Page 101 - The Singing Contest 2019 Magazine
P. 101

Who are... John & Lisa Santos



                                         of music, she met,       States,  Brazil  and
                                         then fell in love with,   Canada and marketed
                                         John Santos and in       throughout the world.
                                         1985,  they  joined      The tracks “Ai que
                                         forces to become the     bom”  and  “Ninguém
                                         Duo Santos, concen-      nos   detém”    made
                                         trating on working       the charts in Portugal
                                         on the cruise ships of   and  “Desgarrada  do
                                         the  Princess  Cruises   Amor”, in Australia
                                         line, on the well-       and Hawaii.                Variety Club Telethon with
                                         known “Love Boat”.                                     Burton Cummings
                                         They   married   on        With  Lisa’s  natural
             John and Lisa in Hawaii     August 20, 1988.         flair for learning Portuguese songs without knowing the
                                                                  language, Duo Santos toured Portuguese communities
          In the 90s, they set off on world                                            spread throughout the world and
        tours that took them to 302 cities                                             with great success. In Montreal,
        scattered over 42 countries on 4                                               John and Lisa became friends with
        continents.  In  Portugal,  Lisa  was                                          portuguese guitarist Artur Gaipo
        very taken by popular Portuguese                                               and had the privilege of meet-
        songs, singing them in her own                                                 ing and working with Amália
        style. John harnessed Lisa’s apti-                                             Rodrigues. Lisa Santos was captiv-
        tude for and skill in learning the                                             ated by Amália, her voice and her
        words  and  sounds  of Portugal,                                               fados. She became enthusiastic
        teaching  her  to  sing  Portuguese                                            about Amália’s fado songs, learn-
        songs with him. Thus was born a     José Mário Coelho, John, Lisa and Filipe Neves  ed them, sang them, initially not
        woman of “Shakespearean” ori-                                                  understanding their language but
        gins giving voice to the language of Camões. Though she   responding to their feeling of nostalgia. At the request
        still didn’t speak Portuguese, she could sing Portuguese   of a friend, Dinis Paiva and at John’s insistence, she re-
        melodies to perfection. Together, they recorded 12 CDs    corded an album of traditional fados —”Também can-
        and 3 videos, published in Portugal, Venezuela, United    to o fado”— with its outstanding homage to the Diva,

























              Duo Santos in Australia               On RTP with Marco Paulo                Artur Gaipo, Lisa and John



        www.TheSingingContest.com                                                   The Singing Contest 2019       99
   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106