Memoriabilia...
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1987 For close to 6 years I haven?t had a hit record, nor a book thats sells well; so it is very brave from very popular French TV star Patrick Sabatier to invite we for a whole evening in the « Il était une fois » series he MCs regularly on France?s Channel Five; Patrick has always been faithful to me and i?d like to thank him. |
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I think it's the first time I have ever seen this piece of archive ; it must be the only video memory of this song, shot in 1967 in one of the very popular show of French MC Guy Lux. Among the musicians that backed me on stage and on this caribbean fantasy turning to New Orleans at the end, can be seen very talented French guitarist Pierrot Fanen, and the guitarist on the left , then known as Bibi, was to become a very big singing star in France a few years later by the name of Herbert Léonard. As for the saxophone player, I am pretty sure (and would be glad to receive confirmation) that it was... future International star Manu Dibango ( Soul Makossa). |
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Everytime I am invited to the famous French television show called "Le grand
Cabaret", I know I'm going to have fun. Well, it's true I have to go and rent a
dinner jacket, because Patrick Sébastien, the MC, insists that we must all be
dressed up. But I know also that I will be the naive subject chosen by some kind
of magician ... once I was turned myself into a magician pulling live doves out
of nowhere; that other time, a magician insisted in pulling a sabre through my
neck... I don't know how he did it, but it didn't hurt at all !
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I gladly would participate more often in charity shows such as the ones put together by many French leading artists under the name ?Les Enfoirés?, but I understand they prefer to recruit big record sellers. So it was with great joy that I received one day an invitation to join Sol Si (a charity aimed at children victims of AIDS) for the recording of a fascinating and amusing musical work ?Sol en Cirque?. Even though I practically remained in the chorus line, I enjoyed the time spent in the midst of all these very famous colleagues, such as Francis Cabrel, Zazie, etc..
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Spring of 1966 : France is definitely cut i, two parts : those who are favorable to my explosive hit song « Les élucubrations d?Antoine » et those who hate it... A very popular TV show, Music Hall de France, will throw on the fire by i,viting me to sing it on stage.... |
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2004, when we published my first film about Madagascar, (the second one, shot in HD, will be released at the end of 2010) I was invited on a very popular television program on tne Canal+ channel, in the prestigious company of famous photographer Yann Artus Bertrand ( Earth seen from above) and Swiss singer Stephan Eicher |
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April of 1966 : the lead title of my first LP, « Les élucubrations d? Antoine » gathers in France an extraordinary success, and French television?s most popular programs invite me to sing it. The extremely popular Guy Lux, in his « GrandPrix » program, invites me to sing it, in front of popular french singer Juliette Greco, who will alwais be a big fan. |
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Spring 1976 : For two years I have been sailing the Atlantic ocean singlehanded on board my schooner Om; this time, I have left her at anchor in French Guyane to spend three month in Paris, long haired, clad in a battle dress I have bought in a Cayenne army surplus shop, and sporting a real panama hat. Very popular television host Guy Lux invites me to sing a rendition of my number one hit « Les élucubrations » of which I have kept no other recording. |
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January 1990 : I have been invited to co-present with very popular French TV host Michel Drucker a whole show dedicated to adventure; we have received several aventurers, and I sung the B-side of my « L?île bleue » single, called « Fou d?îles » or « Crazy about islands » No land interesses me if it is not surrounded by water, no woman interesses me if she wasn?t born on an island... |
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In february 1967, the one and only French television channel dedicates a show to the memory of French TV personnality of the fifties, Jean Nohain, and I am invited to sing a song made famous by very much respected French singer and composer Georges Brassens.. The way I sing it doesn?t seem to please the very conservative audience of the show, and the happy club-like ambiance I have recorded on the backing tape leads some of the audience to turn the whole thing into a big mess... It would take many more years until French audiences would accept that younger singers would record songs by their untouchable elders... |
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Autumn of 2004 : On the very popular French TV show « L?invité du dimanche » dedicated to French singer Lio, a woman I love and admire, Michel Drucker invites me to tell about the first time I met her. It is a chance for me to present her with a few pictures of my recently released documentary, dedicated to the island where I was born, Madagascar. |
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Beginning of 1988 : as I chanced upon the rock'n'roll group with whom I
had recorded my first hits, in 1966, les Problèmes, we decided to record
anew some of our songs of that year. French top TV person Michel Drucker
invited us to sing two of them on his very popular weekly show... I has
forgotten that in the meantime, they had become les Charlots, a comic
group who had encountered huge acclaim in several countries in songs and
movies.. and I was quite surprised at the way they performed on that
show... |
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Fall of 1997 : as I have published the third group of three videocassettes in my series "Once upon un island", I have been invited by French television to sing my hit song "Les Elucubrations" with very famous French singer Francis Cabrel. After the "trash" version sung by Frederic Mitterand (who has become since the French ministry of culture) it is one of the numerous versions I should gather one day on a DVD..
