Shahnur Aznavuryan (the maestro’s real name) was born in Paris – his parents were Armenian immigrants. The future musician’s father lived in Georgia, but was forced to leave there, fleeing the genocide. In Istanbul, he met Aznavour’s future mother – she was an actress. With such parents, it is not surprising that the connection with Russia remained incredibly strong. In addition, the choice of creative profession becomes logical – everyone in Aznavuryan’s house owned the Stanislavsky method.
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When Aznavour was 24 years old, Edith Piaf offered him to accompany her on a tour of the United States. This offer was an important milestone in his career, opening new horizons for him and giving him the opportunity to familiarize himself with the American music scene. During the US tour, Aznavour had the chance to see and hear such legendary musicians as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie. These encounters and impressions enriched his musical experience and inspired his further creative endeavors.
Edith Piaf appreciated Aznavour’s talent and believed in his potential. She remembered him as a man who fit seamlessly into the world of music and felt at home in it. Exposure to composers such as Cole Porter, George Gershwin and Jerome Kern, as well as American jazzmen, helped Aznavour broaden his musical horizons and develop a unique style that later made him one of the brightest stars of French pop music.
Aznavour always had beautiful songs, but the problem was the performance – the audience, to think of it, did not like his voice at all. Pierre Roche, with whom Charles worked, sang much more often. But that during the tour Edith Piaf decided to emigrate to Canada. As a result, Aznavour realized that he had to learn to sing on his own – he intensively studied vocals and, most importantly, decided to change the repertoire so that his voice organically fit into it.
Interestingly, immediately after that Charles went on tour in North America. At that time, critics met him coolly, but there was literally no shortage of spectators. With such popular love, it is not surprising that Aznavour’s career went uphill. Songs that he wrote, sang Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Liza Minnelli, Julio Iglesias and others. And the chansonnier himself managed to perform with such legends as Frank Sinatra, Celine Dion, Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Patricia Kaas.
Charles remained popular at any age because he never tried to “jump into the last carriage”. In interviews, he said: “In other words, I never try to prove to the young that I am younger than they are. On the contrary, I want young people to realize that I am from a different time. But my time was also interesting. There are things in it that are dear to me and that I think are of interest to those who are young today and don’t know them yet. I seem to have sometimes succeeded in explaining it to other generations….. But the principle is this: I invited young people to follow me instead of trying to follow them”.
Colleagues also noted Charles’ amazing work ethic. Even at the age of 90, he collected full halls. Even the centenary Aznavour wanted to celebrate on stage. He performed to the last. In 2018, his concert in St. Petersburg was postponed for a year because of health problems. True, it never took place – on October 1, 2018, Charles died.
On the same day, all the big French newspapers, without collusion, put his face on the front page, as if Aznavour was trying to say goodbye to everyone. And no one had any questions as to why Charles Aznavour became a great Frenchman – although even his parents ended up in this country almost by accident. The maestro was able to become a favorite in France because he himself deeply loved the country. “You have to dissolve into the culture of the country where you live, assimilate with it completely. I don’t mean to say that you have to renounce your roots. But in that country, in that environment in which you live, you can’t close yourself in a ghetto, even if that ghetto is only intellectual, only mental. I am a typical Frenchman, an absolute Frenchman. Which doesn’t prevent me from being a typical Armenian as well. When you have made coffee with milk, you can no longer separate the milk from the coffee,” Aznavour declared.
