Friday 15 January 2010

Uma Casa Portuguesa

Uma Casa Portuguesa (A Portuguese House), is an iconic Portuguese song, made famous - I mean stratospherically famous - by Amália Rodrigues, an icon herself of flesh and blood, and miraculous powers some would say...

But I read in one of my recent book explorations - Angola, Terra Prometida (Angola, Promised Land) - that the song was first created in former Lourenço Marques, now Mozambique's capital Maputo, and sung there in 1951 by Sara Chaves at the age of 19 (an Angolan-born, white Portuguese singer). This was two years before Amália would make it known.

This so-very-Portuguese song of all times, was first heard in a contest for young singers in a small theatre house in the neighbourhood of Lhanguéne. This is Portugal the way I like it. Creole. 'Nha Terra.

No comments:

Post a Comment