One of the theories about where Fado came from looks to northern Portugal, and to the music played at its fairs, festivals, threshings and pilgrimages. There are harmonic similarities between Fado and the chulas, viras and corridos of northern folk music.
The instrument makers of the north
Over the centuries, instrument makers in northern Portugal did much to shape both of Fado’s guitars: the Portuguese guitar and the classical guitar that accompanies it. The oldest of the three models of the Portuguese guitar is the Porto guitar, which some see as the bridge between the English guitar the instrument came from and the later guitars of Lisbon and Coimbra.
Porto and the first Fado records
Fado was being sung in Porto by 1900, when the first known Fado recording was made in the city, and in 1926 the Gramophone Company signed with the Grande Bazar do Porto to run its label in Portugal.
From Porto to Lisbon’s Fado houses
In the 1960s, Maria da Fé and Beatriz da Conceição, both singers from Porto, made their names in the Fado houses of Lisbon.