National Museum of Music incorporates in Phil Mendrix's guitar collection

O National Museum of Music in Mafra will incorporate in the collection an electric guitar by musician Filipe Mendes, better known by the artistic name Phil Mendrix, and open a temporary exhibition dedicated to the artist.

“The incorporation into our collection of a material testimony of the course and the contribution of Phil Mendrix to the history of the country reaffirms the place of rock and popular music in the narratives of Portuguese musical heritage”, can be read in a message published on the social networks of the National Museum of Music.

In the same text, it is also mentioned that on Saturday, at 4:00 p.m., the exhibition “Phil Mendrix: Portraits of an amplified life” will be inaugurated, which gathers photographs of the musician by António Melão, Inácio Ludgero, Rogério Machado, Rui M. Leal, Rui Vasco and Vasco Ludgero.

The opening will feature a musical performance by Fast Eddie Nelson and Manuel João Vieira, who shared many stages with Mendrix.

“ Through these lenses, the audience will be transported to the intimacy and intensity of the performances of a man who lived with the music permanently ‘amplified’, can be read in a statement by Mendrix Association.

The entrance to the inauguration is free, subject to the filling of space.

Filipe Alberto do Paço de Oliveira Mendes was born in Lisbon on November 10, 1947, and went through several decades of Portuguese rock on multiple projects and stages of music, having died in 2018.

In 1964, he debuted as a professional on radio and television, and played at the Yé-Yé Festival and the Monumental Theatre in Lisbon.

The musician was leader of the Chinchilas, who graduated at the age of 16 with Vítor Mamede, José Machado, Mário Piçarra and Fernando, a pioneering formation of Portuguese psychedelic rock.

Strongly influenced by the music of the Cream and Jimi Hendrix – a surname that was at the origin of a professional name that the musician would later adopt since he was known as the “Jimi Hendrix Portuguese” due to his guitar solos – the band recorded the first album in 1967.

Four years later, the formation that originated in Porto played at the first festival of Vilar de Mouros. That year comes the only single edited by the Chinchilas, with the themes “Barbarela” and “D. João”, in 1971, the year in which the group would eventually dissolve, according to the “Encyclopedia of Light Music”, edited by the Circle of Readers and directed by Luís Pinheiro de Almeida and João Pinheiro de Almeida.