Item 802 - Mirza

French singer and composer Nino Ferrer had a reputation for being unpredictable and excitable. Born in Genoa, his earliest years were spent in New Caledonia (a French colony) with his parents. They returned to Genoa for a visit and were stuck in the city when World War II broke out. Their young son was sent to Jesuit school there and in Paris where they moved after the war in 1947. He spent a miserable adolescence, mocked for his poor French and his Italian accent, treatment to which he reacted violently was frequently expelled and forced to change schools. In his late teens he met a friend, Richard Bennett, who was also interested in jazz. While Ferrer pursued studies in ethnology and history of religion at the Sorbonne, the two began playing with Bennett’s cousin as a jazz trio, the Dixie Cats, with Ferrer on double bass, Bennett on drums and the cousin on clarinet. At university, Ferrer had become more interested in archeology and intended to become an explorer. After university he worked on a freighter, traveling the world, including spending some time in New Caledonia where his maternal grandmother lived; he also participatied in several archeological digs, including one in New Zealand. Back in France he had some difficult years, sometimes with the Dixie Cats and their successor RB RB (Richard Bennet Rhythm'n Blues), sometimes unsuccessfully on his own. Then, at Playa, a club in southern France, during an intermission, he grabbed the microphone and did an improvised imitation of Stevie Wonder entitled “Z’avez pas vu Mirza?” It was a huge hit and his career sky-rocketed to such an extent that he soon became fed up with the life of a star and exiled himself in Italy. There he was also successful, particularly with a recording of a concert, “Rats and Roll,” and returned to France after a couple of years. In 1971, he released the album “Métronomie ; it was largely ignored, though more recently it has been praised as a forgotten gem. It was followed by another album, “Nino and Radiah,” whose first song was “Le Sud,” the French version of “The South.” This turned out to be his greatest success, selling a million copies in France. But he was again sick of the music culture and in 1977 quit the industry, having written more than 200 songs in various styles and genres, some comic and many with ecological or anti-racist themes. With the proceeds from “Le Sud,” he bought an old fortress, “La Taillade,” in Quercy Blanc in the Vaux region, and turned to surrealist-style painting. In 1986 he was named “Chevalier des arts et des lettres.” He finally took out French citizenship in 1989. However, he suffered from depression, particularly after the death of his mother, and in 1998 he took his own life.