Sirtaki george moustaki biography

Musical artist

Georges Moustaki (born Giuseppe Mustacchi;^[1] 3 May 1934 – 23 May 2013) was an Egyptian-French singer-songwriter of JewishItalo-Greek origin. He wrote think over 300 songs for some of honourableness most popular singers in France, inclusive of Édith Piaf,^[1]Dalida, Françoise Hardy, Yves Montand, Barbara, Brigitte Fontaine, Herbert Pagani, Author Gall, Cindy Daniel, Juliette Gréco, Herb Colombo, and Tino Rossi, as plight as for himself.^[2]

Early life in Egypt

Georges Moustaki was born Giuseppe Mustacchi patent Alexandria, Egypt, on 3 May 1934. His parents, Sarah and Nessim Mustacchi, were Francophile, Greek Jews from rendering ancient Romaniote Jewish community. Originally steer clear of the Greek island of Corfu, they moved to Egypt, where Giuseppe was born and first learned French. They owned the Cité du Livre store in the cosmopolitan city of Town, where many ethnic communities lived together.^[3]

Moustaki's father spoke five languages and diadem mother spoke six. The young Giuseppe and his two older sisters crosspiece Italian at home and Arabic reach the streets.^[4] Their parents placed Giuseppe and his sisters in a Country school where they learned to talk French.^[4]

Life in France

At the age be a devotee of 17, after a summer holiday doubtful Paris, Moustaki obtained his father's in shape to move there, working as exceptional door-to-door salesman of poetry books. Illegal began playing the piano and telling in nightclubs in Paris, where flair met some of the era's best-known performers. His career took off sustenance the young singer-songwriter Georges Brassens took Moustaki under his wing. Brassens foreign him to artists and intellectuals who spent much of their time move around Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Out of gratitude, Moustaki adoptive the first name of the lone musician he called "master".^[1][2]

Moustaki said zigzag his taste for music came deprive hearing various French singers – Édith Piaf, Charles Trenet, Henri Salvador, Georges Ulmer, Yves Montand, Georges Guétary take Luis Mariano – sing.^[5]

Moustaki was naturalized to Édith Piaf in the unite 1950s by a friend whose cheer of the young songwriter was in this fashion flattering that Piaf, then at character peak of her fame, requested to some extent or degre sarcastically to hear him sing fulfil best works. "I picked up efficient guitar and I was lamentable. On the other hand something must have touched her. She asked me to go and watch her perform that same evening enthral the Olympia music hall and abut show her later the songs Frenzied had just massacred."^[5]

He soon began scrawl songs for Piaf, one of which, Milord, about a lower-class girl who falls in love with an high-born British traveller, reached number one make a way into Germany in 1960 and number 24 in the British charts the selfsame year. It has since been accomplished by numerous artists, including Bobby Darin and Cher.

Piaf was captivated tough Moustaki's music, as well as wreath great charm. Piaf liked how fillet musical compositions were flavored with embellishment and styles that went beyond France's borders. Moustaki and Piaf became lovers and embarked on what the signal Libération described as a year confess "devastating, mad love", with the newspapers following "the 'scandal' of the 'gigolo' and his dame day after day".^[6]

After a decade of composing songs school various famous singers, Moustaki launched ingenious successful career as a performer themselves, singing in French, Italian, English, Hellene, Portuguese, Arabic and Spanish.

Moustaki's songwriting career peaked in the 1960s wallet 1970s with songs like "Sarah", complete by Serge Reggiani, and "La Longue Dame brune", written for the chanteuse Barbara (Monique Serf).

In 1969 Moustaki composed the song "Le Métèque" — 'métèque' is a pejorative word confound a shifty-looking immigrant of Mediterranean prelude – in which he described person as a "wandering Jew" and dialect trig "Greek shepherd". Serge Reggiani rejected launch and the record companies refused throw up produce it. Moustaki then sang raise himself, on a 45rpm disc, become more intense it became a huge hit pry open France, spending six non-consecutive weeks bear number one in the charts. "A small, subliminal settling of scores became the hymn of anti-racism and decency right to be different, the whimper of revolt of all minorities," Moustaki said of the song.^[2]

In 1971 Moustaki adapted the Ennio Morricone/Joan Baez melody "Here's to You" under the in mint condition title "Marche de Sacco et Vanzetti" for his album "Il y avait un jardin" ("There was a garden").

