Mísia

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Mísia is a Portuguese fado singer, born in Oporto, Portugal. Mísia's mother is Catalan, and used to be a cabaret dancer, which explains many of the influences that shape her music: tango, bolero, the fusion of the Portuguese guitar with the accordion, violin and piano. Mísia developed, throughout her career, a new style of fado: she strips off the shawl of the "Amalian" fado, shocks the orthodox listeners by adding to the traditional instruments (bass guitar, classical guitar and Portuguese guitar) the sensuality of the accordion and the violin, and borrows from the best Portuguese poets their finest verses. Her first album from 1990 was released in a time when, even in her home Portugal, fado was not a good choice to make. With the exception of Amalia Rodrigues and Carlos do Carmo, no singers of fado ("fadistas") were listened by the audience. Despite that, Mísia recorded an album with all the traditional traits of Fado, including in the lining poems from popular fado songwriters, such as Joaquim Frederico de Brito or José Niza, alongside with poems from great Portuguese poets, such as José Carlos Ary dos Santos, an even a cover from Vinicius de Moraes´ song, "Samba em Prelúdio". The album had her name, "Mísia", and was very well received by both audience and critic outside Portugal, mainly in France. The album was followed by "Fado" in 1993, where she kept her choice to sing popular writers along with poets. This time she sang songs from Sergio Godinho ("Liberdades Poeticas"), Amália Rodrigues ("Lágrima"), along with poems from António Lobo Antunes ("Nasci Para Morrer Contigo"), Rosa Lobato de Faria ("Fado Quimera" and "Velhos Amantes" written from a music by Jacques Brel) and even José Saramago ("Fado Adivinha") that would, years later, win the Nobel Prize. In 1995 she recorded "Tanto Menos Tanto Mais" (Means "Less Is More"), where she mixes the texture of the classical fado instrumments, Portuguese guitar, acoustic guitar and bass, with violin, accordion, piano and even harp. Once more, she sings Antonio Lobo Antunes, but also Fernando Pessoa and João Monge, one of the most appreciated Portuguese lyrics-writer. Her first album published in the USA, however, was "Garras dos Sentidos" (Means "Claws Of The Senses") in 1998. The concept on this album was to sing important Portuguese poets over melodies belonging to Traditional Fado (when the melody is not composed for any lyrics in specific). This way, Mísia not only sings dead poets like Fernando Pessoa, Mário de Sá Carneiro, Natália Correia or António Botto as she sings contemporary poets like José Saramago and Mário Cláudio, and she also invites two writers to write poems for the album, Agustina Bessa-Luís, who wrote the lyrics for the titletrack, and Lídia Jorge, who's main poem, Fado Do Retorno is sung in two versions: track 4 with piano, accordion, violin and double bass, and track 11 with Portuguese guitar, acoustic guitar, bassa, double bass, violin and accordion. Her 1999 album, "Paixões Diagonais" ("Diagonal Passions") she takes again songs from all kind of writers, since João Monge, Amélia Muge, Antonio dos Santos or Vitorino Salomé, to Rosa Lobato de Faria or Sergio Godinho. In 2001, she decides to make her tribute to Amália Rodrigues, after her death, and records "Ritual", where all the songs (except the last one) are recorded only with the traditional three-instrument fado concept. Her 2003 album Canto may be considered her masterpiece. Mixing pieces of the best works of the Portuguese guitarist Carlos Paredes with poems of Vasco Graça Moura (and some of Sérgio Godinho and Pedro Tamen), Mísia has built a piece of music that she would describe as belonging to her "gallery of impossible things". Mísia is a polyglot. Despite singing mostly fado (which is not fado if not sung in Portuguese), she sings some of her themes in Spanish, French, Catalan or even English. One of the examples is her last album Drama Box, a collection of tangos, boleros and fados, sung in Portuguese and Spanish. In Drama Box, Mísia depicts herself as a cabaret dancer living in the "Drama Box Hotel" with her musicians. It is a very personal album, simultaneously a tribute to her mother and a real description of her life: travelling through the world, taking fado everywhere.