José Afonso

Poet, singer and composer, José Manuel Cerqueira Afonso dos Santos was born on August 2, 1929, in Aveiro, and died on February 23, 1987, in Setúbal.

He lived in his hometown until he was three years old, then in 1932 he traveled to Angola to live with his parents and siblings who were already there. It must have been here that the poet developed a close relationship with Nature and especially with Africa, which would later be reflected in many of his works.

Returning to Portugal, after a brief stay in Mozambique, José Afonso went to live with relatives in Belmonte, where he completed his primary education.

He studied in Coimbra, at the D. João III high school, and later enrolled in the Historical-Philosophical Sciences course at the Faculty of Arts in that city, becoming known for his interpretations of typical Coimbra fado – not only for the quality of his voice but also for the originality he brought to his performances.

In 1955, he began a brief career as a secondary school teacher, teaching in high schools and colleges in places as varied as Mangualde, Aljustrel, Lagos, Faro, and Alcobaça. Six years later, he left for Mozambique where he would return to teaching.

Back in his country in 1967, he secured a position as a teacher, but after being expelled from the teaching profession due to ideological differences with the ruling dictatorial regime, he began to dedicate himself more to music and, consequently, to more regular recordings.

His musical training was part of a comprehensive process of thematic and musical updating of the songs and fado of Coimbra. This is how Zeca Afonso's songbook recreated folkloric and even children's themes, rewriting traditional forms such as the "Lullaby," even evoking, in this return to the purest Portuguese cultural roots, the lyrical atmosphere of primitive songbooks (cf. "Cantiga do Monte"), while simultaneously introducing themes resulting from a historical commitment, denouncing situations of social and moral misery (poor children, hunger in the Alentejo, the absence of freedom) and cementing the belief in a utopia concentrated in the yearning for "A new day" ("Menino do Bairro Negro").

Reacting against the futility of "singing about pink and pretty things, very much in vogue in our radio compositions and in our export music hall," he started from the conviction that "If we gave it a certain dignity and attributed to it, due to the urgency of the themes addressed, a minimum of educational value, we might perhaps be able to create a new type of song whose updating could resonate in the narcotized spirit of the public, disturbing its dormant conscience instead of distracting it." ("Notes" by José Afonso in Cantares, p. 82).

Songs memorized by several generations of Portuguese people, daughters of tradition and, in turn, incorporating Portuguese cultural tradition, most of Zeca Afonso's themes integrate, as a voice of resistance but also as a pure voice springing from the roots of being Portuguese, the imagination of a people who, during the dictatorship, memorized and intimately sang the verses of revolt of "Vampiros" or "A Morte Saiu à Rua", or who made "Grândola, Vila Morena" their anthem of utopia and liberation.

Less ambiguous in the post-April 25th period, but animated by the same impetus to demand justice and appeal for fraternity, her song, while sometimes lacking subtle metaphor imposed by writing under censorship, gains in strength and engagement in the battle against new ghosts of human alienation such as imperialism, the CIA, Brazilian fascism, the new colonialism of Africa, and European individualism.

In this spirit, the Popular Quatrains (1980) constitute a true miscellany about the new disarray of the world, its new and renewed forms of oppression, enumerating one by one the iniquities, absurdities and frustrated hopes of the society that emerged from the April revolution, aspiring, in conclusion, to a revolution not yet fulfilled or yet to be made.

Despite being awarded an official prize three times in a row (1969, 1970 and 1971), his work was banned from the media due to its undesirable content for the regime; for these same reasons – perhaps more than for its musical innovation – his popularity grew after the re-establishment of democracy.

From his entire discography, the following albums stand out: Autumn Ballad (1960), Ballads of Coimbra (1962), Ballads and Songs (1964), Wanderer's Songs (1968), Bring Another Friend Too (1970), Come Five More (1973), Court Choir (1974), Grândola, Vila Morena (1974), While There Is Strength (1978), As If It Were Your Son (1983) and Wild Chickens (1985).