“No question” of retirement for Enrico Macias, “84 and a half years old”, including six decades singing peace and love: “what I love 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. A “last tour” through France started a year ago and which will pass through the Palais des Congrès in Paris on Sunday, after Lyon, Lille, Marseille and soon Nantes and Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy. “I’m happy to still be here, to get up in the morning, to give interviews, concerts… north, Children of all countries and Beggar of love.
The most oriental of French song poets explained why he needed to meet his audience: “For 60 years, I have been singing peace and fraternity. 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, while continuing to perform. The public gives me energy. It is the public that makes me continue to live and sing”.
Enrico Macias sings L’Oriental
The singer has no words strong enough to salute the loyalty of his fans: “In my turn, I want to thank my audience and deliver a message: we must always keep hope, never give up in the face of trials of life”. Enrico Macias will have known how to popularize 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 that I have known”, admits today the Jewish child from 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.
“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 of all countries sums up my ideal of peace and fraternity between human beings”, says the one who was appointed ambassador of 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 discrepancy, his first songs, Paris, you took me in your arms, Les Filles de mon pays, Poï Poï Poï, hit the mark.
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. “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 a total party, to the sound of Arab-Andalusian music,” explains 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 always 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 has given up on 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.