Ana Moura's "O Fado da Procura" is a featured track on NPR's fado-themed Morning Edition today.

Portuguese Fado and a Few Dirty Tables
By Jerome Socolovsky

Fado Today
Ana Moura: 'O Fado da Procura' (2007)
[1 min 44 sec] add

Morning Edition, June 23, 2008 - In recent years, the melancholic Portuguese folk music known as fado has gotten a lot of play around the world. Many of the singers have stylized their songs to suit the tastes of an international audience. But in Lisbon, traditional performers still sing in cramped bars, accompanied by a guitarist or two.

There are about half a dozen tables under the low brick arches. The club is on the ground floor of a 10th-century Moorish building in the Alfama, the old waterfront district where the fado was born. No one is sure how it started, but some believe the fado began when Portuguese sailors sang about their yearning for home using African slave melodies...

Read the full story and listen to the featured tracks here.