Cerrone was only 17 when he started his first band, Kongas, a funky Afrobeat and afro-latin music influenced combo. In Summer 72, while playing drums in St Tropez, the young musician was spotted but music mogul Eddie Barclay who decided to sign him and his band. In 1976, Cerrone started dreaming of a record mixing prog work soul and funk, orchestral composition and synthesized sounds.
To fulfill his musical fantaisies, Cerrone chose Trident studios in London. With a 16 minutes long instrumental piece on the A-side, Love In C Minor is an unidentified musical object way too confusing for french labels. Eddie Barclay told Cerrone: “This will never be played on the radio !” “I don’t want to be played on the radio !” answered the producer.
Cerrone didn’t care. He pressed 5,000 copies of his new recording. The album received a boost from destiny: an order for the parisian record shop Champs Disques was send to New York by mistake and never got back. New York DJs loved the sound of the french producer. And so did Neil Bogart, boss of Casablanca Records. Cerrone saw this as a sign and decided he should try his luck in America.
Under the spell of the sound, Ahmet Ertegün, the owner of Atlantic Records offered a 7 years record deal to the french musician for 3 albums. In 1976, Love In C Minor became a massive success and sold 8 million copies, soon followed by Cerrone’s Paradise (1977) and Supernature, the same year. The french musician became a huge star providing disco smashes including Je Suis Music, Look For Love and the Billboard Dance chart No 1 Supernature, all and won 5 Grammy Awards.
By 77, Disco music was rulling the entire world. The small parisian urchin decided to move to New-York where he became the darling of the where he became the darling of the Studio 54 club scene. Every night, he hanged with Andy Warhol, Jean-Paul Gaultier while Nile Rodgers couldn’t even get into the club.
Now a DJ himself, Cerrone finds his way to studios once again. The musician worked over three years to deliver a new record. An amazing album where we can hear new talents (Kiesza, Yasmin or Brendan Reilly, one of Disclosure’s singer), world renowned musicians (Aloe Black, Alex Taylor from Hot Chips or Dax Ryder) and legends like Nile Rodgers perform for him. All gathered to decode the secret of Cerrone’s Midas touch.
US TOUR DATES
4/24 @ Le Poisson Rouge – New York, NY – Tickets
4/26 @ Public Works – San Francisco, CA
4/27 @ Globe Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
