Charles Aznavour

Charles Aznavour was told everything imaginable before they let him be great. That he was too short. That his nose was too big. That his voice was odd, nasal, cracked, no good for singing. The French press dismissed him as "a small man, a small singer". And he, as stubborn as they come, kept going and going until the world had to surrender to the evidence: that one-metre-sixty man with the imperfect voice ended up writing more than a thousand songs and becoming one of the best-loved voices of the century.

Son of Armenian immigrants

Aznavour was born in Paris on 22 May 1924, the son of Armenian immigrants who had fled the genocide of their people. His father came from Akhaltsikhe and his mother from Adapazarı; they had passed through Greece and were in Paris waiting for a visa for the United States when he was born. That visa never came, and that is why there is a French Aznavour.

He grew up in a poor family of performers, among theatre and music, and from childhood he knew he wanted to be on a stage. But the road was very long and uphill. For years he had a hard time, singing wherever he could, writing songs for others, enduring the contempt of an industry that did not see a star in him.

His great push came from a first-class godmother: Édith Piaf, the queen of French song, who saw him, believed in him and took him on tour through France and the United States in 1947. It is worth saying what that patronage actually consisted of: Aznavour spent eight years at her side doing everything — secretary, driver, lyricist, support act. Piaf opened the door; the breakthrough came later, in the fifties, and it was his own.

A thousand songs and an unmistakable voice

What followed was a monumental body of work. Aznavour wrote or co-wrote more than a thousand songs in his lifetime, and sang them in French, English, Spanish, Italian, German and Armenian, winning audiences all over the planet. "La Bohème", with its nostalgia for a young, poor, artistic life in Montmartre. "Emmenez-moi", an invitation to escape towards the sun. "Hier encore", about the passing of time.

And "She", which deserves a clarification that is almost never made: Aznavour wrote the music, but the English lyric is by Herbert Kretzmer, the future English lyricist of Les Misérables. The song was written to order, as the theme tune for a British television series, and in 1974 it spent four weeks at number one in the United Kingdom, his only British number one and a very rare feat for a French artist.

His voice, the one they criticised so much, ended up being his signature: warm, intimate, loaded with emotion, able to tell a whole story as if whispering it in your ear. He sang about love, heartbreak, old age, desire and nostalgia with a sincerity that reached everybody. They called him "the Frank Sinatra of France", but in truth he was something unique.

The man behind the artist

Aznavour was much more than a singer. He never forgot where he came from. When an earthquake devastated Armenia, his parents' land, in December 1988, he founded the organisation Aznavour pour l'Arménie and the following year released "Pour toi Arménie", a charity song he co-wrote with his brother-in-law Georges Garvarentz and that some ninety artists sang; it topped the French chart. Over the years he became a central figure in the Armenian cause, to the point of being appointed Armenia's ambassador to Switzerland in 2009, a post he held until his death.

There is a detail that tends to be told badly and is worth getting right. In the late nineties, an open poll among visitors to CNN.com and Time Online chose him entertainer of the century with close to eighteen per cent of the votes, ahead of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan. It is a lovely fact and it is true, but it is an internet readers' poll, not a verdict from the critics: the editorial list Time magazine published that same year, the artists of the century, did not even include him. The anecdote says more about the affection of his audience than about any ranking.

He worked practically until his last day. He died on 1 October 2018, aged ninety-four, just a few weeks after his final recital in Japan. He went out on his feet, singing, as befits a great.

What to remember

Charles Aznavour is the triumph of perseverance over prejudice. Short, with the "wrong" voice, rejected for years, he refused to give up and ended up leaving a songbook that few writers in the world can match in size or in depth. He turned every supposed defect into a mark of his own, and every song into a small masterpiece of honest emotion.

And he never betrayed his roots: he gave Armenia back everything life had given him, with money, with time and with the weight of his name. Every time "La Bohème" plays, there is the voice of the man they told was no good, reminding us that greatness, very often, is simply not giving up on trying.

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Sources

Charles Aznavour (Shahnour Vaghinag Aznavourian) was born on 22 May 1924 in Paris, the son of Armenian immigrants who fled the genocide, and died on 1 October 2018, aged 94, in Mouriès, Provence. He was 1.60 m tall. Early in his career he was criticised for his height and his voice. Édith Piaf gave his career its push by taking him on tour through France and the United States in 1947, and Aznavour spent some eight years in her circle as lyricist, assistant and support act before establishing himself as a soloist in the fifties. He composed or co-wrote more than a thousand songs and sang in several languages; among his most celebrated are "La Bohème" (1965, his music and lyrics by Jacques Plante), "Emmenez-moi" (1967) and "Hier encore" (1964). "She" (1974) has music by Aznavour and an English lyric by Herbert Kretzmer, and was written to order as the theme tune for the British series "Seven Faces of Woman"; it reached number one in the United Kingdom for four weeks, the only one of his career in that country. After the Armenian earthquake of December 1988 he founded the organisation Aznavour pour l'Arménie and in 1989 released the charity song "Pour toi Arménie", co-written with Georges Garvarentz and performed by some ninety artists; it topped the French chart. He was appointed Armenia's ambassador to Switzerland in February 2009 and permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, posts he held until his death. In the late nineties, an open poll among visitors to CNN.com and Time Online chose him "entertainer of the century" with close to 18% of the votes, ahead of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and Bob Dylan; it was an internet readers' poll and not the editorial list of Time magazine, which that same year published its selection of artists of the century without including him. He gave his final recital in Japan in September 2018. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from the Fondation Aznavour, The Washington Post, Wikipedia and other coverage.