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During a great show on the France 2 Channel with Michel Drucker, I was invited to sing a French version of the Brazilian song Meu amigo Charlie Brown, which I had recorded in Rio when I moored there with my schooner Om in 1975; I have kept good memories of the peasant flesh colored tights that the beautiful mulata dancers were wearing !
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It was in 1995 or 1997, and a very big program on French television me had invited to sing my hit song « Les élucubrations » together with various famous French artists, including Frédéric Mitterand, the nephew of then?s President of the French Republic, François Mitterand.. He had a bit of trouble following the tempo and the melody? |
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On France's top daily TV program "Studio Gabriel", Michel Drucker for several years broadcasted three minute excerpts of our documentary films; one day, Michel asked me to sing short pieces of some of my songs, among which "Touchez pas à la mer" ( Do not hurt the sea) a song that gives birth, this month to our new environmentally oriented website touchezpasalamer.org |
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1968 One of the first color programs on French TV; in the middle of a big disorder, I sing various bits of songs, including ?Chanson pour l? Auvergnat?, a song by famous French singer and writer Georges Brassens ; some of the young kids that appear briefly in the crowd have since become huge stars in French pop music. |
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January 1990? Watch out, this has the value of a document : It?s the first travel video I made, from the shooting (in Video 8) done during my crossing from Florida to Tahiti via Cuba, Panama, Cocos island and the Galapagos. The project already bore the name of ?Iles? était une fois? (Once upon? an Island) |
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1969 I have no memory of this show, where famous French MC Guy Lux, who always remained one of my truest supporters, had asked me to sing "Boum", a song made famous by French singer Charles Trénet... |
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September 1989. People used to talk much less about Global Warming, and pollution; I was invited on a huge TV show on France's number one channel TF1, in direct, and I took advantage of it to pull out of my pocket a plastic bag I had found on a beach, and to ask the head of the chain of huge supermarkets where the plastic bag came from, to replace those bags by paperbags or bags that would self destroy faster... 20 years later, some progress have been made, at least in France... |
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When I started singing, in 1966, the success of my hit "Les Elucubrations" was so huge that I topped the bill at Paris'Olympia Music Hall, although 5 month earlier I was totally unknown. A very successuful TV program wanted to invite me, but I was too busy; So its producer decided to use my song for the final titlesof the show, asking three very big French singing stars, Claude François, Richard Anthony and Henri Salvador, to sing it with them, disguised as "Antoines" with wig and harmonica holders; the result was rather extraordinary ! |
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More than 25 years before he became an advertisement icon in France with his ads for a chain of opticians, ATOL, here is the first ad Antoine played in, in the seventies...for a beef broth! |
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Among the many television programs in which I participated in the sicties, the craziest of all certainly was this Musicolor, a big success in French television for which I learned to dance for this performance of "Valencia' a classic Spanish song.
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