The life of Portuguese radio host Luís Filipe Barros has always been linked to international music. In the 70s, he was responsible for several programs that aired themes that were a true phenomenon at that time — and that remain on playlists to this day.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of April 25th, this Thursday, NiTfm will have a special broadcast only with music that was broadcast on Portuguese radio stations during that specific period. The curation was carried out by Luís Filipe Barros himself, who is currently 75 years old.
Abba, Paul McCartney, Elton John, James Taylor, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, The Doors and Carole King are some of the artists you will be able to hear on our radio’s special broadcast — which will also run at all Lisbon Metro stations only on April 25th.
The radio presenter began his career at Rádio Universidade, in Lisbon, at the end of the 60s. “It was from there that all the announcers left who then went to other stations and television”, he tells NiT.
In 1971, it gained a new home: Rádio Renascença. There he did several programs, but there is one that stands out: “O Tempo Zip”, alongside names like Joaquim Furtado. The project “won awards every year” thanks to its quality and popularity. The stay there, however, was not long. That same year, he had to go to Angola with the troops, where he spent three years.
In January 1974, he returned to Renascença and, once again, gave voice to several author programs where bands that were a success at that time were shown — such as Yes or Supertramp. We were, after all, “at the height of progressive rock”.
Although he was not at his place of work when the military invaded the radio on the morning of April 25, 1974, Luís Filipe Barros remembers that day perfectly. The day before, he had gone out with some friends to Apolo 70 — that was one of his favorite snack bars.
When they left, around one in the morning, “there were two guys with a parked car arguing with the police and saying that it was all going to end the next day and that everything was going to be ours”. A few hours later, when he woke up on the morning of April 25, a coup d’état was already underway.
“Some of my colleagues, like Miguel Tomás, Paulo Coelho and Joaquim Furtado, were involved in this”, he recalls. “They were the ones who gave the password and read the statement.”
After the revolution, he did not do radio for about four years, after a bomb was placed on Rádio Renascença. The government also intended to return the station to its original owners: the Catholic Church.
When he finally returned to that medium, on April 9, 1979, he joined Rádio Comercial to launch “Rock em Stock”. As he tells NiT: “It was an opportunity to introduce rock music to younger people”. She left the project in 1982, but ended up returning five years later. He stayed there until 1993.
This entire singular journey made radio one of the great passions of Luís Filipe Barros’ life. “This medium has always had great relevance in our country and played a decisive role in the democratic revolution”.
NiT will also have a special edition for April 25th
What would it be like to read a Portuguese lifestyle magazine on April 25, 1974, just before the revolution? This was the premise for creating a special edition of NiT that will be online on Thursday, to celebrate precisely the 50th anniversary of April 25th. Over the last few months, our editorial team looked for the biggest news of that month, week or day in Portugal and now spoke to the people responsible for the projects — as if they were still living before the revolution.
The final result is an edition written, thought out and designed like the newspapers of the time and which you will be able to discover from midnight this Thursday, on the NiT website. There are dozens of news, reports and interviews that serve as a snapshot of that specific day and that show us how so many things have changed in these decades — and how others remain the same. Some excerpts of the most sensitive texts are crossed out in blue, similar to what the PIDE Censorship Services Directorate used to do in the media.
The six regional press magazines in the NiT universe will also have a special edition with the same editorial line on April 25th. Therefore, just open the New in Cascais, New in Oeiras, New in Seixal, New in Porto, New in Setúbal and New in Coimbra websites to find out what was happening in each of these cities.
“The NiT team started by trying to answer a question, and ended up creating seven magazines and a radio. This exercise — which we tried to make as realistic as possible — allows us, in a way, to understand what the cultural and social life of the Portuguese was like during the Estado Novo”, says Jaime Martins Alberto, publisher and founder of NiT.
And he adds: “Contrary to what younger generations think, there were also concerts, films at the cinema, plays at the theater and new restaurants during the dictatorship. We had an elite that consumed everything that happened abroad, that organized gatherings in cafes and real political shows — always eager to transform our society. The problem is that at the same time there was a small, gray and repressed country. And, above all, very afraid of regime change. I think our edition illustrates this dichotomy well.”