“80 years old and then what do you do? You separate some songs that are better known to the public and some that you wrote recently, although I haven’t composed much now. But how do you do that? There are hundreds of songs, not just mine, but from other authors that I sang, samba, things I heard my father singing… a lot of people end up going to the concert and then say that I didn’t play a certain song. But if I were to play everything show It would be too big”, he laughs.
Return to Portugal
From his visits to Portugal, where he already had concerts scheduled in 2020, Paulinho da Viola cherishes two moments. From his first visit, in 1981, the artist recalls participating in the music festival run by the newspaper Se7e, at Praça de Touros do Campo Pequeno, in Lisbon. That day, however, the protagonist was another.
“There was Sérgio Godinho, who was an unbelievable success. I don’t know how many times he returned to the stage, every time he went to the dressing room he said he had nothing left to sing. When he finally stopped returning to the stage, I went there, I introduced myself, because people didn’t know me and they reacted very well, I mean, at least they didn’t boo me. Because they really wanted Sérgio“, he recalls.
Around 20 years later, he returned to Portugal and met Carlos do Carmowith whom he had adventures at night in Lisbon. “We went to a fado house that was closed, but suddenly the Argentina Santos appeared with a guitarist, put on his shawl and sang three songs for us. He sang beautifully and then even gave me a record. Carlos said: ‘She never did that to anyone’.”
There was still admiration for names like Amália Rodrigues, who saw her return to the stage “twelve times” in the same night at a festival in Italy, and by Madredeus. “I remember a performance I saw of the group with Carlos Paredes in Brazil and that really impacted me. Teresa Salgueiro too, a singer who has an impressive voiceeveryone was in awe of her”, he recalls.
Among other topics, the artist also spoke about the new generation of Brazilian Popular Music. The fragmentation brought about by the internet, the volume of information and the copyright crisis are topics that worry Paulinho, but not enough to erase his optimism about the future of sound. “I think there will be a lot of young people doing a lot of good things, in fact they already have. Life changes, new problems will arise, and there are always people worried about what’s going on in the world and doing new and good things based on that”, believes the singer.