VIDEO. Accordionist René Lacaille celebrates his 70th career anniversary in Sète with members of Zebda and Massilia

The musician from Réunion, who has lived in Sète for three years, has travelled the world and its influences, while remaining faithful to his roots. Portrait of a “sunny and island” man, as Mouss Amokrane, from the group Zebda, sums it up. From here and elsewhere.

René Lacaille smiles. “I am a happy man.” What Sheller was waiting for, René Lacaille did. Hallelujah.

It must be said that just a week before celebrating in Sète – where he has been based for three years – his 70th anniversary, next Thursday, the planets are well aligned for the musician from Reunion Island.

It was about time. He toured on accordion and guitar with Jacques Higelin, Manu Dibango and Georges Moustaki. All three are now gone. At 78, he has just been honoured on his native island, with two concerts to boot. And now he has been offered the title of Chevalier des Arts et Lettres. “They discovered that I exist. It makes me laugh a little. No one is a prophet in their own country.”

His music has remained confidential until now. In mainland France as well as in Reunion Island. Was he made to pay for having abandoned his family for France, unlike his musician friend Daniel Hoareau? ? “Certainly, he agrees. He will never leave Reunion Island. I am a bandit…“

He was twenty when he set sail. Wanting something bigger, musical training, he who had played with his musician father, from the age of six or seven, in the “dust balls”, traditional Creole ceremonies. “It was not a desert island but almost. I had to go somewhere else. We are in a cauldron, we go round in circles.”

He returned there between 1970 and 1979, before never leaving the metropolis, getting married there and having two children, Marc and Oriane. Both are immersed in music: his son in the group Dékolaz, his daughter with Bonbon Vodou. Welcome to the Lacaille tribe.

Higelin and Hoareau

In exile, he has “twice around the planet”. He opened up so much to world music that he “abandoned Reunion music” for a while. In 1992, an improvised “jam” with Jacques Higelin and Daniel Hoareau convinced him to return to his Creole roots: “I dove back in. Daniel brought me back to Reunion, in my head. I took up the accordion again, I who played a lot of guitar“.

“René Lacaille is living proof that you can remain a musician all your life without being the one you hear all the time“, insists Mouss Amokrane, from the group Zebda. They met in Toulouse, on stages or in shared bars. “The third halves”, laughs René Lacaille.

“We feel like we're meeting a Cherokee, a Cheyenne, he has a sunny and island side", explains Mouss Amokrane.

"Music is his karma"

"He can't go a day without making music, it's his karma", says Oriane. She was the first to come and settle in Sète with her partner and daughter. René and his wife Odile followed a few months later. “It was Brassens' songs that brought me to Sète”, summarizes Oriane in a report from RFI broadcast last week.

“It brings us a little closer to Reunion Island, she says. We live in a fishing district, it's a small area where everyone has to live next door. There's a mix of people, some of them a bit Creole, you don't really know where they come from. It's great to live here."

His father, who feels "suffocated" when he stays too long in Reunion, could he get tired of this other unique island that is the big village of Sète ? "Next to Sète, there is Marseille, there is Toulouse, he says. You can't feel cramped.“

He has lived in Paris, Annemasse, Grenoble, Marmande… René Lacaille is at home everywhere. He is from here and elsewhere. This summer, he went to record in California. “The emblem of the State is the quail. I'm at home there."

A Kabaré Kréol concert, with about twenty guests

Kabaré Kréol : this is the rallying name for the musical and festive evening proposed on Thursday, September 26 (8 p.m.) at the Molière theater, in Sète, around René Lacaille. Plan your entire evening: the party should last at least 2:30 p.m.

Among the twenty or so guests on stage, in addition to his children Marc and Oriane, are expected Mouss and Akim Amokrane from Zebda, Gari Greu from Massilia sound system and Mourad Musset from La rue Kétanou.

Ren&eacute Lacaille should release a new album by the end of the year, Ti galé, recorded at the Grange-Bouillon cube in Causse-de-la-Selle.

He has just participated, in California, in the album Mayolamérika.

In the pipeline, an album around the songs of Boby Lapointe.

I subscribe to read the rest