imprison musical genres for political purposes never last long.”

“The next generation is helping to bring it back. They’re falling in love with fado in the purest way. I was in love with fado and I had no idea about all these shenanigans that haunted it,” she admits.

The inescapable courage of Amália Rodrigues

Amália Rodrigues was the great name of Portuguese fado. All the twists and turns of the music begin and end with this central figure. She inspired and continues to inspire hundreds of musicians every day. Fado houses breathe her life.

“Amália is the great transformation of the century and of the genre. Amália has changed fado forever. And these moments of transition are not chosen, not planned, not calculated… I can’t even believe that they were. I believe that Amália had an intelligence that was at the service of her career. The fact that she thought so well and rationally about her talent, what she sang, how she sang, how she manipulated different elements… writing, taking risks with composers outside of fado.”

Carminho explains that “one of Amália’s great risks was to sing the dead poets who took the place of the learned. And spoken/read poetry. Forbidden. Camões, for example. She sang Camões without shame and with great respect, and that was a turning point. Fado was and still is written by popular poets, and it is essential that they exist, because they are the ones who are in our daily lives. But it opened up immense possibilities for the poetry of the world and for erudite poets, those who think and write differently from those of the fado houses. It opened doors and horizons. We are the children of that courage.”

But in a turbulent environment such as that of Portugal during the dictatorship (1933-1974), the role of Amália and fado itself was often questioned. For Carminho, “musicians cannot be reduced to their technicality. Music can be political, can bring about change… but music itself is more than its purposes. Music transcends them. Zeca Afonso himself said that he’s not a protest artist, even though his music is a protest. Whatever his beliefs… his music is much bigger than all that. He was a superior musician.”

Just like Amália. The fadista was known for her relationship with Salazar, while also interacting with opposition figures such as Alain Oulman and Ary dos Santos. “She has a neutral and delicate position. And she was very brave. All that remains of her is her talent and the intelligence to choose what she wanted to sing.”

Touching the divine

For those who listen, it will always be unthinkable to reach that dizzying state that fado takes us to. Carminho is passionate about “the ability to move me. It’s that idea of dizziness. Of always being on the verge of touching a perfect place in the description of an emotion. And that perfect place is very difficult to reach, because we are faced with that place: there’s the ego, the person, the technical skills, the music. There are human flaws. Music comes close to touching the divine. It’s the search for the giddiness of touching a place that is purer than where we live… I think fado has immense potential: it’s honest, sincere, spontaneous. When it is.”

“You need to be available to be it and to practise it. And there will always be this dichotomy between the artist and the work, which sometimes separates the human from the divine. Fado has this potential because everything is a language. It is in all the elements, with a certainty of what is being done, but without much planning. This unpredictability, this ability to surprise and create new interpretations, makes everything very visceral and dizzying, dramatic and profound,” admits Carminho.

But on the scales of evaluation, which weighs more: divinity or technicality? “When I say that a fadista is technically perfect, I am not talking about their vocal chords or pitch. Because it’s not about that. Technique presupposes inventiveness. The practice of the perfect fadista is the ability not to interfere with the interpretation. Not to overshadow the poem or the melody. The perfect technique is someone who knows how to tell a story without wanting to be in the story. I only serve to tell the story. But often you cannot do that.”

One of the most recognised visual references to fado is José Malhoa’s famous 1910 painting. In this work, the painter tried to capture the true fado, its essence. The musical style was becoming increasingly popular among the bourgeoisie and intellectuals, although it was still associated with a certain marginality. At first, Malhoa hired models, but he soon realised that the essence of fado was not there. In order to achieve the authenticity he desired, the painter had to set out in search of the true fado. After a few walks through the neighbourhoods of Lisbon, the painter found the ideal protagonists in Mouraria. Amâncio Augusto Esteves, a guitarist, fadista and ruffian, and Adelaide da Facada [of the Knife] (so called because of the scar on the left side of her face). The result is a true and harsh portrait of a universe of simplicity. “Fado comes from a simple place. Simple souls have fewer vices. The simplicity of life and people, humility, is a very important quality in the practice of fado and is very different from what an artist is. An artist needs their ego to overcome themselves. There is this inner struggle that is important in the daily life of fado. But it has to take precedence over the work.

Peculiarities that, in fact, reproduce themselves. On the new album “A Portuguesa”, Luísa Sobral, Joana Espadinha, Marcelo Camelo and Rita Vian are guest artists, either singing or writing. “All the people on my album were inspirations. This album treats the practice of traditional fado as a genre, in the way of composing and writing. The way fadistas build their repertoire. I was inspired by fadistas who shared all the fados they sang. Fado is a young language, just over 200 years old, and we are the heirs of that generation and that courage.

I was inspired by “make your own way”. It is my means of communication. It’s not a finished piece. It’s just an instrument that I manipulate without constraints, without ties. Without fear of purists, without fear. It’s not for me to be afraid. It’s for me to have courage. It’s wisdom that inspires me. It’s what I want to explore. It’s what I recognise in Amália and what I seek.”

But the question is: why “A Portuguesa”? “It’s my way of seeing the world. It’s the way I look at poetry, it’s the way I find a place where I belong. It calls identity into question. Identity is something abstract. What does it feel like to be at home? The Portuguese language is spoken in so many places in the world… I think that language and identity are very nomadic and fleeting places. Even tradition is a very abstract concept. We don’t know what tradition is. Identity is not global and settled. Tradition is not something constant. It is something that belongs to each of us. The sense of belonging is something that belongs to us: belonging to a place. Fado did that for me, made me feel part of a world and a place. Fado became my home.

A future made of the present

“Poor Things”, Pope Francis, Coldplay and a new album. It’s been a busy year, and it’s impossible to pick a highlight. Carminho was part of Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest film, “Poor Things”, interpreting the song “O Quarto” in what she believes was a “happy day for fado”. “This director chooses Lisbon, fado and the Portuguese language to communicate and create. He sees that this place is exotic and special. Of course it was important for me, for fado and for Portugal. I owe a lot to the Portuguese language.”

In August, the fadista sang for Pope Francis at an event in Lisbon attended by 1.5 million people. “I am a practising Catholic; I was there as a pilgrim. It was a moment of surrender and detachment and, above all, of gratitude for having been born with this vocation. I have to give back to others what I have received.”


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