A History of Portuguese Fado

In 1987 Paul Vernon finds a pile of old fado 78s in a second-hand shop in San Francisco. This was apparently a very good collection because Paul runs off to Lisbon in pursuit of fado a few weeks after this magical find. The result is the book A History of Portuguese Fado published in 1998. It is highly recommended reading in Donald Cohen's Fado Portugues: Songs From the Soul of Portugal as one of the only comprensive histories of fado in English so naturally I had to find it. Our beloved fado librarian Libby Hanssen found the book via inter-library loan and I just finished reading this fantastic resource this week while trapped inside during a midwestern snowstorm.

Libby Hanssen - Librarian extraordinaire

The book begins with a thorough chronology of the History of Portugal and ends with a very useful list of important fado addresses in Portugal and around the world. This book is an adventure waiting to happen.

Contents from "A History of Portuguese Fado"

I found one character particularly interesting. A guitarist known as "Armandinho". He was the inventor of the contra-canto (counter song) style of guitar playing that I find so interesting. The fado guitarist accompanies the singer by floating about within the melody in a quasi out-of-time fashion utilizing florid ornaments and filling in the spaces between vocal lines with improvised counter lines.

from "A History of Portuguese Fado"

Here's a  recording of Armandinho accompanying fado legend Filipe Pinto



Here's a solo recording of Armandinho's "Variations in A major"

Here's an article by Paul Vernon originally published in the magazine FolkROOTS. 

 - Beau Bledsoe