Singing legend Cesaria Evora retires at 70

Legendary Cape Verdean singer Cesaria Evora, nicknamed the "barefoot diva", has decided to retire at 70 due to ill health.

Her record label Lusafrica said the star, who has long-standing heart problems, arrived in Paris "in a state of great weakness" and, unable to complete a planned series of French concerts, had decided to bring her career to a close.

"I want you to tell my fans: 'Sorry, but now I have to rest'," she told the daily Le Monde. "I very much regret having to go because of illness. I would have liked to give more pleasure to those who have followed me for so long."

According to Le Monde's report Evora was visibly suffering.

"Her new health problems come after she had to undergo several operations in recent years, including open heart surgery in May 2010," Lusafrica said.

"Her Paris doctors told her she had to cancel her upcoming tour, so Cesaria and her producer and manager Jose da Silva decided to end her career, and give up this wandering life that has taken her to the four corners of the world."

Evora has sung the melancholy, blues-influenced "saudade" of her native Cape Verde since her twenties, but came to world fame late in life in 1992 after decades singing in the bars of Mindello, on the island of Sao Vicente.

Her third album Miss Perfumado, which came out that year, was a worldwide hit and in all she has produced 10 studio albums and an anthology of historic radio recordings while touring far from her Atlantic island home.

In 2008 she suffered a stroke after a concert in the Australian city of Melbourne and returned to her Paris base to recover, but still managed to record her latest album Nha Sentimento for release in 2009.

Her international career began in 1988 when, at 47 and after three decades of singing in bars in her remote, windswept African homeland, a young Frenchman invited her to Paris to record an album.

La diva aux pieds nus (The Barefoot Diva) was a hit with the Cape Verdean exile community, and her "coladera" -- catchier than the usual saudade, for dancing -- Bia Luchera became popular with making her a star.

It was four years and two albums later that she became a breakthrough success, selling out shows to Cape Verdean and French audiences alike. Alongside up-beat coladera's she popularised the bluesy "morna" style.

Evora's big break in 1993 was accompanied by two massively successful dates in Paris, and she has remained loyal to France, singing at the Grand Rex as late as April and planning a tour for this month.

Her voice was compared to that of US great Billie Holliday, and the music press revelled in exotic tales of her African island life, growing up in poverty and acquiring a taste for cognac, smoking and wild nights out.

In 2004, her album Voz d'Amor won a Grammy Award in the United States as "Best World Music Album" and stars like Madonna, David Byrne and Branford Marsalis descended on her New York concert.

Evora's late-blooming success took her on a punishing global schedule at an advanced age. She gave up alcohol in 1994, but not smoking, and by 2005 she had been diagnosed with heart problems and begun a series of operations.

"I'm going to give up, one day," she told Le Monde, dropping her cigarette lighter as she struggled through the pain of cholesterol choked veins. "But not just that, I'm stopping everything. I've no strength, no energy."

Evora blamed her illness on "batatinhas" -- Cape Verde fried potatoes.