Posted on 10/07/2018 7:51:23 PM PDT by Twotone
On September 19th the 94-year-old Charles Aznavour was on stage at the NHK Hall in Osaka, Japan. After a triumphant concert he returned to his home in Mouriès, the lovely olive-oil town in the south of France, and died there suddenly last Monday. It was a spectacular run for a man who outlived all his contemporaries, and indeed an entire musical tradition. His arrival nine and a half decades ago was the first of many unexpected plot twists: He was supposed to be born in America; his parents were only passing through France, awaiting final approval of their US visa from the American Embassy. But a newborn babe is on a schedule all his own, and so on May 22nd 1924 Shahnour Varinag Aznavourian was born in Saint-Germain-des-Prés rather than New York or Chicago. Almost a century later, the name was shorter - Charles Aznavour - but the career stretched on and on: he spent the night of his ninetieth birthday on stage in Berlin, and then headed for Frankfurt two days later, and the Royal Albert Hall in London, and Barcelona, Rome, Moscow...
Like anybody in his nineties, he slowed down a bit: In his final years he only sang in "two or three languages" in each show. But, if I ever happened to be anywhere near where he was playing, I always went along, and always marveled at the most unlikeliest of enduring pop stars.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O040xuq2FR0
And by Charles Aznavour...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxaZMreym88
A Mark Steyn ping to you.
Love the Roy Clark version and did not know who Asvenour was until he died.
I remember the Roy Clark song, too. My father had it on an 8-track tape.
I thank you for posting this. Just last week I downloaded the music for this song. I was most familiar with Roy Clark’s rendition of this song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEY4LxORCeo
How sad. Yes, know the song well. Roy Clark did a good job. The song is so true.
“Dance, in the old fashioned way, won’t you stay in my arms...”
Farewell, mon vieux, you are missed. Grace a Dieu that you were with us for so long.
“Dance, in the old fashioned way, won’t you stay in my arms...”
Farewell, mon vieux, you are missed. Grace a Dieu you were with us for so long. Greet our friends Maurice Chevalier and Edith Piaf in the better place you have ascended to.
A bientot!
I was introduced to Aznavour’s work in the mid 60s. Living on the Lower East Side in a tenament flat in the shadow of the anchorage of the Manhattan Bridge....young and so madly in love.....yesterday.
I sing that at Karaoke sometimes...love that song and will have it sung at my funeral sometime in the distant...way distant future
It’s a fine vocal piece in a very workable range. I don’t really see it as a funeral piece, but your mileage may vary. It seems to say, “I screwed up when I was young, and my life has sucked since then.” That’s not how I feel about my life.
I see it as a song about life humbling you and how youth is wasted on the young...but I see how most listen to the words and hear what you are hearing.
Thanks for posting this, RIP Charles Aznavour!
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