The band The Lucky Duckies will perform for the first time in Portalegre, in a big concert that will take place next Saturday, the 6th, in the large auditorium of the Centro de Artes do Espectáculo de Portalegre (CAEP).
The Lucky Duckies are the most popular vintage swing & rock’n’roll band in Portugal. They recently celebrated their 35 years of career with concerts at the Coliseums in Lisbon and Porto. RTP broadcast the show twice in the capital. Due to the high quality of the sound capture, vinyl aficionados asked for an LP to be released with the tracks extracted from it.
The band will bring to CAE Portalegre a unique approach to classics from the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s of the 20th century, as well as some originals with genetics from the time.
Before stepping onto the stage of the large CAEP auditorium, the band gave an interview to our newspaper.
Alto Alentejo: When and where did the Lucky Duckies? And why this name?
Lucky Duckies: Lucky Duckies appeared in 1987 in the Greater Lisbon area, specifically in the city of Póvoa de Santa Iria, in the municipality of Vila Franca de Xira. Initially they were called “Promúsica”, a name given by Nuno Duarte, one of the co-founders of the band with its vocalist Marco António. This name was because these young people, with an innocent presumption typical of their young age, thought that they were already playing jazz and rock’n’roll classics in a very professional way and also because they had gone to the program “Estúdio 4” on RTP1 at a time when that there were only two television channels with the colors still freshly painted (it only appeared at the beginning of the 80s). But after a year Marco’s mother said to him: “Oh son, that name isn’t very attractive for a musical group of cute rock’n’roll kids”. Now, Marco had just read a book about the 1950s in which it was mentioned that Elvis Presley and other rockers wore a hairstyle called “duck tail” and that a “ducky” was idiomatically a “duck tail”. , a boy with hoopoe.
AA: What have your 35-year career been like?
LD: They’ve been intense! We started rehearsing at Grémio Dramático Povoense where they gave some intimate concerts pro bono to pay the rehearsal room rent. And behold, on April 25, 1987, the band played for the first time with a cachet attributed to the door percentage and which earned five contos for each of the five members of the band. At the time it wasn’t bad for beginners! We were quickly catapulted to the best live music bars and best hotels in the capital. From here to luxury cruises was a snap.
In 1998 we were invited to give 10 concerts on stage 4 of Expo ’98, also giving one in Praça Sony to replace a Romanian gypsy jazz band who failed to attend due to flight delays. It was an incredible opportunity for visibility!
At the beginning of the 2000s, the band was invited to perform songs from classic musical films for half an hour during the reopening of the Eunice Muñoz Municipal Auditorium with new cinema projection equipment and dolby-surround sound with the film “Singing In The Rain ”. It was here that it was realized that there was a cultural market promoted by the municipalities and that their performances suited both indoor as billboard. It was also at this time that singer Cláudia Faria joined the band as a special guest. She quickly became an effective member of the band and a great asset.
We visited almost every municipality in Portugal and many in Spain too. It can also be said that they have literally traveled the Seven Seas and the Five Continents.
AA: And what can you tell us about the recording work?
LD: From the beginning of our career we did recording sessions in the studio to have material to take to television and radio programs. But it was only in 2010 that we decided we wanted to release an album, and that was it! We record classics reorchestrated and interspersed with originals. We edited “Glamour & Nostalgia – Part One”. In 2012 we launched “Part Two”, in 2015 the Live DVD at Centro Cultural Olga Cadaval (Sintra) in partnership with RTP. We launched “Na Língua de Camões-Part Primeira” in 2016; in 2017 the compilation “Greatest Hits – 30 Years”; in 2018 the Christmas album “Lucky Christmas” appeared; and after the “pandemic” we recorded the concert celebrating 35 years of career at the Coliseu de Lisboa, releasing an LP on vinyl at Christmas 2023 with a reissue in April 2024. All of their albums are available online in streaming on digital audio platforms and YouTube.
AA: This will be the debut concert in Portalegre…
LD: In fact, we have already performed a few times in municipalities in the Portalegre district, but never in its capital! We can mention that it was the fact that the mayor of Portalegre, Dr. Fermelinda, had already been mayor of Arronches and thus had already known the impact of this band on the public, that led to this concert. This is because vocalist Marco António, who accumulates the functions of manager of the band, made a surprise “travelling salesman” visit, a decade later, to the Offices of the Presidency and the Council for Culture, demonstrating some videos that soon created enthusiasm and a desire to have the band at CAEP for the first time, cultural house that I had long wanted, but their schedules had never coincided in terms of availability! That’s it…and that was it! On April 6th, LUCKY DUCKIES will debut in Portalegre.
Win tickets with Alto Alentejo
To qualify for a double ticket for this show, simply send your answer to the following question to: [email protected],
identified with name and contact, until 12pm on 04/05/2024:
> How many times did The Lucky Dukies perform in Portalegre?
