“Fado” is Portuguese for “fate,” but it’s also a musical genre that has been called—with good reason—Portugal’s blues for its lower-caste origins and bittersweet lyrics of hope and misfortune.
Ana Moura has become one of fado’s bright young voices, the person Mick Jagger wants to sing with when the Stones tour Portugal. Although she got her start singing rock, she isn’t interested in forcing outside influences onto fado; rather, in her hands, the broodingly lilting music remains entirely true to tradition while the lyrics assume responsibility for addressing timeless themes from a contemporary perspective. Accompanied by an acoustic trio, featuring fado’s distinctive instrument, the 12-string guitarra, Moura’s bell-clear voice expresses many shades of emotional nuance. We need no bilingual phrase book to understand her feelings.
