Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Cape Verde, a group of islands located about 400 kilometers from the coast of Senegal, has a population of about 800,000: about the same population as Leicester, and for many years the music of the country was much less than its borders. Then, in 1992, Cape Verdean singer Cesária Évora released her album Miss Perfumado.
The album became a hit in Europe, selling 500,000 copies in France alone, while in the US, Évora became the biggest African artist of the 20th century. Miss Perfumado showed Évora’s classic voice – smoky, tired, broken but seductive – singing Cape Verdean temperature: sad songs sung in the Kriolu language, which combines old Portuguese and West African languages, with cross-cultural elements. A concert at London’s Barbican next month will celebrate Évora’s legacy temperature he sang with Cape Verdean musicians (Ceuzany, Elida Almeida, Lucibela, Teófilo Chantre) and Mayra Andrade, a famous singer who was trained by him. Andrade said: “These concerts in his honor are very important. He put Cape Verde on the map and we Cape Verdeans are determined to preserve his name and his music.”
The success of Miss Perfumado won the fame of Évora and the wealth of 51 years, after living a contented life in poverty. Growing up in Mindelo, a port city on the island of São Vicente, her widowed mother could not feed her children and at the age of 10, Évora was placed in an orphanage. His musical career began with performances in youth bars as a teenager.
The records he made in the 1960s were released in the Netherlands, which has a large Cape Verdean population, but did not do well, and Évora retired from music in 1975, living with his mother and struggling with alcoholism and depression. But he felt strong enough to return to singing in 1985 and temperature singer Bana (AKA Adriano Gonçalves) brought her to Lisbon to perform in his restaurant and began recording her, selling cassettes in the Cape Verdean area.
Here, in 1987, José da Silva – a Cape Verdean musician living in Paris whose job was to work for the French SNCF railway – saw Évora singing to diners in a restaurant. Impressed, he started the Lusafrica label especially for him. In his first two albums Évora sang on pop arrangements and attracted little attention, but for Mar Azul (Blue Sea) of 1991, Évora insisted on singing with the help of a small vocal accompaniment, as he did in Cape Verde. Mar Azul’s sparse, melancholy beauty won Évora a new audience; A year later, Miss Perfumado made him a star.
I had the opportunity to interview Évora twice – the first time in London in 1999, the second in Paris in 2001. We spoke through his translator, and I found Évora droll and intelligent. I read that the shoeless Évora does not always wear shoes to show solidarity with the poor but, when I told him this, he fooled me: he grew up in poverty, by the time he was able to buy shoes he found that the shoes were not good.
“Why should I be surprised that people like my singing?” he answered me when I asked them how they feel about his popularity around the world. “In Cape Verde I was always asked to sing when guests came to visit and they loved my singing; I knew that when I got to Europe people would appreciate me.”
Success allowed Évora to take care of family and friends, but it came too late for him to enjoy himself properly. “I wish I had been known when I was younger because now I’m traveling all over the world, but I just want to go back to Cape Verde – I don’t want parties or glamour.” Seeing that his hotel faced Hyde Park, I suggested that we go for a walk in the park and perhaps visit one of the nearby palaces, but Évora refused, saying: “I don’t want London or New York or Paris. You have more wealth than Cape Verde;
He mentioned the frustrations that followed his Dutch records “disappearing” – promises of concerts and payments were not honored – and said he was not paid by Bana for his Lisbon tapes. “I have not seen the results of my work.” Da Silva, he said, was the first person in music to honor him. I asked Évora if she was still in touch with Bana and she answered in passing, adding: “God help me – no!”
The challenges that Évora faced throughout its 500 years made it a revolutionary. After three failed marriages and one of his three children died in infancy, he told me that he is no longer interested in romance. He lit up talking about his homeland, and when we visited Paris I saw him wrapped in the Cape Verdean flag, but he didn’t want to talk about his ordeal – Andrade remembers that Évora told him that he hadn’t had a drink for a year, and then never mentioned it again.
Évora did not stop smoking, but said: “Cesária always insisted on smoking and I was not good with tobacco, so when we were together, I had to put up with her smoking,” said Andrade. “But he was like a grandfather to me – a generous, loving person. I first met him when he was 12 and I told him I was also a musician – I know, I was dedicated! – and he encouraged me. I learned a lot from him.”
Da Silva was able to manage and develop Évora, ensuring that he never rested, pairing him with the best Cuban and Brazilian musicians; Famous fans including Caetano Veloso and Bonnie Raitt made guest appearances. The seven albums he released after Miss Perfumado are all classics, and there were more temperature it has already been written – Évora’s late uncle, B Leza, was a very famous composer – Cape Verdean composers lined up to write him new songs. Another famous fan, Madonna, asked Évora to sing at her wedding to Guy Ritchie. Évora refused, but you can sense the pull on Madonna’s 2019 album from Portugal, Madame X.
The UK initially lagged behind Évora in Europe and the US, with BBC Radio 2 reportedly refusing to put her on the list because she didn’t sing in English. David Jones, who was the head of the Serious music label, made sure he won over the British public by keeping him at festivals and concert venues, and he remembers organizing a fundraising concert for Évora’s children at Annabel’s nightclub in London’s Mayfair.
“Tickets were £125 each – which seemed expensive at the time – and Cesária loved playing in the small club, saying it reminded her of the clubs she played in when she was young,” he says. “He was a lovely person, always taking care of others.” And José da Silva, you can tell he wanted the best for Cesária.
In 2008 Évora suffered a minor stroke while on tour in Australia and his health declined. But, says Andrade, “he never stopped singing – we last sang in China in 2010 and his energy was gone but his voice was still there.” Évora also underwent heart surgery, as well as hypertension and respiratory disease his death in 2011 70 years; it was said that he was drinking, smoking and singing with his friends and family until his last hours.
Today, Mindelo’s international airport bears its name – a statue of Évora greets visitors – and Cape Verdean music flourishes. Meanwhile, Andrade continues to talk with them. He said, ‘if you are a musician, don’t forget that the audience can decide whether you go up or down.’ Good advice.”
