Carlos Paredes was not only an exceptional guitarist, was a gifted musician who left to posterity a superior work
Son, grandson and great grandson of a long line of musicians, Carlos Paredes could only have been an excellent performer of the Portuguese guitar.It was in his blood, which was printed in his DNA as one of the greatest guitarists of our country. Born February 16th, 1925, in Coimbra, Carlos Paredes could only know the glory of having been born in a house inhabited by musicians. His father, Artur Paredes was the decisive figure in this growth and maturation as a musician, since after a short period to learn to play violin and piano, he sealed the fate of Carlos to host him as his pupil. A wise decision, because without it, the world would not have known the musical genius that was his son.
Carlos Paredes early showed aptitude for music and tried to innovate the way to play the Portuguese guitar. It was so much the love and respect he felt for his chosen instrument that in more than once thru the years in his great humility, he said that he had missed this purpose. Listen and evaluate. The best example perhaps is the soundtrack he wrote for the "green years", a film by Paulo Rocha, who describes musically the most humble Portuguese who came to Lisbon in the 70's. It is the soul the Lusitanian people that he plays on the strings of his guitar that thrilled who heard him, to the point of marvel audiences with his virtuosity and confuse him at the same time with the ease with which strummed the guitar strings, hence the nickname of thousand fingers.
If you close your eyes and listen carefully you will feel a thrill as a disturbing cry for every chord, playded by the master of the guitar in Coimbra, which in bygone days of dictatorship, arrested by secret police, "played" with his fingers, music just heard on his restless mind. The fellow prisoners on those days thought was crazy. Only played for himself in the silence of prison because it was an inevitability of his fate, was his fado. Having died with even a very short career, Carlos Paredes left orphans the people who idolized him, because he alone knew how to express in sounds what was in his heart. Hence I close this tribute with a small request, listen ... and silence becouse is been play the fado.
www.myspace.com/carlosparedes1925
