“I never forget how good it is to be free.” Charles Aznavour (2005)
I am the third most-loved man in France. Did you know that?” For a man so physically slight, Charles Aznavour has a way of instilling awe. His air is oddly presidential; his importance in the offices of the music publishing company he owns is reflected in his throne-like chair. Surrounding him are posters of “all my favourite singers”. Save for Frank Sinatra, it’ s the triumvirate of chanson giants: Edith Piaf, Charles Trenet and Aznavour himself.
Adored in his own country, never quite understood here, it’s perhaps not surprising that Aznavour, now 80, might be at pains to draw attention to his achievements. Married to his Swedish wife Ulla for nearly four decades, he lacks the nihilistic allure of Gainsbourg or the tragic life story of Piaf. But his place in music serves as a vital link between both singers.
At the height of her popularity, Piaf saw something of herself in the young Aznavour’s gritty reinvention of chanson. In his freshly minted autobiography, Memories of My Life, he recalls being beckoned into “her strange world one night in 1946”, from the stage of the Salle Washington Club in Paris: “Small dreams plunge into rivers; and I, for my part, plunged unreservedly.”
Afterwards, surrounded by her entourage, France’s most celebrated singer asked the unknown Aznavour to dance with her, a diva-esque dare conceived to gauge the measure of her putative protégé. Pre-empting the inevitable question, he says that their liaison never extended to “sharing a bed”, but the gravitational pull of her hedonistic world set about destroying his first marriage. He was banned from French radio — “not for the content of my songs, but because of what they represented”. And what did they represent? He sings a snatch of La Bohème, the song he wrote about his life in postwar Paris, and smiles. “They represented freedom. For an immigrant like me, it was very exciting.”
Though he calls himself an immigrant, Aznavour was actually born in Paris to Armenian parents — themselves immersed in the performing arts — who were awaiting news of an American visa (which never came). His parallel career as an actor, most famously in Truffaut’s Tirez sur la Pianiste, was encouraged from an early age. “Unlike a lot of immigrants, we were optimistic people. Pessimism won’t help you when you are in a bad situation.”
By way of illustration he tells a story about his arrival in New York with his musical sidekick Pierre Roche. Having forgotten to apply for a visa or work permit, the young Aznavour found himself sent to Ellis Island where illegal immigrants were penned in, “40 to a room”.
When prompted, Aznavour smiles at the recollection: “Oh yes! Nice moments in my life!” He derives no less pleasure from the surprise his reaction elicits. “Seriously! I liked it! I was with people talking every language of the world. I went to have some food and pointed at the rice. And the man said, ‘No rice! That’s for the Chinese.’ That amused me.
“In the sleeping quarters no one slept, the snoring was so loud. They had a piano there, so Pierre and I sang. When it was time for the judge to examine our case, he asked me to sing a song. We did three songs from Finian’s Rainbow, which was big on Broadway at the time.”
Aznavour’s gift for making high-pressure situations sound like a scene from a Frank Capra film knows no bounds. “Everything in life is a subject I can use,” he smiles.
That’s no exaggeration either. To borrow from She, the song that gave him his only British No 1, he may not be what he may seem. On the vagabond chanson of Je n’Ai Qu’un Sou (Just One Cent) or Les Enfants de la Guerre — his extraordinary paean to the human debris of war — those sweet, supper club orchestrations can be deceptive.
With What Makes a Man in 1971, Aznavour became one of the first singers of any genre to address the prejudices from which homophobia arises: “I know my life is not a crime/ I’m just a victim of my time . . . Nobody has the right to be/ The judge of what is right for me/ Tell me if you can/ What makes a man a man.” It’s still a song he makes a point of singing today: “People who think that homosexuality is not normal should ask themselves how normal segregation is. I cannot pretend that these songs are difficult to write. A love song takes one tenth as long, but you can’t write love songs your whole life.”
In Memories of my Life he tells a story about turning up to sing on an American TV show, on which the set was decorated like a French bistro, with beret-wearing, baguette-wielding extras. Piqued by the stereotype, he refused to go ahead until the stage had been cleared.
These days he makes a point of talking up his roots. In the wake of the Armenian earthquake in 1988, which claimed 50,000 lives, he has raised millions of pounds via benefit records and his Aznavour et Arménie organisation. In common with his American counterpart Burt Bacharach, Aznavour says that age has merely served to politicise him further. Other French hits for the singer have dealt with subjects such as Aids and the incarceration of journalists in war zones. “I never forget how good it is to be free.”
It’s an attitude that extends to the hair on his head. “You see this?” he says, tugging on his forelock. “All this has been replanted. When I did it, I would talk about it on stage. Because freedom is just that. It’s the freedom to be open. I used to talk about how the hair was taken from here (he points to the nape of his neck) and put there (his crown) — and the price it cost to take it from here to there. It was the most expensive journey I ever paid for.”
The third most-loved man in France rises from his chair and shows me to the lift. Just enough time for me to find out who lay ahead of him at Nos 1 and 2 in that poll. “It was (Yannick) Noah and (Zinedine) Zidane,” says Aznavour, “One is black, one is Algerian and the third one is Armenian. Could that have happened in England?” No, I tell him. “Why do you think that is?” he asks. Alas, the lift is here, and it would take far too long to explain who David Jason is.