Sacha Distel

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is an entertainer. He is to the British at least the epitome of the romantic Frenchman. Good looking, suave, and with an alluring voice, he's been in show business for fifty years now.

Presenter0:42

As a young jazz guitarist, he almost married Brigitte Bardot. He had his own show on French television, and then in the sixties he found fame and affection on this side of the channel. He's appeared on just about every television light entertainment programme that's been made since then. He's done thousands of concerts and cabarets here and starred in Chicago in the West End. And of course he's sung his enduring hit single Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head at every opportunity.

Presenter1:09

Now seventy years old, a grandfather and a legionnaire donneur, he says it's his ambition to be the prettiest, handsomest, eighty year old singer in the world. He is Sasha Distel. It is um I mean, it's shuddering to believe, Sasha, that you are a grandad. You certainly don't

Sacha Distel1:26

I loved it. I love it. It's the only excuse.

Presenter1:27

Pretty.

Sacha Distel1:30

I got uh l one, only one at the at the present time of seven years old, a little boy called Alexandre.

Presenter1:38

But you don't look like a grandad. I mean, you haven't got fat, you haven't gone grey. I mean, is that hard work?

Sacha Distel1:45

Well, uh thank God. What can I say for for the good side of it? And uh but I f when I'm with him I feel like a like a good granddad, like like a how could I say, an older brother.

Sacha Distel1:57

Which is the way I feel with my two sons as well, you know, just we have thank God very I mean, I always mention God, but he mu he must be there somewhere. We have some rapport who's really wonderful, you know, just uh not like uh father and sons, you know, just uh like brothers.

Presenter2:09

Mm-hmm.

Presenter2:14

But it is interesting that you've gone on appealing, and it obviously is not just your looks. It must be that you're a very, very good entertainer. Rather like Cliff Richard, I don't know whether you would resent that analogy or not, but you've appealed, haven't you, to generations I mean, first to the mothers and then to the daughters.

Sacha Distel2:28

Well, thank you to say that. You know, um some entertainers are lucky enough to go through the years and still uh when I was I had that kind of feeling when I was playing Chicago two years ago, young girls who didn't know me but heard about me by their mothers, so they would come just to please buy the tickets to for the mother's birthday or something like that. And they would come and see Chicago and I was going to rustle, tassel. All I care about is love. And at the end of the show it seemed to me that the daughters had t told their mother, Well, you're right, it's not so bad, you're socialist.

Sacha Distel3:03

The

Presenter3:03

But what is interesting is that we have kind of pigeonholed you, as I said really in the introduction.

Presenter3:10

In Britain, anyway, made you the cliché of a Frenchman. Every time you're photographed by a British photographer, you want you to put a baguette under your arm, you know, that sort of thing.

Sacha Distel3:19

Do you think I'm uh that that goes for me more than the other Arsenal players?

Presenter3:24

Probably not. But I mean, in Canada you're known as first of all as a as a jazz guitarist, aren't you?

Sacha Distel3:29

The thing is that I I really started my career as a jazz guitar player when I was like fourteen, fifteen. A friend of mine played the guitar. He was a guitar player for in my uncle's band, My Uncle Revenge.

Presenter3:32

Everyone was like

Sacha Distel3:40

Reventura was his name, was a very famous artist in France, uh conducting an orchestra. And uh Henry Salvador, who is still a big star, at the age of eighty seven now, he's number one in the charts in France at the moment, uh was playing the guitar and I asked him to

Speaker 43:52

Uh

Sacha Distel3:56

teach me how to play. So he showed me like three chords. Then I went back to college that year and they had a jazz band there called The Noise Makers in English.

Sacha Distel4:07

A very very deserved name, and I became a member of guitar player member of the Noise Makers, and that's when I discovered jazz.

Presenter4:16

Tell me about your first record that you want to play on this desert island.

Sacha Distel4:19

I love male voices and and crooners. Uh I I still could never define what crooner means. But among those and the very I should say the very few left of us, Tony Bennett is is probably one of the people, of the singers I really love. And recording a standard like these foolish these foolish things remind me of you, I think the result is just beautiful.

Speaker 44:45

A cigarette that bears lipsticks traces.

