Cesaria Evora: “Besame Mucho”
In this video, singer Cesaria Evora sung one of the most sung and recorded Mexican song in the world “Besame Mucho”(Kiss me a lot), written in 1940 by Mexican songwriter Consuelo Velázquez. It is a “Jazz Standard” performed by musicians all over the world. It is considered to be of a genre called Bolero – which is a slow tempo song with “latin” flavorings. Find more about “Besame Mucho” song
Who was Cesaria Evora?
Cesária Évora (1941- 2011), known as the “Barefoot diva”, was born in Mindelo, Cape Verde. As an adult, she built a reputation as a singer by performing at bars in her hometown of Mindelo. In 1988, after several years of singing without financial success, a french former musician and record producer of Cape Verde blood, Josè Da Silva offered her to come to Paris to record an album. She was 47 at the time when she recorded her first album, The Barefoot Diva with him.
With her great voice and stunning looks she soon attracted attention and ascended to worldwide fame over the course of a two-decade, Grammy-winning career as a recording artist. In 2004, her album Voz d’Amor won Best Contemporary World Music Album at the Grammys.
She was known as the “Queen of Morna” because of her haunting voice and her songs which was in morna, the traditional music style of Cape Verde. Her songs are of love, loss, misery and immigration – all constants to Cape Verdeans. Évora sang in Kriolu, a Creole language mixing Portuguese with the west African dialects of her enslaved ancestors.
One of her most famous songs is a recording of the coladeira song “Sodade”, In it she calls out for her lover who has gone to a far off land abandoning her. Évora included the song, which dates back to the Fifties, in her 1992 album Miss Perfumado.
She was also known as the “Barefoot Diva” because she was performing without shoes on, proudly proclaiming her humble roots. The singer told The Washington Post in 2001: ”People used to say that I did that in solidarity with the hungry people and all the poor people of the world, but that’s not true.In Cape Verde, lots of people are like me. They just don’t like to wear shoes.”
Over her 20-year international career, she sold over 6 million copies of her album. Her final album, Nha Sentimento, came out in 2009, two years before her death.
Cesaria Evora: besame mucho lyrics (English translation):
Kiss me, kiss me a lot
As if tonight were
The last time
Kiss me, kiss me a lot
For I am afraid of having you
And losing you all over again.
Kiss me, kiss me a lot
As if tonight were
The last time
Kiss me, kiss me a lot
For I am afraid of having you
And losing you all over again.
I want to have you close to me
To see myself in your eyes
To see you next to me
Think that perhaps tomorrow
I will be far
So far away from you
Kiss me, kiss me a lot
As if tonight were
The last time
Kiss me, kiss me a lot
For I am afraid of having you
And losing you all over again.
I want to have you close to me
To see myself in your eyes
To see you next to me
Think that perhaps tomorrow
I will be far
So far away from you
Kiss me, kiss me a lot
As if tonight were
The last time
Kiss me, kiss me a lot
For I am afraid of having you
And losing you all over again.
