Portuguese singer. Son of Alfredo de Almeida, a book dealer and later owner of the fado house "O Faia", and his wife, the fado singer Lucília do Carmo, Carlos do Carmo was born at Magalhães Coutinho Maternity, in Lisbon, and spent his childhood in the Bica neighbourhood. He studied at Passos Manuel Lyceum before leaving for Switzerland at the age of 15. In this country he attended the Institut auf dem Rosenberg, a German school located in St. Gallen, for three years, having the opportunity to study foreign languages, becoming fluent in French, English, German, Italian and Spanish. Afterwards, already in Geneva, he obtained a diploma in Hotel Management. Employed at the Navigation National Company, the death of his father in 1962 led him to take over the management of "O Faia", which, over the years, had become a popular fado house in the capital. There he began to perform for friends and clients, until in 1964 he definitively embraced his artistic career. Carmo's emergence as a fado singer came after recording a version of "Loucura", a Fado by Júlio de Sousa, with Mário Simões, also performed by Lucília do Carmo. Although he had been listening to fado since he was a child, either in his mother's voice or in the voice of other performers, such as the popular singers he heard on the vervains of Lisbon or fado houses, the singer would confess that, at that time, he was far from the traditional song of Lisbon. He gained a taste, on the threshold of adolescence, for the music of Luiz Gonzaga and Dorival Caymmi, until he became fascinated, a little later, by Frank Sinatra and Jacques Brel. Moreover, the fact that he spent several years abroad also contributed to him moving away from traditional fado. The interpretation recorded with the Mário Simões quartet was a challenge to the traditional way of interpreting fado. Carmo sings this theme accompanied by piano, bass, electric guitar and a choir of female voices. The track began to be played regularly on the radio and, as a result of its success, the rookie fado singer released an EP in his own name the following year: "Carlos do Carmo com Orquestra de Joaquim Luiz Gomes". In 1967, Casa da Imprensa (Press House) distinguished him with the Best Performer Award and, in 1970, awarded him the Pozal Domingues Award for Best Record of the Year, for his first album, entitled "O Fado de Carlos do Carmo", edited in 1969. It would be the beginning of one of the most exemplary careers in the Portuguese music scene, in general, and Fado, in particular. In 1964 he married Maria Judite de Sousa Leal, with whom he had three children. At the beginning of the 1970s, Carmo recorded several EPs and LPs, such as "O Fado em Duas Gerações", "Carlos do Carmo e Lucília do Carmo", "Por Morrer uma Andorinha" and "Carlos do Carmo". However, after a few appearances on television, he emerged in 1972 as a producer and presenter of a weekly program on RTP: "Convívio Musical", where great names of Portuguese and international music performed. At the Festival RTP da Canção (RTP Song Festival) in 1976, in which he adopted a different model than usual, he was the only performer. He sang eight songs: "No teu poema", "Novo Fado alegre", "Os lobos e ninguém", "Maria-criada, Maria-senhora", "Flor de verde pinho", "Onde é que tu moras?" and "Estrela da tarde". "Flor de verde pinho" would be the most voted song by the public and, consequently, the one he performed representing Portugal in the 21st Eurovision Song Contest. The participation would set the tone for the recording of the album "Uma Canção Para a Europa". A mandatory reference in the history of fado and in Carmo's career was the album "Um Homem na Cidade", released in 1977. In this album, he interprets poems by José Carlos Ary dos Santos, combined with a set of innovative musical compositions, by different authorships. Indeed, he owed a large part of his successes to lyrics by Ary dos Santos, including "Um homem na cidade", "Lisboa, menina e moça", "O homem das castanhas", "O amarelo da Carris", "Sonata de Outono", "Fado varina", "Fado do Campo Grande", "Balada para uma velhinha" or "Menor maior". But the singer would bring, throughout his career, several new authors to his fados, such as José Luís Tinoco ("No teu poema", "Os lobos e ninguém"), António Lobo Antunes ("Canção da Tristeza Alegre"), José Saramago ("Aprendamos o rito"), Manuela de Freitas ("Fado Penélope"), Vasco Graça Moura ("Nasceu assim, cresceu assim"), Nuno Júdice ("Lisboa Oxalá"), Maria do Rosário Pedreira ("Pontas soltas, Vem, não te atrases"), Fernando Pinto do Amaral ("Fado da Saudade") or Júlio Pomar ("Fado do 112"). His first tours were held in the early 1970s, with shows in Angola, the USA and Canada and, in 1973, he debuted in Brazil, singing alongside Elis Regina, at the Copacabana Palace, Rio de Janeiro. From 1979 onwards he intensified his performances abroad. His passages at the Olympia in Paris, the Opera in Frankfurt, the Opera in Wiesbaden, the Canecão in Rio de Janeiro, the Hotel Savoy in Helsinki, the Queen's Theater in The Hague, the Theater of Saint Petersburg, the Place des Arts in Montreal, at the Tivoli in Copenhagen or at the Latin America Memorial in São Paulo, are very high moments in the singer's career. In Portugal, he gave great performances in places such as the Lisbon and Porto Coliseums, the Estoril Casino, the Belém Cultural Centre, the Jerónimos Monastery or the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. In an interview with the newspaper "A Capital", he revealed that: "(...) singing is an act of pleasure, but above all on stage, which is a constant game of seduction, an indescribable exchange of feelings and emotions (...)". His international career owed much to his performance at the Olympia in Paris, where he performed for the first time on October 11 and 12, 1980. This was followed by his first performance at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, in 1982, where he was so successful that the recording of the show was released on disk and he returned to perform in the following two years. Another notable fact in this decade and which marks Carmo's record work was the launch of "Um Homem no País", in 1984, again a project around poems by Ary dos Santos, which stood out as the first edition in CD format of a Portuguese artist. He returned to television, with a program bearing his name, in more than thirty broadcasts between 1997 and 1998, where he talked with various guests, on topics ranging from fado, to music in general, but also to other artistic aspects. In 2007, he presented, at the Fado Museum, an album entitled "À Noite", which brought together unpublished texts by many authors. In 2010, he teamed up with pianist and composer Bernardo Sassetti to make the album "Carlos do Carmo & Bernardo Sassetti", where he recreated notable songs by other performers. Since the beginning of the 2000s, in a close relationship with the new generations of fado, he promoted joint performances with new Fado singers, such as Mariza and Camané. These links would be reinforced with the edition, in 2014, of the album "Fado é amor", presented that year at the Coliseu dos Recreios, where he performed themes recorded with Camané, Mariza, Ana Moura, Aldina Duarte, Cristina Branco, Mafalda Arnauth , Ricardo Ribeiro, Marco Rodrigues, Raquel Tavares and Carminho. He announced on February 7, 2019 the end of his career. His last concerts were on October 12 at Theatro Circo, November 2 at Coliseu do Porto and November 9 at Coliseu dos Recreios. He had been awarded the rank of Commander of the Order of Infante D. Henrique (September 4, 1997) and Grand Officer of the Order of Merit (November 28, 2016) and received the Prestígio (Prestige) award of the Casa da Imprensa (Press House) in 1991, the Excellence and Merit Golden Globe in 1998, the Best Record of the Year Globe in 2002, the José Afonso Award in 2003, the Medal of Municipal Merit in 2004, the Spanish Goya Award in 2008, the Latin Grammy in 2014 followed by a new Medal of Municipal Merit. He died at the age of 81 on January 1, 2021 at Santa Maria Hospital, in Lisbon, due to an aneurysm. Funeral ceremonies took place on January 4, at the Estrela Basilica, and he was interred in a mausoleum in Prazeres Cemetery. A national day of mourning was declared on January 4. Carlos do Carmo is considered to be the most important male fadista of his generation, that came after Alfredo Marceneiro and before Camané. He is often regarded as the artist that made the transition between traditional fado and the new fado that started emerging in the 1990s.