Speaker 44:53

An airline ticket to romantic places.

Speaker 45:00

And still my heart has wings.

Speaker 45:06

These foolish things

Speaker 45:09

Remind me of

Presenter5:14

Tony Bennett singing these foolish things. It was he, of course, who had a great hit with uh y your song, The Good Life. You wrote the tune, did you? You didn't write the words, did you?

Sacha Distel5:21

If you wrote the tune, did you did you didn't

Sacha Distel5:24

No, I I actually I wrote the music of the g of The Good Life. It was called Marina when I wrote it because it was the music for a film. And Tony Bennett recorded it and then and I I didn't know anything about it till about months later. I was in a club after a show, a concert in Brussels, and this Jacques in the club we were started to play, oh that good life. So I know that music, what is it? And what is Tony Bennett? I know it's Tony Bennett, but but it's number one. Well it's number one in the in the charts in the in the stage. Well let me see. So I looked at the added cover of the

Speaker 25:50

Uh

Presenter5:50

But it's more.

Speaker 25:51

Yeah.

Sacha Distel5:56

Of the arena, so music es dister, and that's how that's how I found my song had been recorded right on the internet.

Presenter6:00

That's how how I found my

Presenter6:02

The truth is, isn't it, that you wanted to be that kind of singer in the Bennett, in the Sinatra mold. But something happened. I mean, you had this hit, Scooby-Doo, Scooby-Doo Bee Doo. How's it going?

Sacha Distel6:13

Do we do we do?

Sacha Distel6:14

Well, the the thing is the first strike that I did, there were four songs. And there was a beautiful ballad called Content Seconieu when we met each other. And another song was just a jazz song using a little trick of, you know, I met the girl and what are you doing for a living? Well, I sell apples and peaches and scooby-doobie which was just a little jazz idiom. And that that made a million seller. So from then on I was a novelty singer. And that went on for years and years and years, but I kept on.

Speaker 46:37

Uh

Sacha Distel6:45

And it took me years before I could do it.

Presenter6:47

So again, rather as we've labelled you French heartthrob, you were labelled there in France novelty song singer. But you've gone with the flow is the point of the.

Sacha Distel6:55

You know, but

Sacha Distel6:57

What was the idea? Well, I had to, otherwise the idea was not.

Presenter7:00

No, no, I mean it's terribly sensible. You've been totally pragmatic, but in the end you haven't quite done what you really wanted to do.

Sacha Distel7:06

No, but I was still singing the songs I liked and doing them on stage, but the idea was, you know, come on, he he cannot tell us that he's sad because a girl left him. If a girl leaves him, there's fifty waiting outside the door.

Presenter7:18

I want to talk to you about that, but let's have another explanation. No, no, that's not true, but that's what they were saying.

Sacha Distel7:19

Let's have another review. No, no, that's not true, but that's what they were saying. So the next thing is, you know, I always loved music. And the great Duke Ellington used to say there are two kinds of music, the good and the bad. So there's not jazz, novelty, variety, that's music, classical. And who, to me, invented everything of the modern era? It's the great Maurice Ravel. And among the most easy listening for a popular ear, for everybody's ear, from the works from Revel is The Walls. I think everything is there.

Presenter8:53

Part of Ravels Lavals, played by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Dutroy. Um tell me, Sache, a little bit about your family. Your father was Russian. How and why had he come to France?

Sacha Distel9:04

Well, uh he was a white Russian. He was the younger brother of a family. And a couple of brothers uh escaped from the Russian Revolution and came to France, and he followed.

Presenter9:17

This was nineteen seventeen. Walking.

Sacha Distel9:17

This was 9.

Sacha Distel9:19

Yeah, I mean, partly walking through Central Europe.

Sacha Distel9:22

and uh feeding himself with vodka, so he told me that it was cold. Then he met my mother, who was born in Paris, in in France.

Presenter9:30

And she was quite well to do, wasn't she?

Sacha Distel9:32

She was um how could I say she was a wonderful woman.

Sacha Distel9:37

She she spoke four languages. Uh I've heard some British people asking her where she came from in England. And she had never put a foot in England. So she met my father and um my grandfather on the mother's side was not that happy about uh being in love with a Russian immigrant uh having no money at all.

