Enrico Macias popularized Arab-Andalusian music, with more than 150 songs, including hits listed in the heritage of French-speaking song.
A “last tour” through France started a year ago and which will pass Sunday April 16 by the Palais des Congrès in Paris, after Lyon, Lille, Marseille and soon Nantes and Vandoeuvre-les-Nancy. “I’m happy to still be here, to get up in the morning, to give interviews, concerts… If that’s gone, I’m finished, screwed“, adds the interpreter of people of the north, Children from all countries And beggar of love.
“No way“retirement for Enrico Macias,”84 and a half years old“, including six decades of singing peace and love: “what I like the most in the world is to be the singer, the music and the stage!“, he confides to AFP, in the middle of the anniversary tour. “For 60 years, I have been singing peace and brotherhood. I am happy about it and above all grateful to providence which has allowed me to live to be 84 and a half years old already, while continuing the scene“, he said. “The public gives me energy. It’s the public that keeps me alive and singing“.
“In turn, I want to thank my audience and deliver a message: you have to keep hope all the time, never give up in the face of life’s trials.“, enjoins the one who will have popularized Arab-Andalusian music, with more than 150 songs, including hits registered in the heritage of French-speaking song. “Music and success have helped me heal from the traumas and hardships I’ve experienced“, assures the Jewish child of Constantine, in Algeria, torn from his native land in 1961. In the midst of the war of independence, Cheikh Raymond Leyris, his father-in-law who introduced him to music, was assassinated.
An artist who sings peace
“I lived all my youth in violence. When I arrived in France, I was an orphan from my native land and I still am, without revenge or hatred. My song Children from all countries sums up my ideal of peace and brotherhood among human beings“, says the one who was appointed ambassador to the United Nations in 1997.
Landed in Paris, Gaston Ghrenassia, born on December 13, 1938, becomes Enrico Macias in the midst of a yé-yé wave. Despite a total shift, his first songs – Paris, you took me in your arms, The girls of my country, Poi Poi Poi – fly. He will celebrate his 30th birthday on the stage of Carnegie Hall in New York, before the Royal Albert Hall in London three years later.
“My drug is music”
“I never calculated my success or my career. My drug is the music that runs in my veins, in my heart. I want to sing as much as possible, until my last breath. For my last lap, my son Jean-Claude had the idea of recreating the tempo of a day, from sunrise to sunset. We start with my first successes in a music-hall atmosphere and we end with the total party, to the sound of Arab-Andalusian music“, explains Enrico Macias.
A few years ago, the new generation (Carla Bruni, Cali, Corneille, Natasha Saint-Pier…) paid homage to him by performing his greatest titles as a duo. The singer, he remains attentive to new talents: “it’s not the same style as me but it’s still original. Talent is doing something special and new. And the main thing is the public’s support, which is sacred“, he observes. On several occasions, Enrico Macias gave up returning to Algeria in the face of the systematic outcry within part of the political class reproaching him for his support for Israel. “I remain hopeful, he said. If the destiny that remains to me wants me to return to Algeria, I will not refuse.“