Fado Route

21 December 1939 (Singer)

The only child of the fado singer Lucília do Carmo, Carlos do Carmo grew up amidst evenings of song and guitar playing. Although familiar with the scene, he hadn’t planned to follow in his mother’s footsteps. But the success achieved singing for groups of friends set his future in train. With a very distinctive style, Carlos do Carmo has established himself as one of the most talented of the current crop of fado singers. In 2014, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy and a Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

16 February 1925 - 23 July 2004 (Guitarist and composer)

A supreme guitarist, Carlos Paredes was the heir to a long family tradition of guitar players. Deeply influenced by the fado of Coimbra, his home city, he was responsible for renewing and reinventing the sound of the guitar, to the extent that it is possible to speak of a pre- and post-Carlos Paredes sound. Besides being an extraordinary performer, he was one of the most important composers of music for Portuguese guitar of all time.

10 October 1907 - 9 November 1969 (Singer)

Carlos Ramos began his fado career as a guitarist, but it was once he started to sing that he really achieved success. His distinctive voice charmed audiences with successes like "Não Venhas Tarde" and "Canto o Fado". He sang at the most famous fado houses in the 1940s and '50s and eventually became the owner of one of them, A Toca, a fado landmark.

22 November 1901 - 13 July 1981 (Lyricist)

A renowned popular poet, Carlos Conde wrote hundreds of poems for fado as a lyricist of repertoires for major singers, describing with talent the lanes and alleyways of Lisbon like nobody else, setting the whole mental imagery of fado to verse. Through his most famous poems, he was on the lips of the world, literally. In 2001, Lisbon paid homage to Carlos Conde by naming one of the city’s streets after him.

20 August 1984 (Singer)

One of the most international of Portuguese artists, with a curriculum of chart successes in various countries, including Spain, where she was the first Portuguese singer to reach number 1. In 2009, when she launched her first album Fado, she was described by some in the music press as "the greatest revelation of the last decade", while the British magazine Songlines rated the album as one of the ten best of that year. Alma, her latest album, has catapulted her definitively to international stardom.