AT 82, CHARLES AZNAVOUR IS SINGING A FAREWELL THAT COULD LAST FOR YEARS
By Alan Riding

The New York Times
September 18, 2006 Monday
Late Edition – Final

At 82 Charles Aznavour is on his farewell tour, but don’t let anyone
confuse this with retirement.

No, for this last practitioner of a decades-old musical tradition known
as the chanson francaise (French song), the tour better resembles
a slow lap of honor, one taking him to scores of cities around the
world and, health permitting, that may last until 2010 or beyond.

"We’re in no hurry; we’re still young," Mr. Aznavour said
good-naturedly several weeks ago before embarking on a 10-city swing
through North America, which includes dates in New York at Radio City
Music Hall on Monday and Tuesday. "There are some people who grow
old and others who just add years. I have added years, but I am not
yet old."

As proof he claims with no little pride that his voice is in better
shape than 30 years ago. He has just signed a three-record contract
with EMI. He is still busily writing new songs about the travails of
love and life. And, let’s face it, he doesn’t look his age: dapperly
dressed, he seems as sure on his feet as he is quick in his repartee.

Nonetheless the plan is to say goodbye to fans in each city he visits
this month. He has already been to Montreal, Ottawa, Seattle, San
Francisco, Toronto and Washington. After his New York shows, Boston,
Los Angeles and Saratoga, Calif., will complete his schedule.

"Later I’ll return to the cities I haven’t done, Philadelphia,
Dallas, Miami and so on," he explained. "This is all part of the
English-language tour: London — that’s in the Royal Albert Hall —
and Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. I’ve already done Germany:
10 cities. Japan next year, then all of Latin America."

Still, by bunching together many of the English-speaking cities, where
half of his songs are usually performed in English, Mr. Aznavour is
finally acknowledging his age.

"In the past I could mix languages," he said, sitting in the offices of
Editions Raoul Breton, one of several music publishers he owns, before
he began his current tour. "My memory was better. I passed easily
from language to language, Spanish, Italian, French, English. But I
can’t do that any longer." He tapped his head and laughed. "Calma,
calma, I’m 82."

When he began, though, he was almost the youngest of the crooners
who made the chanson francaise popular in the postwar years. And to
his good fortune, it was Edith Piaf, the legendary "little sparrow,"
who took him under her wings: in time they came to enjoy what he calls
"une amitie amoureuse" — an amorous friendship — which, he said,
"means more than friendship and less than love."

It was a time when the smoke-filled clubs and theaters of the Paris
Left Bank were bursting with talent. Maurice Chevalier was already
an international star, but new voices were gaining a following,
among them Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Leo Ferre, Yves Montand,
Gilbert Becaud, Charles Trenet and Juliette Greco. (Of these only
Ms. Greco is still alive and, at 79, very occasionally performing.)

Mr. Aznavour had one strong card. This short, wiry son of Armenian
immigrants (his real surname is Aznavourian) had a talent for writing
lyrics that echoed the language and sentiments of ordinary people.

And long before his husky tenor became as recognizable as that of, say,
Brassens or Becaud, he won a place in their circle as a songwriter.

Even now, while best known around the world as a singer (he has
also appeared in more than 50 French movies), Mr. Aznavour considers
himself first and foremost a songwriter: he starts with the words,
and only later does he or another composer add the melody and rhythm.

For him the chanson francaise is quite simply the art of telling
stories to music.

For material he has always counted on love and its pitfalls, but
recent songs confirm that he is also ever-alert to what is topical.

"I don’t write stories like novels," he said. "I don’t invent
anything. I bring language to existing facts and events. I read all
the newspapers. I watch all the news programs on television. I was
the first to write about social issues like homosexuality and the
deaf. In my new record I write about unrest in the suburbs, about
ecology. I find real subjects and translate them into song."

One recent record, "Le Voyage," includes two songs about journalists:
in "La Critique," he snipes at critics and concludes that, "in the
end, only the public is right"; and in "Un Mort Vivant," or "A Living
Death," which he dedicated to Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal
correspondent assassinated by Islamic extremists in Pakistan in 2002,
Mr. Aznavour pays tribute to reporters who risk their lives while
seeking the truth.

"What really matters is that you hear the text clearly," he noted.

Now, reflecting on his long final bow, he feels confident that he
will be best remembered by his songs. "When a singer dies, only his
records survive," he said. "But when I die, there are at least two
songs which will continue to be played regularly in the United States:
‘Yesterday When I Was Young’ and ‘She.’ There will be no break because
the songs exist. I will remain in the business."

And he will do so all the more if a project under discussion in the
United States and France comes to fruition: to create a stage show
built entirely around his songs and modeled after "Jacques Brel Is
Alive and Well and Living in Paris."

So, still very much alive and well and living in Geneva, Mr. Aznavour
could easily rest on his laurels. In France he is regularly voted one
of the country’s 10 most popular personalities. In Armenia, the land
of his forebears, where an Aznavour Museum is planned, he is warmly
remembered for organizing help after a devastating earthquake that
killed 45,000 people there in 1988.

But his farewell tour is also an excuse to get back on stage and show
that he has not lost his touch as a performer extraordinaire. Then,
after North America, he is to fly to Havana to make his next record
with the Cuban musician Chucho Valdes. And he has already agreed to
appear in a movie adaptation of Georges Simenon’s novel "The Little
Man from Archangel."

Tomorrow evidently still beckons.

"Once I have done something," he said conclusively, "I think of
something else. I never look back."

Except, that is, when he claims a place in the Guinness Book of
Records.

"I have been married to the same woman for 43 years," he said with a
smile, referring to his Swedish-born wife, Ulla, "and, in my business,
that’s a record."