Portrait

Charles Aznavour, proudly immortal

Charles Aznavour, 2015. © RFI / Edmond Sadaka

01/10/2018

A monument of the song and more generally of the French culture has just extinguished. Charles Aznavour died on October 1, 2018 at the age of 94.

1960: Charles Aznavour triumphs with Je m'avoyais déjà , which is going to be his favorite song for many years: " I was already at the top of the bill / In ten times bigger than anyone my name was spread ". The public capsized while listening to him and one of the most powerful critics of the time, Paul Carrière du Figaro, writes: " He will never be, with the pepper mill that serves as his throat, what is still called a singer ". The whole paradox of Aznavour's career is there, and perhaps also the secret of his ambition and his character. No one in the history of French song has fought so hard to reach the summit, and no one has been so openly delighted to have achieved it.

The biography

Aznavour left dozens of eternal songs in the memory of all French speakers, but the press and the professionals critiqued their physicality with a cruelty, made fun of their alleged absence of any gift. And yet he was the last French singer to conquer the whole world, and filled the concert halls until the age of eighty-three. In taunts, he will oppose a phenomenal pride, which will become in his years of glory a decidedly assumed taste for honors and applause.

But, as everyone knows, his destiny is all the more exceptional because nothing destined him to enter the legend during his lifetime. Already, to begin with, he should not have been born in France. Misha Aznavourian, his father, is the son of a former cook of Tsar Nicholas II, his mother Knar belongs to a family of Armenian traders from Turkey who escaped the genocide of 1915. It is on the way to the United States that his parents, who came from Salonika, went through France to apply for a visa to the promised land. This is why Varenagh Aznavourian was born in Paris on May 22, 1924.

An artist's seed

In the family diner, his father sings more than he holds the cash register. His mother, who was an actress, encourages him to follow an artistic path: at nine, he is at the school of the show, plays the violin in the streets, earns his first pills in the cinema or in cabarets ... Like many young people before the war, he is crazy about the turbulent song of Charles Trenet. With Pierre Roche, whom he met in 1941, he embarked on a song openly swing. Engagements in cabarets, first records at the Liberation, but not much success. Edith Piaf encourages them to go to the United States to try their luck - like her. They discover a professionalism that impresses them, Charles is redone by an American surgeon,
they store all the new trends of the moment and they become the darling of the Quebec public. Yes but here it is: Pierre Roche decides to stay in Montreal.

Aznavour goes on alone. He writes songs, performs as much as he can and earns his living as Edith Piaf's secretary. She, who boasts of knowing the job as a person, repeats that he will never perform as a singer. He perseveres yet. He associates for a moment, to write, with the young Gilbert Bécaud who was antechamber at Piaf. He wins his first ranks by giving success to others: I hate Sundays for Juliette Greco, Méqué méqué for Dario Moreno, Jezebel for Edith Piaf, songs for Patachou, Mistinguett ... Then his records are more and more noticed: On my life , After love , Because , To make a jam , Ay die for you , After love (forbidden on the radio), In the hollow of my shoulder ...

At the same time that he rose in the hierarchy of the song, he obtained his first successes in the cinema: it is the poster of Jean-Pierre Mocky's Dragueurs and A taxi for Tobruk of Denys de la Patellière before that François Truffaut does not give him the main role of Shoot the pianist . Yet, he had been told and repeated that with his physique, his small size and his disgraced face, he would not achieve anything important ...

Legendary songs

At the dawn of the 1960s, he moved to the top. He often writes with his brother-in-law Georges Garvarentz, but also with Robert Gall (the father of France Gall), Bernard Dimey, Francoise Dorin, Jacques Plante ... And he aligns the legendary songs: La Bohème , La Mamma , Au hollow de My shoulder , His youth , You and me , My boredom , No I have not forgotten anything , From now on , Comedians , Take me away , You let yourself go , It's sad Venice , Yesterday still , The old-fashioned Pleasures , For Me terrific ... Incidentally, he writes even Retacts at night for Johnny Hallyday and The most beautiful to go dancing for Sylvie Vartan.

France and French are not enough for him. He sings at Carnegie Hall and in the USSR, recorded in English, Spanish, Italian ... His songs are taken by the greatest ones: The Mamma by Ray Charles, The Old-Fashioned Pleasures by Fred Astaire, Yesterday still by Bing Crosby. He even offers the luxury of a tube in English, She , without having recorded a French version. And he will be whistled for singing too much in English at a concert in Montreal!
Aznavour always wants to take risks, to dare something new. In 1973, in As They Say , it provokes a shock by singing in the first person singular the life of a homosexual.
He works tirelessly, imposes infernal cadences, and finally begins to enjoy a unanimous admiration. A sign of esteem for the French show-biz, when an earthquake ravages Armenia, ninety-two singers and actors sing with him for you Armenia . The single will be sold a million copies and he will become a national hero in the land of his ancestors.

Heritage Defense

The only Frenchman to record a duet with Frank Sinatra has also become an activist of French song. He bought the Raoul-Breton editions (the publisher of Charles Trenet and a good part of Edith Piaf's repertoire) to defend the heritage and support young artists he believes in. Thus, he passionately supports the debut of Lynda Lemay in France.

In 2000, he announces his goodbyes ... but does not slow down his activities in the least. At the age of eighty, he sings in front of the vast audience of the Vieilles Charrues de Carhaix, the biggest French outdoor festival, records an album at eighty-two - his first album with Cuban musicians, a new experience . And, year after year, he pushes back the time of retirement. But he already knows that his work did not wait for his death to be immortal.

To read on rfi.fr: Charles Aznavour, death of a sacred monster of the French song

By: Bertrand Dicale

Charles Aznavour

French Song - France