Cesaria Evora - Best Of (1998)

A native of the island nation of Cape Verde, Cesaria Evora was known as the
country's foremost practitioner of the morna, which is strongly associated
with the islands and combines West African percussion with Portuguese
fados, Brazilian modhinas, and British sea shanties. Evora began singing
morna at age 16 after meeting an attractive young guitarist. Her talent
soon had her performing all over the islands, and in the late '60s two of
her radio tapes were released as albums in the Netherlands and Portugal,
respectively.

However, Evora never left her country, and gave up singing in the mid-'70s
owing to lack of profit. In 1985, at the age of 45, she decided to return
to music and traveled to Portugal to record two songs for an anthology of
female Cape Verdean singers. This led to subsequent recording sessions in
Paris, which resulted in four albums from 1988 to 1992. Her international
fame grew, and she toured Europe, Africa, Brazil, and Canada, with stops in
the United States to perform for Cape Verdean audiences. In the fall of

1995, she mounted her first large-scale American tour; subsequent
recordings include 1997's Cabo Verde and 1999's Mar Azul and Cafe Atlantico.