Fado Portugues: Songs from the Soul of Portugal

I have given this book only two stars quite deliberately. In some ways, it is a very good book, but that quality has already been catered for by previous 5-star reviews. My gripe is that it could have been a much, much better book if only the author had taken the trouble to bring it fully up to date. Since the 1990s, and especially since the death of Amália in 1999, fado has undergone a massive revitalization and transformation that is almost totally neglected in this text and in the artists and songs selected to accompany it. Those who want to know about novo fado in detail will have to turn to Manuel Halpern's excellent 'O Futuro da Saudade: o novo fado e os novos fadistas', a detailed study of just about all the important (and some less important) names in fado since the early 90s, when Misia, then Paulo Bragança led the way to a post-Amália but inspired-by-Amália reformation in the genre. Misia appears here in a single, very early photograph, but her major career moves since then are nowhere documented. There's no Camané, no Cristina Branco, no José Fernando... I could go on. The accompanying CD is made up of nothing but old recordings, some of very poor quality. Of course, it's vital to know about the greats of the past 100 years or so, from Alfredo Marceneiro to Amália and so on, and in this respect, the author is to be colmmended, not least for printing out both the scores for each song and the letras. Even here, though, I thought his choice of songs a little limited in theme, and the range of artists not as wide as it might have been. I would strongly recommend that he consider a second volume. Whatever their responses to this book, it's likely readers will have at least a passing familiarity with the genre; but please don't be mislead into thinking this is representative of fado as a whole: this is traditional fado that doesn't even have some of the most famous traditional numbers.

This is a fantastic, good, informative, bookNice written, nice print, beautiful voicesVery happy with it