Dick Annegarn rises from the dead

26/03/1998 - 

The Francophile Dutchman is back on the Paris stage at the Bataclan, from March 26 to 28. The guitar-playing singer, an avant garde poet verging on the surrealistic at one time, is at long last making his stage comeback, after long years of deliberate half-absence.

Born at the Hague in 1952, living for a time in Belgium before settling in France, Dick Annegarn is the European artist par excellence. He arrived in Paris in 72, and brought out a noted album, "Sacré Géranium" in 1973. A few tours and several records later, Annegarn announced, in a memorable press conference, that at the height of his success, he was quitting show business because in his view it was hypocritical and conformist. That was in 1978.

This trumpeted departure did not, however, plunge our singer into oblivion. Far from it. His records continued to sell, and some of his songs ("Bruxelles", "Ubu") remain landmarks in seventies music. Since 1978, he has kept busy. Living on a barge in the Paris suburbs, he has created associations, set up a café, worked with local youths. He has travelled, too, Asia and Northern Africa being his preferred destinations.

In the 80's, Dick gradually began to pop up in the musical news, much to the delight of his public. But it has been in the 90's that he has come back to the limelight. His album "Approche-toi" (Tôt ou tard/WEA), released in 1997, was acclaimed by the critics. At the Bataclan, and then on tour, Dick Annegarn (who is accompanied by the Berber group Raïs M'Hand, three violins and an accordeon) will therefore present 22 songs, old and new. After nearly 20 years of sulking with the showbiz world, Dick Annegarn, we hope, will at last find his niche among the more worthy luminaries of the French song world.

Catherine  Pouplain - Pédron