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 There are many artistic personalities that left their mark in Portuguese music history. Artists, who by talent, charisma and popularity marked José’s era.
There aren’t many, however, that would single handedly alter its history. José Afonso was one of those that did.
He would be known by an intimate and universal name: Zeca Afonso. A name that refers to more than the artist, but convene a powerful figure in the collective imagination, a figure that conjures up images of myth. In some form, Zeca was conscious of this. In a long series of interviews that Zeca gave for the book “Livra-te de Medo”, he affirms, “Me a myth? (…) I only feel like a myth when people speak of it”.
José Afonso didn’t merely determine the history of Portuguese music. He was a protagonist in some of the main cultural changes, political and sociological, that Portugal went through in the 60’s.
Perhaps it is this main feature that distinguishes Zeca Afonso. He largely transcended his condition of composer-singer and his status as an artist. He was a man who sparked change and innovation.
“I HAD A GREAT DESIRE TO SING”
José Manuel Cerqueira Afonso dos Santos was born in Aveiro on August 2, 1929. The following year his parents departed for Angola, for professional reasons, leaving young Zeca behind in Aveiro, at his uncle’s house, due to medical complications.
His father, Judge José Nepomuceno Afonso, left a profound mark on Zeca’s life, Zeca recalls: “It was a very neurotic subject, with many humorous fluctuations, but from an intellectual stand point, one of strength, precision, and impressive rigor. (…) He didn’t openly approve of my singing activities. (…) He wanted a child that would go on to be a doctor. Formally, he did get that, but my practice brought me to music. Later(…) he began to accept me as he found out that my songs were against the regime.”
It was his mother, a primary school teacher that required Zeca to travel to Angola, at the age of 3. He traveled on the vessel, “Mouzinho”, accompanied by an uncle, who abandoned him while on ship, because he was on his honey moon. Zeca, gravitated to a missionary, the only person that would watch him. He went on to remember that person in dreams for the rest of his life.
In Bié, later in Luanda and Lourenço Marques, Zeca becomes deeply impressed by Africa. “Africa, as a physical entity is something that weighed very heavily in my life and in my memories.”
In 1936 he returns to Aveiro, only to leave the following year for Mozambique, where he would reunite with his parents and siblings, Mariazinha, and João. His siblings became a strong presence throughout his life. His oldest brother, would become very close, and a prominent figure in the clan, who would support him through difficult times all through life. His younger sister would support him emotionally in letters that she would write to him.
He returned to “Continental Portugal” residing with his uncle, then mayor of Belmonte. Here he had contact with the conservative mentality of Portugal’s interior, which greatly disturbed him. But it is also a fertile time, in which he discovers the popular songs of Beira, which later have a great presence in his music.
At 11 years old he went to an Aunt’s house in Coimbra, also a closed, conservative, ultra-religious household. There, in his post primary education at Liceu D. João III, he meets António Portugal e Luiz Goes. It is also at the school where he begins to sing in concerts, the opening paragraph to his long lived connection with music. He went on to say, “I had a great desire to sing. (…) anyone with a voice, even with little or no talent, was immediately put into the choir. There was also an interesting mechanism at the time, I don’t know if it came from the Bourgeoisie or the Nobility, but, any guy who was interested in a girl, would invite his friend, who knew how to sing, to pay a loving tribute to the girl, on behalf of the non-singing friend. I played that role in many of those serenades.
In those first years he lived passionately for Coimbra, “I traded the memories, a sort of physical freedom that I enjoyed in Africa, for the myth of Coimbra, a romantic Coimbra of liberalized freedom that we and other people sang of. (…) I imagined a Coimbra outside of its true dimensions. It was a glorified Coimbra, because when I tried to realize that image that I had conjured up, it became a real pain”.
In 1949 Zeca entered the University of Coimbra, and majored in the Historical and Philosophical Sciences, in the Faculty of Arts. He would complete his degree; however, he had a very remote interest in it. Music was already his prime motivation. Some of his original albums at the time were published with “Doctor José Afonso” on the cover. He also got married for the first time; in the midst of sever economic difficulties. The marriage brought about his children, José Manuel and Helena.
“RIVERS THAT LEAD TO SEA”
Like so many others, José Afonso is attracted by the musical expression that is widely accepted in Academia: the fado. His first to Albums were recorded in 1953. He went on to release other albums, like, “Fado das Águias” and “Solitário”, by António Menano. He was accompanied by António Brojo and António Portugal on the guitars, and Aurélio Reis and Mário de Castro on the Violas. Three years later he went on to record another album; again with Coimbra style fado’s.
After 1958, after his tour in Angola, where colonialism and racism, greatly affected the young artist, José Afonso begins singing at popular venues, mostly to overcome economic difficulties.
His ballad of Autumn, a decisive song in which he overcomes the traditional Coimbra style fado, this is the form in which it was recorded in 1960.
Águas Water
Passadas do rio After the river
Meu sono vazio My empty dreams
Não vão acordar Will not agree
Águas Water
Das fontes calai From the taps I silenced
Ó ribeiras chorai From the streams I cried
Que eu não volto That I won’t continue
A cantar Singing
Rios que vão dar ao mar Rivers that lead to sea
Deixem meus olhos secar (...) Leave my eyes dry (…)
The political content of the subject, with lyrics and music by Zeca Afonso, is only implied. But it was decoded by the most attentive, just like they decoded the formal daring of the “Ballad”, which would lead the way for the genre in the following decade. In the view of Louzã Henriques, “I consider the Autumn Ballad of Zeca very important, because for the fist time you see something, that doesn’t have the structure of a fado, changing the technique of the Ballad proper (…) The evolution of the Country began to bring about want for political intervention (…) Naturally, the political conscious made certain groups radicalize, creating a certain dislike for things that were traditional: the guitar was no longer a prestigious item, just like fado (…) The guitar virtually disappears, falling into the background, and the viola becomes the main form of musical support.
In Fados de Coimbra e...
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