Gaston Ghrenassia, known by his stage name
Enrico Macias, (born 11 December 1938 in
Constantine, then in
French Algeria) is an Algerian
French Pied noir singer and musician. He is popular throughout the world and has travelled extensively for fifty years, from the early 1960s to the present.
Early years
He was born to a Jewish family in Constantine, Algeria, and played the guitar from childhood. His father, Sylvain Ghrenassia, was a violinist in an orchestra that played primarily
maalouf,
Andalo-Arabic music. Gaston started playing with the
Cheikh Raymond Leyris Orchestra at 15.
He pursued a career as a school teacher, but continued practicing the guitar. In 1961, the
Algerian War of Independence was raging, and the situation became untenable for the Jewish and European residents of Constantine. Of immense effect on Gaston Ghrenassia was the assassination in 1961 of his father-in-law and musician
Cheikh Raymond Leyris by the
National Liberation Front . Gaston left Algeria with his wife, Suzy, on 29 July 1961, eleven months before the end of the
Algerian War of Independence, and went into exile in mainland France. He has not been permitted to return to Algeria ever since.
Career
First living in
Argenteuil, he eventually moved to Paris, where he decided to pursue a career in music. At first he tried translating into French the
maalouf numbers which he already knew. Later on, he developed a new French repertoire that he performed in cafés and...
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