Raymond Devos Dies

[Dave Higham]

Raymond Devos, the French comedian and entertainer died today at the age of 83.

 

I imagine he was hardly known at all other than in France and, perhaps, Canada but here he was something of a national institution. He was a big man in every sense and larger than life. He was one of the last in the great tradition of music hall entertainers who could do a bit of everything and put it all into his one-man shows.

 

Like a lot of big men he was very nimble and in his younger days performed acrobatics. He was also an expert juggler but everything had a comic slant. His monologues were full of plays on words, ‘double-entendres’ and atrocious puns to the extent that in 2003 the French Ministry of Culture recognised his virtuosity by creating the Raymond Devos Prize for works of excellence in the French language.

 

He was a multi-instrumentalist playing, among other things, piano, trumpet, guitar and yes, you guessed it,…English concertina. At some point in his act he would pick it up and, after a certain amount of comic ‘business’ with it he would play a beautiful musette waltz accompanied by his pianist, not on the piano, but also on concertina. A moment of magic.

 

I think he must be one of the last, if not [/i]the last of this sort of entertainer playing concertina on stage to packed theatres until just a year or two before his death.

[JimLucas]

Raymond Devos, the French comedian and entertainer died today at the age of 83.

 

He was a multi-instrumentalist playing, among other things, piano, trumpet, guitar and yes, you guessed it,…English concertina. At some point in his act he would pick it up and, after a certain amount of comic ‘business’ with it he would play a beautiful musette waltz accompanied by his pianist, not on the piano, but also on concertina. A moment of magic.

I truly hope that there exist recordings of this man. Dave could you track this down and see if permission could be gotten for Alan to include something on English International?

[Dave Higham]

Jim, I'll certainly try. There are video-cassettes and DVD's of his shows available but he only used the concertina for a very small part of his performance.

 

Having said that, when I got home from work I asked my (French) wife if she knew that he had died. She said "oh, yes, it was the news headline on every channel, and on one of them, at the end of the item they showed him playing the concertina and fading into the darkness offstage".

 

Tonight I watched the news hoping to see it, but they didn't show the same footage. But, at the very end of the programme, they tacked on a little clip of him playing "Parlez-moi d'amour" on a miniature English.

 

I suppose that here, if people do recognise a concertina, it's as the instrument that clowns play, and Devos was one of the 'great' clowns.

[Roger Digby]

This is an extraordinary coincidence! I've just logged onto the site following an hour-long phone conversation with Geoff Crabb (who is currently off-line with computer problems). One thing we talked about was concertina-playing 'clowns' and the role of the instrument in this context. Geoff mentioned 'The Happy Dutchman' from 1885 and many other names.

Alan Day's request for information on Harry Bluff had set me thinking about a number of issues concerning the general area of the concertina - and responses to it - (I even played my Harry Bluff cylinders tonight and I'll reply on that thread when I've done a bit more research) but this post makes me more convinced that it is time to try to bring together what is known on the vast use of the concertina in the broad world of musical variety in a large part of the 20th century. There are many anecdotes and reminiscences; it's time for something more concrete.

Best wishes,

Roger

[Alan Day]

Following on from this discussion Roger, we are going to change slightly the format of English and Duet International to try and include as many of these old artists as we can.Some of these artists I have already mentioned and there are others who I already knew what they played like Tommy Elliott, Perci Henri, Raphael,Gregori Matusewitch,Proffesor Maccann,Brigadier Archie Burgess. It will only be possible to give each of these artists one or two tracks maximum ,but I am sure you will appreciate the wonderful playing and I hope the music which some of you will remember from your chidhood days and some before all of our times.

I do not know Raymond Devos and if anyone can find a recording I would of course try to include it.Above all certainly listening to Tommy Elliott and similar showmen they knew every trick in the book and used them in their performances.

The recordings are not good however on most and I have an appointment with Jim Ward next week who is a specialist on old recordings and I am hping that he can at least get them to the level of the Fred Kilroy recordings that to date nobody has complained about.

Has anyone investigated this artist on the Pathe News site,certainly Tommy Elliott is there with his daughters spinning metal plates which when they stop spinning clatter on the table giving a note which makes up the tune they play in this method.

Al