Cape Verde, an archipelago nearly 400 miles off the coast of Senegal, is home to around 800,000 people: about the same population as Leicester, and for decades the country\u2019s music was very little known beyond its borders. Then, in 1992, Cape Verdean singer Ces\u00e1ria \u00c9vora released her album Miss Perfumado.<\/p>\n
The album became a crossover hit across Europe, selling 500,000 copies in France alone, while in the US, \u00c9vora became the biggest selling African artist of the 20th century. Miss Perfumado showcased \u00c9vora\u2019s sublime voice \u2013 smoky, weary, bruised yet seductive \u2013 singing Cape Verdean mornas: mournful ballads sung in the Kriolu language which blends old Portuguese with west African languages, with backings that have the same cross-cultural mix. A concert at London\u2019s Barbican next month will celebrate \u00c9vora\u2019s legacy with morna performed by rising Cape Verdean singers (Ceuzany, Elida Almeida, Lucibela, Te\u00f3filo Chantre) and Mayra Andrade, a celebrated vocalist who was mentored by her. \u201cThese concerts honouring her are important,\u201d Andrade says. \u201cShe put Cape Verde on the map and we Cape Verdeans are determined to keep her name and music alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The success of Miss Perfumado won \u00c9vora fame and fortune aged 51, after a lifetime shadowed by poverty. Raised in Mindelo, a port city on the island of S\u00e3o Vicente, her widowed mother was unable to feed her children and at 10, \u00c9vora was placed in an orphanage. Her music career started out with performances in bars in her early teens.<\/p>\n
Recordings she made in the 1960s were released in the Netherlands, where there is a substantial Cape Verdean community, but were not successful, and \u00c9vora retired from singing in 1975, living with her mother and struggling with alcoholism and depression. But she felt strong enough to return to performing in 1985 and morna singer Bana (AKA Adriano Gon\u00e7alves) brought her to Lisbon to sing in his restaurant and began recording her, selling cassettes to the local Cape Verdean community.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Here, in 1987, Jos\u00e9 da Silva \u2013 a Paris-based Cape Verdean musician whose day job was working for France\u2019s SNCF railways \u2013 witnessed \u00c9vora sing to diners at the restaurant. Impressed, he founded the Lusafrica label specifically for her. On her first two albums \u00c9vora sang over pop arrangements and attracted little attention, but for 1991\u2019s Mar Azul (Blue Sea), \u00c9vora insisted on singing backed by a small acoustic combo, as she did in Cape Verde. Mar Azul\u2019s sparse, melancholy beauty won \u00c9vora a new audience; a year later Miss Perfumado made her a star.<\/p>\n
I had the good fortune to interview \u00c9vora twice \u2013 the first time in London in 1999, the second in Paris in 2001. We spoke through her translator, and I found \u00c9vora droll and wise. I\u2019d read that the always barefooted \u00c9vora didn\u2019t wear shoes so as to show solidarity with impoverished peoples but, when I put this to her, she pooh-poohed it: having grown up in poverty, by the time she could afford shoes she found footwear uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy should I be surprised that people like my singing?\u201d she replied when I enquired as to how she felt about her international fame. \u201cIn Cape Verde I was always asked to sing for the foreigners when they visited and they liked my singing; I knew if I could get to Europe people would appreciate me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Success allowed \u00c9vora to provide for family and friends, yet came too late for her to properly enjoy. \u201cI wish I had been recognised when I was younger as now I tour the world but I just want to go back to Cape Verde \u2013 I\u2019m not interested in parties or glamour.\u201d Noting that her hotel faced Hyde Park, I suggested we take a walk in the park and maybe visit one of the nearby royal palaces, but \u00c9vora declined, saying: \u201cI\u2019m not interested in London or New York or Paris. You have more resources than Cape Verde; beyond that we are all the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I knew if I could get to Europe people would appreciate me\u2019 \u2026 Performing live in 2010. Photograph: ZUMA Press, Inc.\/Alamy Stock Photo\/Alamy Live News.<\/p>\n
She mentioned the disappointment that followed her Dutch recordings \u201cdisappearing\u201d \u2013 promises of concerts and payment were not honoured \u2013 and alleged that she was never paid by Bana for her Lisbon cassettes. \u201cI saw no results for my work.\u201d Da Silva, she said, was the first person in music to treat her honourably. I asked \u00c9vora if she remained in contact with Bana and she replied by crossing herself, adding: \u201cGod help me \u2013 no!\u201d<\/p>\n
