" It's a way of making him live, always ": Francis Cabrel announces in an interview with AFP the release of Rock'n'roll show , unpublished recordings of the concerts where he played rock standards with Dick Rivers, deceased last year. " It's an excellent memory, it's the moment when we were closest, " continues the author of Sarbacane . 30 years ago, the two accomplices toured around ten dates in France as well as a week at the Bataclan.
It is in this room, on October 6, 1990, that the live, DVD of the Rock'n'roll show box set was recorded, which also includes a CD of 19 titles, three bonuses and a double collector's vinyl. All this new material will be released on April 17, a week before the anniversary of the death of Dick Rivers (also born the same day, April 24).
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" We met on radio sets in the 1980s and we realized that we liked the same music ," says Francis Cabrel again. It was me who had the idea of shooting with this show, he and I surrounded by the gratin of the musicians of the time. Dick brought Elvis, me Chuck Berry, among others (we also find Buddy Holly or Eddie Cochran) and the surprise is that he had brought songs from the Everly Brothers, beautiful titles, softer. It's a little romantic touch, next to the stuff we wiggle about, more jerky stuff. "
"To pay him homage with dignity "
“ Dick is absolute rock, me roll, the composer of Je t'aime à Mort is still having fun. Rock is a music that I like but I quickly realized that I would not be a shoe size in there, that's why I preferred to sing Chuck Berry because it was more folk for me than rock ". In the intro of Rip it up (Little Richard), we hear Cabrel present his friend in front of a conquered audience: " He was born with rock'n'roll in the skin, riveted to the body - she's good that one - I named the unsinkable, the indestructible, the undeformable, Mister rock'n'roll itself, Mister Dick Rivers ”.
Read also: "Dick Rivers refused to put sugar in his music"
" We were having fun with that, " Cabrel still remembers. The idea of " getting all this out of the box ", as he says, sprang up during the funeral of Dick Rivers. It was Denys Lable, guitarist and friend of Cabrel, who was also part of the adventure, who found " the CD in his home studio and the VHS cassette of the last concert filmed at Bataclan with the camera carried ", specifies the label Aztec Music. " It's a testimony, the orchestra plays superbly, Dick sings superbly, it is a way of paying him homage with dignity ," concludes Cabrel.