Evora's latest album, Voz D'Amor (Bluebird), is the latest in a career that has spanned 40 years and made her an international star. But she is especially close to the fans in her Cape Verde homeland. "People always call me an ambassador," she said by way of an interpreter to the Richmond Times Dispatch. "I do not know if that is true. I certainly feel very close to Cape Verdeans I meet in other countries, because they are my people. They may have moved away, but they are still Cape Verdeans, and they look at me as a sign from home. I am a comfort." Evora is not only a comfort to Cape Verdeans. The New York Times described her thusly: "Evora walks onstage barefoot, usually holding a cigarette, to sing about heartache and bittersweet memories. Her music is morna, tavern songs from Cape Verde, with melodies as graceful and knowing as the Mona Lisa's smile." Evora's fame has helped expose the miserable living conditions of the Cape Verde Islands. In the 60's Evora was the most popular night club singer in the islands, but night club singer in the islands, but there was so little profit in her work that by the mid 1970s she stopped singing. But now she is beloved the world over, and many have taken notice of her nation's poverty and blight. An ambassador of goodwill, perhaps, and an artist bringing light to darkness is certainly her mantle. "People have told me that they when I am not there foreign people go to my home," she says. "They go there because of my music. They want to see where I live. For someone to go my house and tell me they have discovered my homeland because of my music, that is a high compliment." Voz D'Amor has the ability to transport. Songs like the lilting "Pomba," the evocative "Jardim Prometido" and the romping rhythms of "Saia Travada" make every day a summer siesta, and can change gray skies to deepest blue. In a world pounded by machine beats and computer arrangements, Evora's acoustic reveries are a timeless and universal life-affirming message of grace."The music is not about me," she explains. "It's not speaking about me but about Cape Verdeans and life there. Maybe some things I sing about happened to me at a time in my life. But it is more my culture I am relating the song to, not me." Cesaria Evora may brush off attention on her skills, but this woman could sing the phonebook and make it a personal tale of tragedy and triumph. Her talent is vast, her heart is large, and her fame deserved.