The hardships \u00c9vora had experienced across her first half-century made her a stoic. After three failed marriages and one of her three children dying in childhood she told me she now had no interest in romance. She lit up when talking about her homeland, and after our Paris chat I watched her perform wrapped in the Cape Verde flag, but she didn\u2019t want to discuss her tribulations \u2013 Andrade recalls \u00c9vora once telling her she had not drunk alcohol for a year, then never mentioning the subject again.<\/p>\n
\u00c9vora didn\u2019t quit smoking, though: \u201cCes\u00e1ria always insisted on smoking and I\u2019m allergic to tobacco so, when we were together, I\u2019d have to put up with her puffing away,\u201d Andrade says. \u201cBut she was like a grandmother to me \u2013 a very generous, warm person. I first met her aged 12 and told her I was also a singer \u2013 I know, I was audacious! \u2013 and she encouraged me. I learned a lot from her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Da Silva ended up managing and producing \u00c9vora, and ensured she never rested on her laurels, pairing her with top Cuban and Brazilian musicians; famous fans including Caetano Veloso and Bonnie Raitt made guest appearances. The seven studio albums she released after Miss Perfumado are all of a high standard, and while there were plenty of mornas already written \u2013 \u00c9vora\u2019s late uncle B Leza was a noted composer of them \u2013 contemporary Cape Verdean songwriters queued up to write new ones for her. Another famous fan, Madonna, requested \u00c9vora sing at her wedding to Guy Ritchie. \u00c9vora declined, but you can perhaps detect her influence on Madonna\u2019s 2019 Portugal-rooted album Madame X.<\/p>\n
An \u00c9vora mural on a building in Ribeira Grande, Santo Antao, Cape Verde. Photograph: G Thielmann\/Alamy<\/p>\n
The UK initially lagged behind Europe and the US in getting behind \u00c9vora, with BBC Radio 2 allegedly refusing to playlist her as she didn\u2019t sing in English. David Jones, former head of live music organisation Serious, ensured she won a British audience by getting her booked at festivals and concert halls, and recalls organising a fundraising concert for \u00c9vora\u2019s children\u2019s charity at Annabel\u2019s nightclub in Mayfair in London.<\/p>\n
\u201cTickets were \u00a3125 each \u2013 which seemed a fortune back then \u2013 and Ces\u00e1ria loved singing in a small club, saying it reminded her of clubs she had sung in when young,\u201d he says. \u201cShe was a lovely person, always looking out for others. And Jos\u00e9 da Silva, you could tell he wanted what\u2019s best for Ces\u00e1ria. She\u2019d joke with me about Jos\u00e9 working her so hard but I know she loved getting up and singing. She saw herself taking the stage and being a channel for this music.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2008 \u00c9vora suffered a minor stroke while touring Australia and her health declined. But, says Andrade, \u201cshe could never stop singing \u2013 we sang for the final time in China in 2010 and her energy was fading but her voice was still there.\u201d \u00c9vora also had heart surgery, and hypertension and respiratory illness caused her death in 2011<\/a> aged 70; it was reported that she was drinking, smoking and singing with friends and family until her final hours.<\/p>\n Today, Mindelo\u2019s international airport named after her \u2013 a statue of \u00c9vora greets visitors \u2013 and Cape Verdean music thrives. Andrade, meanwhile, still holds on to another of their valuable conversations together. \u201cShe said, \u2018if you are a singer, never forget the audience will decide if you go up or down\u2019. Good advice.\u201d<\/p>\n Ces\u00e1ria \u00c9vora Orchestra, with special guest Mayra Andrade, plays Barbican Hall, London<\/a>, on 13 June, as part of the Project a Black Planet<\/a> season<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cape Verde, an archipelago nearly 400 miles off the coast of Senegal, is home to around 800,000 people:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":666534,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-666533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=666533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/666533\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/666534"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=666533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=666533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=666533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}