How did a necklace of tiny islands far off the coast of Senegal seduce the world with its music? Inspired by Cesária Évora's sensuous, elegiac voice, George Rush makes a pilgrimage to Cape Verde and falls hard for a forgotten land of endless beaches, stark landscapes, and mesmerizing rhythms

"You will like Cape Verde," Cesária Évora had assured me, shortly before I was to leave for the country where she rules as musical empress. So why did I have this feeling of dread?

For years, I'd wanted to see the "forgotten islands," stranded 385 miles off the coast of Senegal. Ever since I'd first heard Cesária's smoky, cognac-ripened voice, the place names in her songs had become mythic for me: the beach at Salamansa, where "we three played in the sand"; the isle of Maio, "my secret world / to the left of my breast."

Cesária's music had opened my ears to other Cape Verdean artists: Bana, Rufino Almeida (a.k.a. Bau), Tito Paris, Paulino Vieira. I discovered that this overlooked archipelago—this smattering of ten islands and eight tiny islets—had produced enough elegant, elegiac music to rival its neglectful mother, Portugal, and its boisterous brother, Brazil.

"If you write to me / I will write to you," Cesária promised in another song. Accepting her challenge, I wrote. Or, rather, I e-mailed her publicist. Upon hearing that Cesária was coming to New York, I asked if the two of us might meet, which we did over lunch on the day she was to play Carnegie Hall.

Though her difficult life has been compared with that of Edith Piaf, this sparrow has more meat on her bones. Sixty-seven at the time, the Grammy winner wore a leopard-print scarf around her head, a dozen gold chains around her neck, and a ring on every burgundy- lacquered finger. Most remarkable, she wore shoes. "I feel more comfortable without them," admitted the Barefoot Diva, who, true to her name, showed up pieds nus onstage that night.

She grew impatient when I began poking into her love life. "At this point, I trust no man," said the never-married mother of two. But she was happy to talk about her beloved city of Mindelo, on the island of São Vicente. "The old Café Royal is closed, but there are other places where you can hear good music," she said, lighting up another Winston. She gave me the names of some bars. She even invited me to her house. "Call me when you get there," she said.

Cesária Évora—the woman who blew off Madonna's invitation to perform at her wedding—had invited me to her home! How could I not go, particularly since my August trip was to coincide with two music festivals?

The Cape Verde embassy steered me to a travel agency in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the city where Cape Verdeans have been settling since they began hopping on American whaling ships in the nineteenth century. Feeling a bit like Melville's Ishmael, I booked passage aboard a Cabo Verde Airlines Boeing 757 from Boston. Only half of the eighteen islands are inhabited; I aimed at sampling the six most visited islands in two weeks. But no sooner had I booked my internal flights than the airline changed its departure times. My precisely stitched itinerary seemed ready to unravel.