BEGINNER PEDAL STEEL GUITAR

French postcard by Publistar/Riviera, no. 1426. Photo: Gerard Bousquet.

French-Italian singer, jazz musician and actor Nino Ferrer (1934 - 1998) was an immensely popular pop star during the second half of the 1960’s. L'homme a tout faire (The Jack of all Trades) also appeared in seven films.

Nino Ferrer was born Nino Agostino Arturo Maria Ferrari in Genoa, Italy, in 1934. He had an Italian father and a French mother. A considerable part of his preteen years was spent under the stress of World War II, but Nino himself later declared having had a pleasant childhood in a bourgeois, art-loving family. His father worked as an engineer in a nickel mine in New Caledonia. On holiday in France in 1939, Nino and his mother were unable to leave Europe because of the World War II. While his father carried on working in New Caledonia, they spent difficult years stuck and penniless in Italy, where Nino’s mother was considered the wife of an enemy. In 1947, the family, re-united and moved to France. Nino was sent to the best colleges in Paris and earned a degree in ethnology and prehistoric archaeology. As a student, much of his free time was spent on archaeological digs and his first job was at the Musee de l'Homme with Andre Leroi-Gourhan. Alongside his passion for history, he developed numerous other interests. He became a keen painter, and remained so until his death. Above all, he learned to play several instruments (piano, guitar, clarinet, trombone and trumpet) and composed, wrote lyrics and became a fervent jazz lover. When he finished his studies, his grandmother offered him a trip to New Caledonia, a gift he took advantage of by going round the world on a cargo ship. On his return to Paris, he tried several jobs. Starting out as a hired hand in the capital's jazz circles, he was employed by bandleader Richard Bennett and later worked for American singer Nancy Holloway. He also continued to write gospel-inspired songs which received only refusals from most of the record companies. Hearing Otis Redding and Sam Cooke for the first time was a musical revelation and transformed his writing style. Although already spotted by the Barclay record label, he had to wait until 1963 to record his first release, Pour oublier qu’on s’est aime. He was 29, whereas most of the young stars of the time were hardly 20. It was a four-track EP, written in a fairly classical vein, and did not sell well in France. However, one of the tracks, C'est Irreparable, was a hit in some European countries, in Japan and even in the Middle East. The song was picked up by Italian Mina as Un anno d'amore, hitting #1 of the Italian singles chart. Having left Barclay for a small label, Bel Air, Nino Ferrer was still unknown in France. In 1964, he started a gospel group, Reverend Nino and the Jubilees, but it broke up before recording anything worth being released. He had small parts in two policiers starring hard-boiled Eddie Constantine, Laissez tirer les tireurs/Let the Marksman Fire (1964, Guy Lefranc) and Ces dames s'en melent/These ladies get involved in it (1965, Raoul Andre), and he also went on to bring out several solo singles, but all without any success.

After so many lean years, Nino Ferrer’s big break came unexpectedly in 1965 when he returned to Barclay, who gave him the chance to record his new material. After a few unsuccessful trials, a new artistic director, Richard Bennett, gave Nino free rein to record his compositions as he wanted. And so Nino Ferrer recorded Mirza, an effective cocktail of rhythm ‘n’ blues and caustic lyrics. The song was immediately a huge hit. His record company called for more songs in the same vein. His records sold very well and overnight the he became an idol. Now the zany singer in vogue, he followed Mirza up with Les Cornichons and Oh! He! Hein! Bon. Although he was now very popular, his success was founded on material with which he never felt really comfortable. Nevertheless, hit followed hit and he lived his new life as a star at breakneck rhythm. In 1966, he gave 195 live performances and made nearly thirty TV appearances. As an actor he appeared in the TV film Palpitations (1966, Marcel Moussy). He soon grew tired of his deliberately blase and provocative seducer image of which people compared to Jacques Dutronc. In 1966 he released Le Telefon, another hit to which people are still dancing years later. He left Paris for Italy where, at the same time, his song Je veux etre noir, was a success of an entirely different kind. Smothered by his own success, Nino stayed about three years in Italy, from 1967 to 1970. In France, his releases continued to sell well. His lyrics became increasingly iconoclastic, even politicized, while remaining just as sarcastic or even cynical. In 1967, he brought out Mao et Moa and Mon copain Bismarck and in 1968, le Roi d’Angleterre, with biting lyrics echoing his irritation with show business and society in general. Around this time, Nino hired a young orga

The Love Song
Artist Rockwell, Norman
nationality American
birth-death 1894-1978
Creation date 1926
Materials oil on canvas
Dimensions 38 3/8 x 42 7/8 in. 42 3/8 x 47 1/8 in. (framed)
Location Art of the American West Gallery
Credit line Gift of Anne G. Blackman and Sidney W. Blackman in memory of Freeman E. Hertzel
Accession number 1997.151
Gallery Label

Love Song presents the artist's major theme, the different stages of life. Here, a young girl wistfully listens to music played by two elderly men. The painting's title is printed on the music sheet. An old map suggests rural America.

Rockwell, America's premiere illustrator, created more than 300 Saturday Evening Post covers, capturing the daily lives of average Americans.
Indianapolis Museum of Art: Highlights of the Collection (2005)

Norman Rockwell's Love Song, which was reproduced as an illustration in the December 1926 issue of Ladies Home Journal, presents one of this popular artist's major themes: youth contrasted with old age. A young girl listens wistfully as two elderly men play the flute and the clarinet. Leaning against the metronome is a music sheet indicating the tune's-and the painting's-title, "The Love Song." Rockwell, an avid collector of antique maps, added an old map to the scene, enhancing its quaint setting.

Rockwell was born in New York City and trained at the Chase School of Art, the National Academy of Design, and the Art Students League. In 1910, he set up a studio in New Rochelle, New York, the home of such famous illustrators as J.C. Leyendecker and his brother Frank, and Howard Chandler Christy. Rockwell was a young man of thirty-two when he was commissioned to paint The Love Song, yet he had already been designing cover illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post for a decade. Between 1916 and 1961, Rockwell illustrated more than three hundred covers for that magazine alone. He produced some of the most recognizable images in American art, always treating his subjects-"average" Americans in everyday situations-with warmth and humor. In his later years, Rockwell became more political. His 1965 illustration The Problem We All Live With dealt with segregated education in the United States.

Maybe . . . I unconsciously decided that, even if it wasn't an ideal world, it should be and so [I] painted only the ideal aspects of it.
-Norman Rockwell, 1960