FRENCH ENTERTAINER AZNAVOUR, 82, PLANS HIS NORTH AMERICAN SWAN SONG
San Francisco Chronicle, CA
Sept 6 2006
(09-06) 04:00 PDT Mouriès, France — He came to Ellis Island in 1948,
a French Armenian singer who once sold fake silk stockings to Nazi
soldiers, a struggling artist with no visa but big dreams of performing
in America.
Some six decades, 60 movies and 740 recorded songs later, Charles
Aznavour returns to the United States this month for a series of
concerts — including a Sept. 13 performance in San Francisco and a
later date at the Mountain Winery — billed as his farewell tour of
North America.
[ Listen/Download: Mp3 excerpt of Charles Aznavour’s "Yesterday When
I Was Young"]
The surviving icon of an era branded by Frank Sinatra, Marlene
Dietrich, Liza Minnelli and Ray Charles, Aznavour is among only a
handful of French entertainers to reach international stardom. He was
voted entertainer of the century in a 1998 Time magazine Internet poll,
beating out Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan.
Even today, Aznavour remains a prolific writer and composer — still
mesmerizing and sometimes outraging audiences with his frank lyrics.
"Strictly speaking, his music is suited for the ’60s and ’70s," says
Philippe Rezzonico, music critic for the Quebec newspaper Le Journal
de Montreal, who has followed Aznavour’s career for years. "But his
songs are about contemporary issues. His melancholy is universal."
At his summer home in Provence, Aznavour sketches in a series of
goodbye concerts he is scheduling by language and region. After
touring Germany and Japan, he is now focusing on English-speaking
countries before moving on to perform in Spanish-speaking ones.
"When it comes to singing, it will be over," Aznavour says of live
performances — although he will never bid adieu on a French stage.
"But there are other things besides songs."
Casually dressed in dark shorts and a white T-shirt, Aznavour brims
with energy and looks at least a decade younger than his 82 years.
His hair is white now, but his dark eyes are as bright as ever.
He quickly segues to plans for his next album, to be recorded this
fall in Cuba with the island’s leading jazz player, Chucho Valdes.
"He’s a very good musician," Aznavour says. "And since I’m going to
record hard songs, I want to lighten them with jazz music."
Aznavour, a singer, actor, writer and part-time diplomat, gets up at 6
each morning to work. He is a voracious reader — currently immersed
in a world-history series (he’s reached Egypt’s Pharaonic era). He
exudes a delight in life — he’s easily seduced by good food, wine
and shopping trips — yet his lyrics capture its harsher edges.
And his musical imprint is everywhere. He has written for Edith Piaf
and performed with Luciano Pavarotti, Elton John and Sting. Charles,
Minnelli and Elvis Costello have recorded his songs.
Why has Aznavour survived? Maybe because, however edgy his lyrics,
he remains synonymous with the traditional French "chanson,"
stirring images of Paris drizzle and unrequited love. Or because he
is considered a spectacular performer. Or because he writes about
themes everyone understands: loss, AIDS, depression, aging.
"I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out/ I never stopped to
think what life was all about," he wrote in his 1960s hit "Yesterday,
When I Was Young."
"When you’re young, you want to have No. 1 hits. I’ve done it around
the world," Aznavour says. "I can’t live in the past. I need to keep
coming back with subjects that disturb the public."
Nostalgia sells, though, and a large chunk of Aznavour listeners
are the 50-and-older crowd eager for old favorites such as "She" and
"La Boheme."
"His songs will be cherished among people who love French music,"
says Rezzonico, the Montreal music critic. "I think his legacy will
stand on that."
But Aznavour believes his songs also can resonate with a generation
nourished on hip-hop and rap. He keeps up with musical trends —
owning publishing rights to music by Grand Corps Malade, a French
slam poet who catapulted to fame this year.
For his forthcoming album, Aznavour has written about France’s
immigrant-laced suburban ghettos, about ghost villages where only
the elderly remain, about environmental degradation. "I always have
something to say to them," he says of younger listeners. "I talk
about racism, about homosexuality. I talk about things that aren’t
discussed."
And of course, he talks about love. "They fall into my basket when
they’re in love," Aznavour says, with a chuckle.
Audiences have not always fallen so easily. Aznavour, born Chahnour
Varinag Aznavourian in Paris in 1924, is the son of Armenian
immigrants who had fled the Turkish massacre in their homeland. They
were restaurateurs by trade, artists at heart: Aznavour’s father was
a singer, his mother an actress.
He became both. Aznavour made his stage debut at the age of 9, quit
school and shortened his Armenian surname.
But success proved elusive. To make ends meet during World War II,
Aznavour sold cheap chocolates and fake silk stockings to German
troops occupying Paris.
"My shortcomings are my voice, my height, my gestures, my lack of
culture and education, my frankness and my lack of personality,"
Aznavour wrote a few years later, still struggling at 26.
Still, the breaks came soon afterward, partly because Piaf took him
under her wing and on tour in France and the United States. The two
French singers, both survivors of gritty Paris childhoods, became
close friends.
In 1964, Aznavour sold out Carnegie Hall. But today, he prefers to
reminisce about his first musical appearance in New York, shortly
after the war.
"I had no visa. I didn’t speak English. And I didn’t have a return
ticket," he says about his Ellis Island landing. "Fortunately, we
had a good relationship with the judge."
Aznavour planned a two-week trip to the United States and Canada. He
stayed far longer, performing at Cafe Society Downtown, a popular
Greenwich Village club. "I didn’t break any windows," he says,
"but it was a credible success."
Sixty years later, he still has a following in the United States,
while most contemporary French musicians do not.
His filmography boasts the 1960s Francois Truffaut classic "Shoot the
Piano Player," and he has founded a charity to help Armenia; a square
in Yerevan bears his name. Indeed, the Armenian government has granted
him the status of ambassador at large, a job Aznavour takes seriously.
"It’s rare to find someone as free as he is in the largest sense of the
word — so tolerant and open to other traditions, cultures, religions,
thinking," says Edward Nalbandian, Armenia’s ambassador to France,
who is an old friend of Aznavour’s. "He’s not a political man, but
when he discusses political issues, he speaks frankly and sincerely."
Not all the reviews are positive. A number of British newspapers panned
Aznavour’s musical "Lautrec," about the French artist, when it opened
in London’s Shaftesbury Theater in 2000. The show, wrote the Guardian,
was teeming "with skirt-waving bawdiness, allusions to split-crotch
panties and vertically challenged sex." Aznavour’s songs were "vapid."
French critics, however, praised the same songs, repackaged in
"Insolitement Votre." Today, he is focused on preparing for his
forthcoming concert and album — and on writing several novels. He
might also consider future movie appearances, but he says he will
turn down leading roles.
"I don’t have the time. I’m 82 years old, and I’ve only got 20, 25, 35
years left to live," he says, brown eyes twinkling. "I’m an optimist,
but still, that’s not a lot."
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