Haunting Echoes of Carlos Paredes: A Lisbon Ghost Story Through Music and Memory

The Ghost Note in Sete Rios

It happened in Sete Rios, at the corner of Estrada de Benfica with the Jardim Zoológico, in the heart of the Alvalade neighborhood. To readers who know Lisbon, it might seem strange to mention Alvalade here - that corner lies five kilometers away, an hour's brisk walk from the actual neighborhood. But this isn't about postal codes or distracted map consultations. I'm talking about the apparition that appeared to me in Sete Rios, the haunting music of Verdes Anos that possessed me there. That corner, say what you will, is deep Alvalade.

The Bus Encounter That Changed Everything

Mid-1980s, I was riding the bus toward the outskirts of Benfica, passing the Zoo on my left during evening rush hour traffic. I saw him first from behind - he was also walking alongside the Zoo's masonry wall with wrought iron tops. He looked sad, I knew it even before seeing his face. He was probably coming from Hospital de São José, where he filed X-rays, and heading home.

When the bus slowly overtook him, I saw his profile: unruly hair, strong forehead, nose, mouth and chin, even his plastic-frame glasses. And I confirmed the sadness, as strong as guitarist's fingers. I recognized him, of course.

Meters ahead, he overtook me and the bus - we were stuck in traffic. I was waiting for him, wanting to see him reappear at the height of my right shoulder - the Zoo wall was long. Maybe my crossing with Carlos Paredes would repeat itself that afternoon, I thought. I wanted the encounter to be personal again, meaningful, felt, like a single note. That note.

Sendo a guitarra um instrumento transpositor, a guitarra de Coimbra afina um tom abaixo.

The D Note That Started It All

And so it was. As I had heard shortly before, when I recognized him, the note sounded again. I saw him, and heard a D. I heard this and one of the most beautiful Portuguese songs followed. Without words, only black and white images of Alvalade, with the diffuse grays of a 1960s film.

And there was more of that initial, unique note, always the same, during that afternoon blessed by traffic jams. Him passing me, me passing him, him passing me and the bus, accelerating down Estrada de Benfica, ending a glorious, memorable afternoon. Each time - and there were five - the natural D note. And in all of them, the song it evoked followed.

Thus I confirmed Alvalade's importance in my life. The first time I saw the film Verdes Anos I'd already had a haunting. A god appeared to me in sound, Carlos Paredes, even before knowing he could bring me an entire theme just by hearing that solitary initial note of Portuguese guitar.

The Photographer's Confirmation

Recently, I was telling this to photographer Inácio Ludgero, a friend. There are strange stories you only tell to comrades with whom you've shared strangeness.

"At the entrance to Sete Rios, Paredes?" the photographer Ludgero simply asked me. Pause. I was almost humming Verdes Anos when he cut in: "Funny, that's where I photographed him. In front of that corner."

In 1979, he told me, Inácio Ludgero had gone to photograph Carlos Paredes at home, on Estrada de Benfica. I clung to the small coincidence - my strange story was gaining material, palpable contours. Paredes had lived there.

A Escola Técnica da Pide, em Sete Rios, derrudada.

The Guitar That Wasn't His

At Paredes' house, the photographer saw a Portuguese guitar. He asked the virtuoso to take a photo with it. Carlos Paredes hesitated - the house was messy, maybe that was the reason. But my friend heard this extraordinary excuse: "The guitar isn't mine, it's my father's."

Artur Paredes was in a nursing home and photographer Ludgero insisted. From the landline, they called the home, the son spoke with his father: "Daddy..." And he said yes.

Then, photographer and guitarist went to the neighboring facilities of the former PIDE Technical School, occupied after the April 25th Revolution by residents' associations - right in front of that Sete Rios corner, beginning of Estrada de Benfica, that opened this text. Carlos Paredes had a room there to rehearse.

It was, besides lessons and genius, the inheritance Artur Paredes left his son - two Portuguese guitars. He died in 1980 and the previous summer, as we said, one of those guitars was photographed being plucked by Carlos Paredes - it appeared on the cover of Se7e.

The Dynasty of Guitar Makers

If the reader wants better information than mine - which I only reached through hauntings - pluck, on the Net, "Pedro Caldeira Cabral", composer, instrumentalist and disseminator of the Portuguese guitar.

You'll learn about the connection between gods and carpenters; between the Paredes and those who increased sound volume and shaped guitar woods. Which is also a walk through Olympus, that is, through this Lisbon.

From João Pedro Grácio (1872-1962), the patriarch of guitar makers who founded a workshop on Rua da Boavista, in Bica, in 1890. A century ago, he had the Guitarraria Leiriense in Largo de São Martinho, near Limoeiro. What beauty a sign making us spell "guitarraria". Artur Paredes went to the workshop for instrument repairs and string changes.

The Synchrony of Two Noble Dynasties

A son of the patriarch, Joaquim (known in the guitar maker's trade as Kim Grácio), left the family workshop and made another to support a classical guitar school founded in the 1950s, which still exists on Avenida João XXI, near Areeiro (little by little, the Alvalade neighborhood appears...)

In this school, this Grácio worked with Artur Paredes, on the ultra-precise subject that is the guitar.

A grandson of the patriarch and nephew of Kim Grácio, Gilberto Grácio made a famous workshop in Cacém. There he built a guitarrão or guitolão with Carlos Paredes. Brought to public in 2005, the year after the guitarist's death, only two copies were made. Gilberto Grácio died in 2021 and with him a family school.

"Guitarrão, a body of a Coimbra guitar, but with a vibrating string length and viola," a formula I don't have the knowledge to understand, I only write it because I stole it from the already cited Pedro Caldeira Cabral. What matters to me is to underline the synchrony of two dynasties, one of carpenters, another of artists, both noble.

The Beauty That Haunted Me Twice

For example, if this episode, which the reader now reads, was dedicated to the music of the film Verdes Anos, seen twenty years before I crossed paths with Carlos Paredes on the bus, and influencing that journey, a second haunting was having seen the most beautiful woman who walked through a Portuguese film, Isabel Ruth.

After the film, in the late 60s, I went to live in Paris. I'll never forgive her for not coming to me - and it's not enough excuse that she never knew me from anywhere. Alvalade is a matter I have to resolve with myself.