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Long known as the queen of the morna, a soulful genre (descendant of the Portuguese fado) sung in Creole-Portuguese, she mixes her sentimental folk tunes filled with longing and sadness with the acoustic sounds of guitar, cavaquinho, violin, accordion, and clarinet. Évora's Cape Verdean blues often speak of the country's long and bitter history of isolation and slave trade, as well as emigration - almost two-thirds of the million Cape Verdeans alive live abroad.
Évora's voice, a finely-tuned, melancholy instrument with a touch of hoarseness, highlights her emotional phrasing by accenting a word or phrase. Even audiences who do not understand her language are held spell-bound by the emotions evident in her performances.
In 2004 she won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Music Album.
Discography
- La Diva aux pieds nus - 1988
- Distino di Belita - 1990
- Mar Azul - 1991
- Miss Perfumado - 1992
- Sodade, Les Plus Belles Mornas De Cesaria - 1994
- Cesaria - 1995
- Cabo Verde - 1997
- Cafe Atlantico - 1999
- Sao Vicente de Longe - 2001
- Cesaria Evora Anthology - 2002
- Live in Paris (DVD) - 2002
- Voz D'amor - 2003
- Club Sodade - Cesaria Evora by... - 2003
- Live D'Amor (DVD) - 2004
External Links
- Complete discography with tracks, some real audio files and lyrics (http://www.mindelo.info/disco_cesaria.html)
- French site about this queen (http://www.cesaria.info)
- The International Country of Cesaria Evora (http://www.boheme-magazine.net/php/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=107)