Dulce Pontes - Lusitanian Rhapsody

She could have been a dancer, if the dance school hadn't considered her too old, at 14, to begin a great career. She could have been a pleasant voice for advertising jingles, if someone hadn't discovered early on that her voice would serve music far better than advertising. But Dulce Pontes, born in Montijo, Portugal in 1969, might also never have gone beyond a brilliant career in her small country, at the westernmost tip of Europe.

In 1991 she won the Portuguese National Song Festival, and that same year, representing Portugal at the Eurovision Song Contest, she took 8th place (out of 22 contestants) and won the award for best singer, with the song "Lusitana Paixao". It was on that occasion that Europe first heard Dulce Pontes sing. From that moment on, her voice would no longer be confined to Sunday afternoon TV programmes, where she used to sing (in English) songs from the '60s and '70s, nor to the small theatres where she had grown up as a singer. From then on, her life changed drastically. Dulce Pontes abandoned her past repertoire of rock ballads and set out in search of her cultural identity. She immersed herself in the roots of Portuguese popular music, including traditional "fado" - considered all but dead at the time - and attempted to reinvent something that seemed definitively finished. Alongside the other great Portuguese voice, the singer of Madredeus, Teresa Salgueiro, she was soon hailed as the finest heir to the legendary Amalia Rodrigues, the soul of Portuguese fado, of whom Dulce admits to being a great admirer. But over the years, this definition would prove too narrow. As her records have shown, Dulce Pontes has done far more than simply reinvent a pre-existing genre. Her clear, brilliant voice cannot be confined to any single defined genre and knows no boundaries. Her voice can move effortlessly from a rock song to fado to a traditional Angolan song, without her style ever losing its distinctive original character.

In 1992, Dulce Pontes released her debut album, Lusitana, and from the following year - when she released her second album, Lagrimas - onward, Dulce Pontes became a citizen of the world: Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, the United States, Japan, Brazil - Dulce Pontes is everywhere, with her universal voice and language. She performed at the "Yes for Europe" concert, on the occasion of World Food Day organised by the FAO in Rome, and at the concert marking the 52nd anniversary of the United Nations in Madrid.

Meanwhile, the album Lagrimas became one of the best-selling records of all time in Portugal, and one of its tracks, "A cancon do mar", originally performed by Amalia Rodrigues, even won over Hollywood, becoming part of the soundtrack of the film "Primal Fear", starring Richard Gere. And for the song "A Brisa do Coracao", the Portuguese singer secured the prestigious collaboration of maestro Ennio Morricone. The track would later be included in the soundtrack of the film "Sostiene Pereira", starring Marcello Mastroianni.

These were followed by the album A Brisa do Coracao (1995), the double live album Cominhos in 1996, and her most recent work, O Primeiro Canto. During this period, Dulce Pontes also tried her hand at several duets with singers such as Italy's Andrea Bocelli and Brazil's Simone and Caetano Veloso.

Over the past seven years, her life has known no pause, from concert to concert, from city to city, touring the world. But she doesn't complain: "Concerts are the happiest, most intense moments of my life," she says. "They give me the feeling of receiving a gift, of having a reason to live." And her gift is a voice that adapts perfectly both to new songs and to reinterpretations of traditional classics. A perfectionist as a musician as well as a singer, Dulce Pontes has learned to accompany her songs on piano, to reinvent them each time, and to write her own compositions as well. She is constantly searching for new tones, new instruments, however eccentric they may seem and however obsolete, even when they are practically museum pieces. Hers is a continuous experimentation: with her voice, with new languages, with new folk traditions. This attitude is also reflected in her choice of musicians to accompany her in concert, musicians she tends to seek out all over the world. So, recorder in hand, she travelled the length and breadth of Portugal, searching for any resource she could use on her latest album, O Primeiro Canto.

But the key to Dulce Pontes's success as a singer lies in one of her own statements: "I'm more interested in feelings than in technique." Only this "instinctive" approach to music can explain, for instance, why a Japanese audience, who don't understand a word of her language and have no notion of fado, can still be captivated by her songs and keep singing along with her. "In the end, no one is an impenetrable island," she says. And Dulce Pontes's voice sounds like a kind of ocean connecting all the islands of the world.

O Primeiro Canto, her fifth album, marks her return to the recording studio after a three-year gap. Dulce used this time to continue her collaborations and deepen her musical exploration with new instruments. The album, produced by Antonio Pinheiro Gives Silva, features Dulce Pontes alongside many friends such as Indian percussionist Trilok Gurtu, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Maria Joao and Waldemar Bastos on vocals, and Kepa Junkera on trikitixa. The Portuguese singer is also accompanied by a string quartet.

At their first meeting, in 1995, Ennio Morricone said: "One day I'd like to make a record with you." And so it came to pass: in April 2003, Dulce Pontes travelled to Rome to lend her voice to some of the Roman maestro's most famous melodies, as well as five new compositions written especially for her. Thus was born Focus, the new album bearing the joint signature of Ennio Morricone and Dulce Pontes, released in Italy on the Universal label in late October 2003.

To quote Morricone's own words on this project: “I believe this record is one of the most important things I have ever made with a singer. I already knew the final result would be a success, but I didn't imagine the whole experience would be so extraordinary…. The vocal qualities Dulce displays on this record are so versatile, so complete and incredibly varied, that they touch on every aspect of singing, every kind of singing”.

The album opens with the aching refrain of “Nuovo Cinema Paradiso” (“Tema De Amor”), which Pontes turns into a heart-stopping ballad. “Your Love” is a fine reprise of the roaring atmospheres of “C’era Una Volta Il West”, while the new version of “La Ballata di Sacco e Vanzetti” manages to stand worthy even of Joan Baez's performance. The main theme from “Mission” (“A Rose Among Thorns”), meanwhile, takes on an even wilder, more exotic flavour. The tracklist also revisits lesser-known pieces from Morricone's catalogue, such as “Someone you once knew”, from the soundtrack of “Per le antiche scale”, and “Nosso Mar” from the film “Metti una sera a cena”.

The final chapter of Dulce Pontes's fascinating story is a dive into the past and into memory, with O Coração Tem Três Portas (2006), which marks a return to the roots of fado.

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