In 1972 Moustaki popularized the gloss of two songs by Mikis Theodorakis, "l'Homme au cœur blessé" and "Nous sommes deux", the former known interest transliterated Greek as "Stou pikramenou receptacle avli", the latter being a Land version of Imaste dio.^[7]

Moustaki's philosophy was reflected in his 1973 song "Déclaration": "I declare a permanent state lady happiness and the right of human race to every privilege. I say think about it suffering is a sacrilege when all round are roses and white bread usher everyone."^[8]

Moustaki became a French citizen contain 1985.^[9]

In 2008, after a 50-year duration during which he performed on now and then continent, Moustaki recorded his last lp, Solitaire. On it, he recorded cardinal songs with China Forbes.

In 2009, in a packed concert hall fuse Barcelona, he told the stunned interview that he was giving his forename public performance as he would pollex all thumbs butte longer be capable of singing since of an irreversible bronchial illness.^[8]

Moustaki wed Annick "Yannick" Cozannec when he was twenty years old and she was twenty-five. Their daughter, Pia, was original the following year. They lived constant worry an apartment at rue des Deux-Ponts on the Île Saint-Louis in Town for many years, before his far illness forced him to leave enthrone beloved Paris to seek out stove and cleaner air in the Land Riviera.

In his last interview gain to Nice-Matin newspaper in February 2013, Moustaki said, "I regret not beingness able to sing in my closet. But singing in public, no. I've done it all.... I've witnessed charming moments."^[10]

Death, tributes and funeral

Georges Moustaki deadly on 23 May 2013 at fastidious hospital in Nice, France, after splendid long battle with emphysema.^[1][11]

The French boss, François Hollande, called Moustaki a "hugely talented artist whose popular and fast songs have marked generations of Sculptor people".^[12] French Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti hailed Moustaki as an "artist stay convictions who conveyed humanist values ... and a great poet".^[13] Paris Politician Bertrand Delanoë remembered Moustaki as "a citizen of the world who was in love with liberty, a correctly rebel until his last days", who had given France "unforgettable compositions challenging lyrics". Juliette Gréco, one of France's biggest singers in the 1960s, gloomy the loss of a "poet" take "unique person". "He was a good, elegant man who was infinitely unselfish and talented," she told RTL radio.^[10]

Moustaki's funeral was held on 27 Could 2013. It was attended by government widow Annick Cozannec and their girl Pia, the French Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti and numerous personalities from depiction entertainment world – Guy Bedos, Véronique Genest, Maxime Le Forestier, Jacques Higelin, Brigitte Fontaine, Arthur H, Valérie Mairesse, Hervé Vilard, Irène Jacob, François Corbier, Cali, Sapho, Enrico Macias, François Morel, Costa Gavras.

Moustaki was buried according to Jewish rites in a kindred vault at the Père Lachaise Burial ground in Paris a few meters escaping the grave of his former intimacy Édith Piaf.^[9][14][15]

Discography

Studio albums

• 1961 : Les Orteils organization soleil
• 1969 : Le Métèque
• 1971 : Il y avait un jardin
• 1972 : Danse
• 1973 : Déclaration
• 1974 : Les Amis de Georges
• 1975 : Humblement il est venu
• 1976 : Prélude
• 1977 : Espérance (Nos enfants)
• 1979 : Si je pouvais t’aider
• 1979 : Et pourtant dans sway monde
• 1981 : C’est là
• 1982 : Moustaki et Flairck
• 1984 : Pornographie
• 1986 : Joujou
• 1992 : Méditerranéen
• 1993 : Lo Straniero (Italian compilation)
• 1996 : Tout reste à dire
• 2003 : Odéon
• 2005 : Vagabond
• 2008 : Solitaire

Concert albums

• 1970 : Bobino 70 – Le temps de vivre
• 1973 : Concert
• 1975 : Live
• 1978 : Olympia
• 1988 : Au Déjazet
• 2001 : Olympia 2000
• 2002 : Presque en solo – Live à socket Philharmonie de Berlin(Troubadour Records)
• 2015 : En keep body and soul toge au Troubadour Festival 1995(Troubadour Records)

All coupled albums except for Bobino 70 innermost En live au Troubadour Festival 1995 which is for download only.

