Carlos Paredes, credited with raising the humble Portuguese guitar from the street to the concert hall, died early Friday from kidney failure. He was 79. Known as "the man with a thousand fingers" for his mastery of the 12-string Portuguese guitar, Paredes died at a Lisbon nursing home, a spokeswoman for the home said. Paredes suffered from myelopathy, a nerve disorder that halted his playing. He spent his last 11 years in the home, much of the time too weak to receive visitors.
People love to hear me play guitar, it's something that they like and they identify with it. That's all there is to it," Lusa news agency quoted him as saying in a 1990 interview with Publico newspaper.
During a career that began with his first composition at age 11, Paredes recorded with U.S. jazz bassist Charlie Haden and helped spread Portuguese guitar music around the world.
He composed for Amalia Rodrigues, the legendary singer of fado, Portugal's version of the blues, and for the cutting-edge chamber group, the Kronos Quartet.
"The virtuosity of Paredes is charged with meaning: there is a street wisdom in his playing, a strange, crooked lyricism, and, above all, impeccable taste," wrote Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov, who arranged Paredes' music for the Kronos Quartet.
DEXTERITY AND MUSCLE
Paredes built his reputation by transforming a mandolin-like instrument that demands "the dexterity of a fly and the muscles of a horse," as one U.S. music reviewer wrote in 2001.
The Portuguese guitar, unlike its better-known Spanish neighbor, has a pear-shaped body and six paired steel strings. Only the right index finger and thumb are used to play, giving it a percussive kick.
The son and grandson of guitarists, Paredes was born in the university city of Coimbra, about 110 miles north of Lisbon. He started playing at age four on a cracked guitar that his father had discarded.
He was jailed in the 1950s and 1960s for opposing a rightist dictatorship and spent time in solitary confinement. A prison mate told SIC television that Paredes would pace his cell pretending to play the guitar, saying, "I walk to compose music. That's why they say I'm crazy!"
His theme for the 1971 movie "Anos Verdes" ("Tender Years") became a symbol of unity for young people opposed to the repressive regime and its colonial wars in Africa.
Paredes, father of six children, recorded his first album in 1957. He was an innovative composer and improved the design of the guitar, which had been seen as a second-class instrument used for accompaniment.
He wrote screen scores and also worked as a hospital administrator until his retirement in the 1980s.
Asked once why he did not devote all his time to the guitar, Paredes said: "Because I love music too much to live by its demands." | 
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