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Johnny Braff and Aznavour’s hit song
For sure young Guyanese would not know who Charles Aznavour is. I doubt whether many Guyanese, of whatever age, would be familiar with Charles Aznavour. But he is one of France’s most admired and loved icons. He was one of my
Freddie Kissoon and Johnny Braff.
favourite singers since my young days. It is simply indescribable to hear him sing English songs with a French accent. His top international hit is, “Yesterday When I Was Young.”
When I left my interview with Johnny Braff, I dropped off his friend to his hotel and drove home. While driving, my mind went immediately to Charles Aznavour’s autobiographical reflection. It was a painful interview with the Guyanese superstar of yesterday. It will always produce journalistic uneasiness when you sit down with a star of yesterday who is completely lost, penniless and senile. Bolts of angst ran through me as I listened to Johnny Braff.
Here are the Aznavour lyrics:
Yesterday, when I was young
The taste of life was sweet
Like rain upon my tongue
I teased at life as if
It were a foolish game
The way an evening breeze
May tease a candle flame
The thousand dreams I dreamed
The splendid things I planned
I always built to last
On weak and shifting sand
I lived by night and shunned
The naked light of day
And only now I see
How the years have ran away
chorus…
Yesterday, when I was young
So many lovely songs
Were waiting to be sung
So many wayward pleasures
Lay in store for me
And so much pain
My dazzled eyes refused to see
I ran so fast that time
And youth at last ran out
I never stopped to think
What life was all about
And every conversation I can now recall
Concerned itself with me
And nothing else at all
Yesterday, the moon was blue
And every crazy day
Brought something new to do
And I used my magic age
As if it were a wand
And never saw the waste
And emptiness beyond
The game of love I played
With arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit
So quickly, quickly died
The friends I made all seemed
Somehow to drift away
And only I am left
On stage to end the play
repeat chorus…
There are so many songs in me
That won’t be sung
I feel the bitter taste
Of tears upon my tongue
The time has come for me
To pay for yesterday
When I was young
As a fourteen-year-old lad, I stood in an endless line to see Johnny Braff perform at the Globe cinema. If Guyana had a local superstar in the sixties, it was Johnny Braff. He churned out hit after hit and his concerts (mostly at the Globe) were sell-outs, as if the performer was a foreign superstar. That was a long, long time ago.
One of Braff’s friends from one of his back-up bands from that era is visiting Guyana. He asked me to accompany him to give Braff “a small piece.” Braff, now 79, lives in the East La Penitence Night Shelter. He is a broken, lonely, penniless man. As we chatted, I thought of the fragility of everything that makes up human existence. No wonder the Facebook founder, is giving away 99 percent of his shares.
How can a regional pop star father 27 children, have dozens and dozens of grandchildren and end up in a home for the indigent? Braff told me he knows of 27 offspring, but he believes he fathered much more than that number. They are spread all over the world. He lost contact with all of them. As the story of the large number of children came up, he talked of his stellar era (reminiscent of the Aznavour song). He recalled the many women he had as a Guyanese superstar. And made the point that the list included White women from many countries. He touched on his escapades in France. He mentioned a rich Trinidadian woman that was in love with him during his glory days, but his travels denied him a settled life.
I detected moments of senility when he told me he travels often and twice for this year.
I asked to see his passport, which he keeps on his person twenty-four hours. The pages are blank. He didn’t travel in 2015. He said his sister works in the Guyana Embassy and she is 85 years. That is not true too. The house at 44 Station Street Kitty he said is his, is owned by his brother. He was just born there. His niece, Pipita, says he is welcome once he stops his intolerable behaviour. Braff says the night shelter is driving him mad and he wants me to ask the Government to help him. Through this column, I have done so.
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