Aznavour, colours of Cuba

Colore ma vie

Paris 

05/03/2007 - 

It was something he hadn’t yet done: a recording in the famous Irem studios in Cuba. Following a trip to the Caribbean island last autumn, Charles Aznavour has now brought out Colore ma vie, an album suffused with Latin American hues inspired by a people with whom he spent some special moments. Words are important to the singer, and once again his lyrics seem to focus on worries new and old. Here is the story behind the record, plus interview.

"The oceans are the rubbish bins/And the sea front is a mess/A string of Chernobyls /Have brought stillborns to the world/In fifty years what will we do/With all these tons of trash?/And the nuclear waste/That no country wants.” We have not often heard Charles Aznavour express a political opinion. He opens his new album, Colore ma vie, on a strongly ecological note – the world is dying. Yet it is a curiously swinging, dancing opening, reflecting the fact that most of the disk was recorded in Cuba with Chucho Valdès and his musicians.

But although the album is lit up with the bright colours of Cuba, we also get to hear the traditional Armenian oboe, the duduk, in Tendre Arménie, a song dedicated to his birth land and family and, symbolically, composed by his sister, Aïda Aznavour-Garvarentz. There are memories of Lisbon, too, in Fado, with its lovely walk along the Tagus. The song is reminiscent of Ay mourir pour toi, written many years ago for Amalia Rodrigues. The social theme continues with Moi, je vis en banlieue, an intentionally optimistic portrait of a suburb that includes not just housing estates and discrimination, but also hope and willpower. 

And, because it is his own immortal brand image, Charles Aznavour also sings of love, of course, notably in the delightful song from which the album takes its title, Colore ma vie, and his tender hymn to the gentler sex, Il y a des femmes.

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RFI Musique: One of the songs on your new album, J’abdiquerai, is surprising because in it you evoke an end to your career.
Charles Aznavour. Yes, a lot of people have mentioned it.

You speak openly about something other singers try to hide – your ego. Is it something you assume?
I assume everything, even the fact that I earn money. What I don’t like is doublespeak – at all.

In J’abdiquerai, you also bring up how much you like awards. Do they still touch you?
I accept them and I take them. You can give me as many as you want. When I was younger, they were my dream.

You have received a lot of awards. Has there been enough recognition?
I wanted to be honoured as a writer – that was the only thing that interested me. And I haven’t been, except for overseas. I am in the Hall of Fame in America as a writer, and I won the prize for the best country song in Nashville, but I still get the impression that no one ever reads what I write. They listen to the music. When a young artist brings me a record, I always say: “Bring me the lyrics to read as well.” I have invented a lot of things in my songs and taken some huge risks, and no one has ever talked about that. Après l’amour was a risk. Tu t’laisses aller was a risk. Comme ils disent was a risk too.

You couldn’t say that Comme ils disent wasn’t talked about!
People talk about the song, they talk about the singer, they don’t talk about the writer. In France there are songwriters, there are those who sing and write and I would like there to be another category – chansonwriters (laughs). Oh, what an ego! I’m not afraid of saying it: my ego massage comes from looking at myself in the mirror in the morning and saying to myself: “For a bloke who left school at ten and a half with a basic school certificate, you’ve done pretty well, you write well!" That’s what I look for.

Earlier on, in February, you did a tour of Japan called "Aligato, sayonara (thank you, goodbye)". How many times have you already sung in Japan?
It was my tenth tour in Japan. I haven’t tried to make a career there –  it’s an international career that I have always wanted. I could have set up for good in the States and I would have fought to get to the top there. In fact, I never tried to be known in the America, just to be recognised – and I succeeded. Having a place in the Hall of Fame allows me to do my job the way I choose.
Last year, I wasn’t saying my goodbyes to America, I was saying goodbye to the English language for America. I would like to go back, but to sing in French. I don’t want to go back there to be a language acrobat. It is very difficult to sing in Spanish one day, English the next and the following day in German. I am going to do my goodbye tour in Spanish soon. Afterwards, I will say goodbye in Italian. I won’t do any goodbyes in French. On the other hand, I’ve said goodbye to doing tours. I only do galas and appearances now and again, every three months or so. That will leave me time to write. I have gone back to writing for other people. I have just done some lovely lyrics, I think, for Amel Bent. Several years ago, I wrote for Johnny, for Sylvie Vartan, Philippe Clay and Marcel Amont, among others. I am going to start doing that again. It’s nice to close up the circle by going back to what I did at the beginning.

In fact, when you started out you wrote for Edith Piaf, Juliette Gréco, Dario Moreno and lots of stars of the time, notably with Gilbert Bécaud.
Yes, and when Bécaud and I made our breakthrough, the record companies were all looking for Bécauds and Aznavours.

Some people say that French chanson is living its golden age. Do you agree?
The lyrics are a lot better, it has to be said. And the singers are starting to really sing. It is the new golden age. Of course, some of them won’t make it, because you need to have the puff for it. What you mustn’t do is renounce. Why do you think lots of the old pop stars have disappeared? Because they renounced the past. They thought that nothing had been good before them. The ones that hung on in there, like Johnny, were the ones who never thought that way.   

Charles Aznavour Colore ma vie (EMI) 2007

Bertrand  Dicale

Translation : Anne-Marie  Harper