15  Charles Aznavour

Aznavour: I want to be the only 100-year-old singer on stage

Aznavour: I want to be the only 100-year-old singer on stage

PanARMENIAN.Net - Charles Aznavour, France’s most famous crooner will take to the stage at the Greek Theater, L.A. Saturday, Sept 13 for the first of three North American shows.

While the singer, best known for hits such as Toi et Moi, Hier Encore and She, downplays the cross-continent trip that will also take him to Montreal and New York – “I’m too old to tour,” he says – the ninety-year-old will follow with performances in Antwerp and Moscow before recording a new album in Paris for a December release.

As The Hollywood Reporter reveals, songs in both Spanish and Russian will be on the L.A. bill to please the diverse local audience, only a small sampling of the many languages he speaks and sings in.

The singer, who started his career under Edith Piaf, palled around with Ray Charles and drank Petrus with Frank Sinatra, now serves as the Armenian ambassador to Switzerland and the country’s permanent delegate to the UN. He is also active in international diplomacy and humanitarian causes through his foundation.

The singer shared his plans for the future, secret behind staying inspired with his work, his service as an ambassador and much more in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter “If you don’t constantly work and have ideas, we age in our minds and that is the most terrible aging. The knees are difficult, but as long as the mind is working, everything works. I have plenty of plans for another ten years. I want to be the only singer still singing on stage at 100 years old. That will be great, the only one in the world! Only 10 years to wait. Unfortunately, that’s really short,” the singer said.

Commenting on his role as an ambassador Aznavour noted, “I am able to be active in diplomacy; for example, we have brought 12,000 people to Armenia from Syria. We have to get them out of the country because they are going to be killed because they are Christian. Not just Armenians who are Christian, Yadizis, and some Kurds too which are Muslim but live differently. It’s not politics, no politics at all. It’s diplomacy.

I work by myself and I tell people what I have done afterwards. I don’t ask the president what I should do. I think that would be too difficult. For example, I have an upcoming appointment with the ambassador of Turkey, which is rare. I don’t want to say before that I am going to go, because they’ll say ‘Don’t do that’ or ‘Don’t go there’ and I want to be a free man. There are difficulties with not only Turks that don’t want to recognize the genocide but some Armenians that don’t want me to be friendly with the Turks. So I have to be careful. But I want to be on the contrary and have good relations with the Turks. I have nothing against the Turks because they didn’t create the genocide, it came from their grandfathers. On April 15th it will be 100 years that they haven’t recognized it, so if I can help in any way I’m gonna do it. I hope that I can help something happen between the two countries.”

“I have my association which is Aznavour for Armenia. It’s difficult if you don’t have a telethon or something like that, but I’ve built it. I do everything myself. I give benefit concerts and some of the income from songs. The benefit concerts will sell thousands of tickets so we make money from that. I don’t ask for donations from anyone. I work from inside, it all comes from the heart and goes directly there. I go to Armenia every year to find out for myself what the humanitarian needs are, the immediate needs. We have built new and rebuilt 47 schools and 3 surgery centers. But be clear, I have nothing to do with the politics. In my audience I have all religions, all colors, all incomes, all languages. I’m not going to betray one for the other. I’m open to everyone who likes my songs.”

The singer pointed out the past as a theme for his new album: “Things I have lived, things I have seen. For the first time I wrote a song about the war. It’s the first time, I have never done that before. But you know, the ideas are always in the air and right now they are all coming back so I’m coming back with them. I’m almost finished writing it. I’m correcting some things. I’m never really happy with what I have done. I have to work through it again and again and again. For one word I can stay awake two days and two nights for that one word because it doesn’t have the right balance to my ear. Nobody can replace one word in my songs. No one. The lyrics are my pride. Look, I had this wall full of golden records, and I had to say, ‘That’s enough!’ To always look at myself there. I’m going to replace it with only pictures of family and friends. [Walking THR through the pile of photos waiting to be hung on the empty wall, it’s not only his family - from historical snapshots of his great grandmother and elementary school photos to candids of his wife, children and grandchildren - but photos of the singer with Gerard Depardieu, Bono, Harvey Keitel, Robert DeNiro, Jackie Chan, Bob Dylan, Charles Trenet, Jean Cocteau, Yul Brynner, Lino Ventura and Piaf.]

The whole wall will be only pictures. It’s better than a wall of gold records. No more ‘Look, I sold so many records.’ I’m free now. There’s the [French medal] Legion d’Honneur. I put it in the corner so nobody can see it. I used to be proud, I’m finished with that. I say to young people, don’t be too proud, just do the work.”

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