Author, composer and performer, the song The scents of his life forever shone the spotlight on Art Mengo in 1990, just like the title talk about love with Ute Lemper (1993). He says : “I made two successes, three successes of esteem and 53 intimate successes“, but he forgets all those he created for others. He collaborated a lot with Henri Salvador, Florent Pagny, Johnny Hallyday, Jane Birkin, Juliette Gréco, Maurane and many others.
Art Mengo is back with a collective project, a trio called Toulouse Contour and an album: Additional time.
franceinfo: Toulouse Contour is Yvan Cujious and Magyd Cherfi from Zebda by your side. Unity is strength ?
Art Mengo: Yes, it is above all and above all a story of friends. It started with Yvan Cujious who had carte blanche, he was to invite two artists from Toulouse. He knew us both, I didn’t know Magyd Cherfi and he had the idea of bringing us together on a set. Something weird happened, it’s that artistically, we weren’t at all connected to each other, we don’t have the same influences, we don’t come from the same background, but on stage, we started having giggles.
“What I like about the story of Toulouse Contour is that it is first and foremost a human story that generated a desire to do a joint artistic project.”
So we started shooting. We did a lot of covers, we did a lot of stage until the day we said to ourselves: “Why not make an album?“We made this album.
The album is called: Additional time. What is additional time?
There are two fifty-somethings and I, a recently ex-fifties. It’s simply to put the cover back and why not put a ladle more and why not continue to do what you love, to have fun and to laugh well, through an artistic creation. We are three personalities where, oddly, there is something going on between us and we have a lot of fun.
For a very long time, your voice was present, but really in the background.
It’s true that at the start, when I sent my song The scents of his life to a publisher, I said to myself: I would like a singer to be able to take it over. The publisher in question, who must have liked it, said to me: “No. You’ll be quicker to sing it yourself and start being a singer. No one will trust you on a song like that, sing it. Only you can sing it“.
And that’s the advice I followed, to sing my song, and so I found myself a little bit in front of the stage, a bit forced, but it’s true that I saw myself much more behind the camera than in front of it. , as a director would say.
“I think I was mixed to make music for other people.”
I have to say that The scents of his life has marked several generations and is a must-have song. Victory of music with the album: “one August 15 in February”, it was dazzling. How did you experience this notoriety?
She arrived at a weird time. It was during the Gulf War, so I didn’t really take advantage of that “Music Victories” dynamic. But hey, it allowed me to continue to do a duet with Ute Lemper, to do The sea does not exist (1995) also nominated for Victories. It made me happy to see that in the end, with my somewhat special voice, I don’t have a voice so I force it, it gave a scratchy voice, it gave a singularity. I didn’t realize it at first, really, I was doing it quite naturally and today, I’m quite happy with it.
Your parents are Spanish refugees. Did they bring you this base precisely, which is very present in this album and which is a real sounding board, just like Magyd Cherfi. There’s a common story about having to pull through, having parents who instill the idea of working, hanging on, fighting.
Yes. I may not have the same background. Me, the first times I heard French spoken, it was in the preparatory course. I didn’t go to kindergarten and I didn’t understand everything because at home we spoke Spanish. And suddenly, my parents trusted me completely in my schooling, that is to say that they did not come to the meetings, anyway, they did not understand anything. And there was this thing that is terrible for a child, is that they trusted me. So when we trust, we no longer dare to betray anyone.
And suddenly, I think I was a good student until the baccalaureate. I did a college. But I remember very well when I stopped college to want to make music. My father said to me:Yes, but you don’t do music theory, it’s not normal, you’re not going to do anything in it.“While my mother followed me and said: “But do what you want, try to do something you like in life, and you will see!“
This album is also a look into the future. He’s a character from the tour in this project!
She is building herself. We will do dates in 2022, I saw dates fall. But the bulk of the tour will be in 2023. I hope we can play without the masks, neither in the audience nor on stage.