Introduction to FADO

 

Hi D & R: 

As promised I am sending you some samples of Fado just for fun. Reading the 20^th century history of the genre during the era of the fascists is interesting as well. M and I have some experience with Fado in both the Algarve and Lisbon. I suppose I’m the real Fado lover although we both discovered it on an overnight tour to Lisbon from the Algarve way back in 2009. We did the usual tram and walking tours but in the evening our bus took us to a club in what we later learned was the Barrio Alto. There we were entertained by four different male and female singers and their backup players with guitar, guitarra and base. Since then we have been to another performance in the Algarve and more in Lisbon including the Clube de Severa in the Barrio Alto only last year. It has a definite 40’s Casablanca / Bogart feel and a little bit like the old song ‘What’s Behind the Green Door’ as you enter.

When you return to Lisbon make a night walk of the Chiado and the 100 year old art deco Brasileira cafe off the Praca de Comoes square in the shadow of two huge popish churches where the arriving trams squeal along the tracks as they make their way up the hill and exiting to the streets far below. Only in Lisbon will you see the tram driver exit his cab with a rail bar to change the switch position so he can exit to a different street.

It’s 9pm in the Chiado and tram seekers are waiting in front of the Pastel de Nata shop to catch a tram or a freshly made custard tart. Staring across the square the lanterns illuminate the beer drinkers and the marijuana junkies making love on the statute of Camoes, the city’s beloved poet; while policemen stand idly by in the shadows casually smoking their cigarettes as another tram squeals around the oval de praca. The scene is so civil it gives your head a jerk; imagining a world of Toulouse Lautrec.

Leaving the tram stand and a quick turn to the left leads you to the dim lights of the Barrio Alto only yards away. The Barrio is a series of alleys traversing across a steep incline with stairs conjoining them every block. On each street Fado merchants ply their trade in typical Portuguese fashion with a hawker inviting you to see the Fado desserts of the dark bowels inside. As you stroll further there are restaurants, cafes, smoke shops and on any weekend evening there are thousands of people congregating in the narrow alleys.

Cigarette butts, cafes and cheeky plump Fado singers will greet you on the gritty cobble stones as you decide what ‘green’ door you will enter.  Don't forget to ask for the bill:  "A conta, por favor."