Camane

You may not have heard of him before, but once you've heard him sing, you'll want to hear more.
Camané is the leading male singer in the new generation of stylists in Portugal's native urban song, Fado, ever since his first album came out in 1995 - and one of the few men working within this most tricky field.
Camané is also one of the most outstanding Portuguese singers to have come out of any generation; a voice so smooth and soulful, so impassionate and yet controlled that you wonder how such wise and weary vocal stylings can belong to someone so young.
That's probably because Fado runs through his blood from birth.We're about to share a secret with you if you promise not to tell: Camané was a child prodigy who sang Fado in his early teens.
It all began when seven-year old Camané was grounded at home with the flu and, being bored stiff, rummaged through his parents' record collection. All they had was Fado, so that was all he heard. And he loved it. Then he started singing it. Initially it was all in good fun, but after he won an amateur contest it became obvious there was
more to it than that. Camané had his run as a child singer, and eventually grew out of it. Yet he never grew out of Fado. How could he?
So, eventually, he got right back into it. In his late teens by then, Camané knew he had the voice but also knew he wanted to establish himself as a serious artist, erase all memories of his "early years". He decided to pay his dues as all good Fado
singers should: singing live as much as he could, learning the so-called tricks of the trade, performing as guest artist in theatrical revues (directed by Portugal's leading theatre director Filipe La Féria), doing the Fado club circuit… And he has never looked back.

It was during this period that he met José Mário Branco, one of the most respected and prestigious singer-songwriters in Portugal - and one known for his remarkably intelligent and modern approach to musical traditions. The two men hit it off instantly and vowed to work together.
In 1994 Camané signed with EMI. By then he'd been singing Fado for 20 years, professionally as an adult since the mid-eighties. With Branco as producer, he decided to use his first album as a sampler, recording it live as if he were singing a set in a fado club. And so it was, with an improvised club and a portable recording studio at the Lisbon offices EMI was working out of at the time. "Uma Noite de Fados" was released to critical acclaim in 1995, proving the prodigy had matured beyond everyone's expectations. Camané was no flash in the pan; in him, Fado, then an ailing niche song,
found the perfect rejuvenator, a torchbearer ready to take it to the next level. He did, three years later. Meanwhile, he had performed live extensively, both in Portugal and abroad (France, Spain, Italy, Holland), but "Na Linha da Vida", his second
album, again with Branco as producer, showed Camané taking risks. The album showcased his growingly personal interpretative style, introducing his own material instead of relying mainly on more traditional Fado stylings, using a jazzy double bass
as a rhythmic anchor. The critics knew he was on to something and the album ended up making nearly all of the year-end top-ten "best of" lists. The audiences began to listen intently. Foreign territories -- Belgium and Holland first, Korea later -- recognised the talent and released the album, accompanied by short tours of those countries,
along with performances at festivals in France (Rennes' Tombée de la Nuit and Paris' Les Mediterranées à l'Européen).

In 2000, we were all rewarded beyond our expectations by Camané's third album, "Esta Coisa da Alma", released simultaneously in Portugal, Belgium and Holland.
Branco was at the helm once more; and yes, Camané was maturing right there in front of our eyes. At first, it looked as if the album was a step back, because he wasn't relying as much on new material as on old standards with new lyrics. But soon you realised that sometimes you do need to step back to move forward -- and "Esta Coisa
da Alma" was a giant leap, with Camané proving himself more than a singer, an interpreter with a finely-tuned ear to every emotional nuance of the poem.

"Brilliant" was too restrictive to describe it, as audiences who heard him sing live testified by selling out venues in Holland, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland or France. And yes, he was finally popular -- the album won nearly every critic's and
public choice awards in Portugal. By year's end "Esta Coisa da Alma" had gone Silver, the first Fado album to do so in Portugal in many years.
But was it still Fado? Purists see Camané as the finest male Fado singer in years and one of the finest of the 20th century; yet they will allow that what he is doing isn't conservative or even "pure" Fado. Modernists, on the other hand, think he's
extraordinarily innovative, even while conceding that he hasn't strayed too far from the standard formula of voice