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  Portugal's fado queen Amália dies at 79

By Richard Waddington

LISBON, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Amália Rodrigues, Portugal's queen of fado, the haunting folk music that became part of the national culture, died on Wednesday aged 79. 
Her record company said that the singer, who more than any other was responsible for making fado known internationally, was found dead in her bed by her secretary, but the cause of death was not immediately known. 
Tributes immediately poured in from leading figures from political and cultural life. Prime Minister Antonio Guterres said that he was declaring three days of national mourning. 
``It is a moment of great sadness. She was the voice of Portugal,'' Guterres told journalists. 
President Jorge Sampaio said that as an artist, she knew better than any other how to represent the national characteristics of affection, love, loneliness and above all ``saudade,'' an almost untranslatable Portuguese word evoking longing, yearning and nostalgia. 
Radio and television stations dropped their normal programming to recall the singer's life and play her songs, while political leaders briefly interrupted campaigning for Sunday's general election. 
``She was an exceptional woman and an exceptional fado singer, who will be difficult to replace,'' 65-year-old housewife, Emilia Ferrao, told Reuters. 
The singer, who began her career in Lisbon's working-class taverns, was known simply as `Amália'' to her legion of adoring fans. 

AMÁLIA TOUCHED THE PORTUGUESE SOUL 
A dark, tormented beauty, who rose from poverty, Amália sang well into her seventies, a veritable institution always clad in black. She was capable of touching the Portuguese soul and packed theatres. 
Accompanied by guitars and with her head thrown back, Amália cut a proud but nervous figure who never overcame stage fright despite success. 
She first grabbed the attention of the music world outside Portugal in the early 1950s when she toured Brazil, France and the United States. 
She starred in a dozen films and sang in countries from Mexico and the former Soviet Union to Japan. 
Her emotionally charged renderings of the poignant songs of her homeland struck a chord with foreign audiences and gave her a string of hit records such as ``Coimbra'' and ``Barco Negro'' before her popularity waned somewhat in the pop-crazy 1960s. 
After Portugal's 1974 revolution, fado went out of vogue among some leftist circles who linked it with 50 years of repressive dictatorship. But Amália rejected that she had political alliances. 
``I always sang fado without thinking of politics. I never had the support of any government,'' she said. 
Born into a poor Lisbon family in July 1920, Amália eventually chose July 1 to celebrate her birthday, although she is officially recorded as being born on July 23. 
Fado, which takes its name from the Portuguese word for fate and has strong Arab influences, emerged in Lisbon over 150 years ago. Its plaintive melodies, preaching resignation and defeat, were wrought from the daily travails of the poor and nostalgia of a nation in decline after a golden era of maritime power. 
Amália, with her deep anguish and working class simplicity, had what it took to capture the pessimism of Portugal's version of the blues. 
``I have so much sadness in me, I am a pessimist, a nihilist, everything fado demands in a singer I have in me,'' she said. ``When I am on my own, alone, tragedy comes, and solitude.'' 
09:15 10-06-99

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Famed Portugal Singer Dead At 79

.c The Associated Press

LISBON, Portugal (AP) - Amália Rodrigues, the singer whose performances of the country's brooding ``fado'' music brought her worldwide fame, died today, state radio RDP reported. She was 79.
She died at home, RDP reported, but did not give the cause of death.
Amália, as she was called, became known at home as the ``Ambassador of Fado'' for taking Portugal's sad and haunting traditional music out of Lisbon taverns and placing it on a world stage.
Her interpretations of fado - which means fate or destiny - allowed the world a glimpse into the depths of the Portuguese character.
Fado lyrics are sentimental, centering on longing, sadness and fatalism, while the guitar accompaniment combines the influences of Arab, African and Portuguese cultures.
And Amália was always considered the messenger of the genre.
``I don't sing fado, it sings in me,'' she once said.
Born in Lisbon on July 1, 1920, Amália gained fame in her teens by singing on the docks of Lisbon's Alcantara port quarter while she sold fruit with her mother and sister.
When she began to appear in a Lisbon fado club in 1939, her career blossomed, opening up roles in Portuguese theater and film productions.
After the Revolution of Carnations in 1974, when a leftist military coup did away with a half-century of rightist dictatorship, Amália was accused of sympathizing with the deposed fascist regime. Rumors that she opposed the new government sent her into a tailspin, and she was hospitalized with depression.
To prove those rumors wrong, Amália recorded a version of ``Grandola Vila Morena,'' the song that symbolized the April 25th revolution.
She was later awarded the country's highest honor, the Grand Cross of the Order of Santiago.
Increasing health problems from the 1980s caused her to retreat from public life.
Funeral arrangements were not immediately available.

AP-NY-10-06-99 0618EDT

Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without prior written authority of The Associated Press. 

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