- Born in Matosinhos in 1948, António Garcez took an early interest in music. And, yes, Amália, Fernando Farinha, Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra stood out in his personal Top. But it wasn't in fado or in the school of the great North American crooners that his art (& craft) would grow, mature and stand out.
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Often considered the best national rock singer by various magazines and radio programs, António Garcez soon began to realize that rare weapon he was hiding: a voice, his own voice, with a grain, a timbre (or an immensity of timbral varieties) and an extension that could bring him closer to an Elvis Presley and, years later, to a Cher, a Robert Plant, a Freddie Mercury, a Bon Scott, a Lemmy Kilmister, a Roger Waters... versatility that your vocal tract did – and it does! – different from everyone else.
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Still in his teens, his first high school band (Escola Industrial Infante Dom Henrique; Porto) was called Os Corvos. This would be followed by Os Abutres, Os Duques, Os Berets Verdes (these were created in the troops, in the paratrooper course) and the Modules One, which played at the Póvoa de Varzim Casino. And only later would absolute glory come, in mythical rock groups made in Portugal such as Pentagono, Psico, Arte & Ofício, Roxigénio, Stick or the fleeting project Garcez, Mendes (Filipe Mendes/Phil Mendrix) & Transatlântico – all of them with records recorded and featured in hundreds of historic concerts (including the 1971 festivals in Vilar de Mouros with Pentagono or 1982 with Roxigénio). And the legend of António Garcez grew and grew and grew…
Until, in the mid-1990s, with the crisis that took hold in Portugal – and in the world -, the successive interventions of the Troika and the IMF, the rise of cavaquismo and the living conditions of the Portuguese getting worse by day to day, António Garcez decided to emigrate to the United States.
In that country – and yes, if his life story so far already made for a movie (eventually shot in the old Tóbis studios), from that moment on, his adventures that would follow made for another one, but this time already shot in Hollywood: he got married there, took several higher education courses, got to know the world, bounced between top jobs, replaced his longing for Portugal and music for a thousand other things.
But the music bug never let go
In 2001 he released the solo album «Rio Below»; in 2014 she participated in the live album «Arte & Ofício aLive after 40 Years»; in 2018 she released an EP, in which she already collaborated with Ricardo Gordo. And it is exactly there, in that meeting with Ricardo Gordo, a young man from Alentejo who is passionate about the Portuguese guitar and the most extreme territories of rock and metal – in addition to being an unconditional fan of Garcez – that the album, «Vinde Ver Isto», begins to take shape. An album that is urgent to know and a huge lyrical and musical surprise where António Garcez's voice retains all its strength, its clarity, its originality and its potential.
