A life of music
What is music to me….
First of all, my mother's voice, who used to sing me lullabies in Romanian, and whom I can no longer hear on the telephone saying “mamica te liubesc” (little mother, I love you) several times a day, but who still resonates throughout my being. Classical music, especially opera, for which my father was a great devotee, but also all the “stabat mater” from “Pergolesi” to “Dvorak”, the gypsy music my mother listened to, and the old 45s from the 60s that my big sister Micky left me as a legacy.
Then because 'we were all listening to the same things at 15: “Rod Stewart”, “Bob Marley”, “the Kinks”“Rolling Stones”, “Pink Floyd”, “ACDC”, “Led Zeppelin”, “The Cure”, “Blondie”, “the Clash”, “the Police”.
The soul of music, listening later to “the Doors”, “Diana Washington”, the “Red Hot Chili Peppers”, “Billy Holliday”, “Nirvanna”, “Purcell”, “Mozart”, “La Traviatta”, “Brel”, “Bowie”, “Janis Joplin”. And the desire to make more by discovering “Massive Attack”, “Portishead” and “Tricky”.
The greats: “Tom Waits”, “Gainsbourg” and “Piaf”.
My favorite songs: “Ça t'va” by “Léo Ferré”, and “Fish and Bird” by “Tom Waits”.
My strongest vibration is with Flamenco, childhood memories of the “Corral de la Morreria” in Madrid, and the desire to manage my first group “Fiesta Flamenca de Andalucia” with my friend Olivier Kerrad.
Then my fate… Quai de Valmy, or the discovery of the most beautiful voice in the world…
I met Erik Karol when I was 20. I was at Place de l’Alma, sitting at a café terrace. At the table which was slightly below ours, I saw Erik, who was resplendent with this unique and moving beauty, androgynous and irresistible. Everyone knew him because in addition to his beauty, he had sold 70,000 “45s” vynils with an ultrasexy clip, where he, dressed in a black cape and white lace shirt from the 17th century, in a baroque castle, was caressing a kind of naked bombshell on a bed; and by then, all the girls dreamed of him. I dared to ask him for an autograph, and he told me he wanted mine first. And when I got home, I had ten messages on my answering machine, some more beautiful than the others, in Latin, in singing, in poems, he was a countertenor as well...and I was overwhelmed, who wouldn't be, when “Farinelli” calls you and tells you that you are the woman of his life, and that without you, he will no longer live, no longer eat, no longer love or breath.
So, I arrived at Quai de Valmy. This decision radically changed my whole life.
When I arrived, he told me that it was like that, that he had just met the one he had always waited for. I was taken aback and couldn't breathe.
Then he handed me a tiny enamelled box, within was a magnificent bracelet whose structure was made of precious little pearls and gold, on three rows, and finished with a magnificent little gold clasp. It belonged to his “basque” grandmother, and then he gave me his keys, his keychain and his three credit cards, and he said to me, take everything, but I want you to love me, it's you and no one else.
It must be said that for a start it was well put together, but I was totally lost. And I asked him what meant so much to him about me, and he said, "you are me, your mouth is mine, and then your voice, and you have the art and the manner, it's It’s you I’ve been waiting for, it’s you. » There he was, at my knees, and he was crying...
So, I started to tremble, tremble like when very special events happen in my life, and I started to say that it was not possible, not feasible, that I had just gotten engaged... But he didn't do anything. He didn’t want to hear what I had to say, so he made me sit on his bed, he got undressed, he took a guitar and began to sing, kneeling and naked on the old parquet floor.
And he won, of course, after such a unique serenade, and when I left around 5 o'clock and found myself in the early morning on the somewhat foggy Valmy bridge, he said to me: "It's you. I've been waiting for you, and I'm going to dream of you, but how do you want me to dream of you? » and I don't know why, I replied, "dream of me as of a huge purple flower in the sky".
We spent a lot of time together. I spent many years watching him, listening to him sing, speak, read his poems to me, tell me about his life, his hopes, his political commitments, his vision of life.
He moved me a lot. His voice made me cry, I had never heard anything so pure and ecstatic in my life. And he was so fragile, and candid under his vampire cloak. Whole nights talking, stroking his long black curly hair like caressing your child's hair.
Then, this way of making me believe that his life was in my hands, that without me he was returning to nothingness, that I was his ray of sunshine, and what should I do, I could only contribute to his evolution. We, him and I had to save this magical voice, and let the whole world hear it.
For a long time, I took care of him, even when I was far from him, I came back for every concert, every big event in his life, I always supported him as best I could, with all my love and devotion, and our exchanges remained for 13 years, at the same intensity as on the first day of our meeting.
Left for New York, to absorb the essence of sound.
I left Paris to discover the essence of music in New York.
I spent a year with a rock & folk musician, Vin Beckerman, for whom I wasn’t a tour manager but only a girlfriend, and for whom I wrote the lyrics of “A ride with Vin” (which appears on my album “Access “), «Miles away" (which appears on my album ) "Brand New" and "Banana Cultivation" which appears on our latest album “Réconciliation". On the other hand, he also wrote a song for me called “The space behind your eyes” and I really spent a memorable year with him, and had a lot of fun.
I took a little break from music and then spent two years with another crazy artist, a former Broadway dancer, Kevin Canterna Movsessian, converted into a sculptor on Lexington, and then, returned to music to take care of the one in whom I believed so much, my angel singer and poet from the Quai de Valmy.
When I decided to move to New York Erik asked me to help him again, and I agreed to officially become his agent in NY.