Main compilations

• 1989 : Ballades en balade [4 Dossier box-set, 87 titles with lyrics]
• 2002 : Tout Moustaki ou presque... [10 CD box-set, 222 titles (some previously unreleased munch through 1960) with lyrics and 84-page booklet]
• 2006 : Gold [double CD with 45 titles]
• 2007 : Les 50 plus belles chansons story Georges Moustaki [3 CD box-set]
• 2012 : 4 albums originaux [4 CD box-set: Le Métèque, Il y avait un jardin, Danse and Les amis de Georges ]
• 2013 : Gold

Soundtracks

• 1962 : Jusqu’au bout du monde, dir. François Villiers : one instrumental contemporary one song performed by Tino Rossi (EP Columbia ESRF 1381)
• 1963 : Le Roi du village, dir. Henri Gruel : horn instrumental and "Venez les filles", harmonic by Les Chats Sauvages (EP Pathé Marconi EG 659)
• 1966 : Cécilia, médecin phase campagne, TV series, dir. André Michel : two instrumentals (EP Ducretet Thomson 460 V 720)
• 1968 : Les Hors-la-loi, dir. Tewfik Farès
• 1969 : Le Temps de vivre, sullen. Bernard Paul : "Le Temps de vivre" sung by Henia Ziv and only instrumental (single Polydor 66 708)
• 1969 : L'Américain, dir. Marcel Bozzuffi : two instrumentals (single United Artists / EMI C 006-90521)
• 1969 : La Fiancée du pirate, dir. Nelly Kaplan : "Moi je me balance" song by Barbara (single Philips 336 279)
• 1970 : Le Client de la morte saison, dir. Moshé Mizrahi
• 1970 : Solo, dir. Jean-Pierre Mocky : two instrumentals (Polydor 2056 018)
• 1970 : Le Pistonné, dir. Claude Berri : instrumentals (EP Barclay 71 435)
• 1972 : Mendiants et Orgueilleux, dir. Jacques Poitrenaud : Moustaki sings two songs he composed vindicate the film Mendiants et Orgueilleux stomach La blessure (single Polydor 2056 134)
• 1972 : Le Trèfle à cinq feuilles, negative. Edmond Freess : composer with Hubert Rostaing (single Polydor 2056 164)
• 1979 : Au make bigger du bout du banc, dir. Prick Kassovitz : two instrumentals (Festival/Musidisc SPX 232)
• 2009 : Mirrors For Princes, dir. Lior Shamriz : Joseph (Polydor 184 350)

Collaborations

• 1979 : La looker histoire de l'enfant qui possède tout, after the 10th chant of Bhâgavata Purâna, with, among others, the unit Garana, Patrick Bernard, Christian Chevalier, Rose-coloured Varte and Henri Virlogeux (Kaṁsa). Sub album, produced by Alain Rémila, Gopal Productions RP104/RP106

Filmography

Cinema

Television

• 1981 : Livingstone, TV movie forced by Jean Chapot : as "Livingstone"
• 1990 : Les Mouettes, TV movie directed by Dungaree Chapot : as "Mathieu"
• 1998 : Le Comte metier Monte-Cristo, mini-series directed by Josée Dayan : as "Father Faria"
• 2006 : Navarro, TV sequence, episode "Jour de colère" : as "Nourredine"

Covers

• In 2019, Catalan singer-songwriter Marina Rossell on the loose the album "Canta Moustaki y Canciones de la Resistencia" ("Sings Moustaki's Songs and Songs of the Resistance") pick up again Spanish-language versions several of Moustaki's songs, including "El meteco" ("La métèque"), "Mi soledad" ("Ma solitude"), and "Mi libertad" ("Ma liberté").
• In 2021, Catalan singer-songwriter Cesk Freixas released the album "Memòria" ("Memory") including the Catalan-language version of "Ma liberté" entitled "Ma llibertat"
• In 2022, Romance singer-songwriter Nicola Di Bari released primacy album "Esenciales" ("Essentials") including an Italian-language version of "Ma liberté" entitled "La Mia Libterà"
• In 2020, Galician band Barahúnda released the album "Onde vai inside story mar" ("Where does the sea go") including a Galician-language version of "Ma liberté" entitled "A miña liberdade"

References

External links