A Tribute to Cesaria Evora

1941-2011

To supplement our program, read through some of Afropop's coverage of Cesaria Evora over the years.

Cesaria on the Beach (1995)

Cesaria sings an old morna about Salamansa on her new album, and she says it's still one of her favorites. "When we were young, we used to go there with our lovers," she told me over the phone from Paris, where she now visits regularly. "At that beach the sand is very fine, and the song talks about rolling in the sands of Salamansa." That sweet memory of a lost moment of happiness shining out from the dreariness of the past expresses the morna perfectly. Cesaria's deep voice--at once frail and husky, weary and indomitable--quivers and moans mellifluously amid the light, bobbing melodies of a violin, an acoustic guitar and the chiming, paired-string Portuguese cavanquilo.

Review: Cesaria Evora - Sao Vicente (2001)

Throughout, Evora is in splendid voice, her relaxed, smoky delivery as strong and winning as we've ever heard it. For once in the much-tampered-with realm of high-level world music singers, a team of producers, guest artists, composers and the singer's own band have worked together to produce something coherent and consistently great--without a doubt the strongest Evora release to date.

Artist Profile: Cesaria Evora

More than half of Cape Verdeans live far from the beautiful archipelago their ancestors once called home. The Portuguese discovered these ten Atlantic Ocean islands in 1460, populated them with Africans and Europeans, and governed harshly until 1975. Three-hundred-and-fifty miles off the coast of Senegal, Cape Verde served as one of Africa's first slave ports, and became one of its last nations to achieve independence. All this helps to explain why the melancholy morna, an often minor-key song style tied to love, loss and sadness, best expresses the Cape Verdean national identity. And nobody sings a morna with more gusto than Cesaria Èvora.

The Glory That Was Cesaria Evora (2011)

Cesaria showed us all that it's possible to get a second chance in life.  After being all but forgotten following her earlier career, she surged to new heights after being "rediscovered" in France in the 1980s. She went on to inspire a new generation of Cape Verdean singers to follow in her footsteps—Lura, Maya Andrade, Fantcha and many others.  We will miss her!