“Charles Aznavour lived in this house with the troupe of Cigalounettes of Mr. Prior”. The village of Quinson (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) plunged back into the past by unveiling this plaque on a house in the church square on Friday. In this corner of the Verdon, Charles Aznavourwho died almost five years ago, is like everywhere else a monster of French song, but also “Charlot”, the child of the country.
The future international star spent his childhood holidays there before the war: with his older sister Aïda, they had been recruited by the Marseille singer Prior and his wife, for whom they provided the first parts in dance and song. Charles, a 13-year-old child of the ball, even intervened in his singing tour as early as 1937.
“They took us on vacation, they paid our parents and gave us pocket money,” said Charles Aznavour in an interview with RTL in 1995. “That’s how, village after village, we got to know the whole Provence. We went on vacation to the town hall of Quinson… We were small farmers and we had a wonderful childhood. »
During the war, the Aznavourian family had left Paris for Quinson where Charles had been baptized a second time in the village church, the priest baptizing all the children so that they could present their certificate to the occupier. “A resident, whose mother was part of the same choir, has collected a lot of documents from the time,” says Franck Ohanessian, a volunteer with the Aznavour foundation, which will organize the centenary of the singer’s birth next year. “Charles Aznavour returned to Quinson in 1992 and said that it was there that he fell in love with Provence. »