Sacha Distel9:58

But finally it took her six years to convince her family that he was the man of her life. And uh finally, uh with every threat in the world, they got married.

Sacha Distel10:09

And when I was born it uh really milded everything.

Presenter10:09

So what

Presenter10:12

You were you were born in'thirty three', and then came the war, so you were seven when France fell. How old were you when they came to take your mother away?

Sacha Distel10:21

That was uh forty three, ten years.

Presenter10:24

Hmm.

Sacha Distel10:24

On february seventh, nineteen forty three, French police came for resistance.

Sacha Distel10:29

And uh b being Jewish, although wearing the the yellow uh star.

Sacha Distel10:34

People would, you know, uh call and say that she's doing this, he's doing that and and they would just get under arrest and and sent into camps.

Sacha Distel10:43

But but when

Presenter10:43

But but when they came for her, you you were there, wasn't you?

Sacha Distel10:44

I was there only very early morning.

Sacha Distel10:48

one at the uh nor the door and the other one at the kitchen door to make sure that she wouldn't try to escape.

Sacha Distel10:55

And and and I try to play the piano, one do anything to try to say, Well, please say uh you you didn't find her, she wasn't there, uh can we arrange?

Sacha Distel11:04

No way

Presenter11:05

Why did you try to play the piano at that point?

Sacha Distel11:07

to to to give some emotion to those guys.

Sacha Distel11:10

And uh nothing worked.

Presenter11:12

They took her away that morning.

Sacha Distel11:14

Oh, yes.

Presenter11:14

Yeah.

Sacha Distel11:14

She was gone for about a month.

Presenter11:15

She was gone. But then you were s you were sent away, weren't you, with the family maid?

Sacha Distel11:18

I was sent away in the provinces in a city called Laval.

Presenter11:22

Mm.

Sacha Distel11:22

Uh

Presenter11:23

And your father went into hiding somewhere else. I suppose there was a general fear that eventually you would all be taken.

Sacha Distel11:40

And they were really putting it to zero whoever they wanted to put.

Presenter11:43

You meanwhile were i in a school you went to hundreds of miles from from Paris, from home.

Sacha Distel11:45

Hundreds of miles.

Sacha Distel11:49

Oh, uh, yeah, two hundred miles from Paris. City could be like hull from London. Uh but that just was there and and my father was

Presenter11:51

Pose steal.

Sacha Distel11:57

coming every now and then to make sure that everybody was fine.

Presenter12:00

So you had communication with him?

Sacha Distel12:02

With him.

Presenter12:03

But not with your mother.

Sacha Distel12:04

No, I didn't know where she was. Four forty Y then the sixth of June, forty four happened.

Sacha Distel12:09

And the priests got very scared, and they told everybody, Well, go home, go home, go home

Sacha Distel12:14

And I was there with my little bicycle, and what do I do?

Presenter12:16

What did you do?

Sacha Distel12:17

And and the the maid we had working for us in Paris and

Sacha Distel12:21

um from whom I had been sent, because she knew she was from that Laval city and she knew people around and she was living herself very near Laval, so I took my bicycle, uh did a ride of about sixteen kilometers, ten miles, and and went to her.

Presenter12:40

I said, here I am.

Sacha Distel12:41

Exactly.

Presenter12:42

Let's pause there for some more music. This is Sonata, huh?

Sacha Distel12:45

Yes, well it has to be and uh that's a great arrangement uh by by a Nelson Ritter called Eptide.

Sacha Distel12:53

And we were talking about Maurice Ravel, I'll say the French winner just before. And that's a good example, I think, of a great singer being accompanied by a great orchestra, very much inspired by Maurice Ravel.

Sacha Distel13:08

First the top.

Speaker 413:13

Rushes in

Speaker 413:18

Plants are kiss

Speaker 413:20

On the shore.

Speaker 413:25

Then rolls out to sea

Speaker 413:32

And the

Presenter13:33

Frank Sinatra and Ebbtide. Great stuff.

Presenter13:40

Let's go back to you in the war. You were then living with this family maid in the French countryside, and your grandparents sent for you. You must have been frightened, because how would you know to trust anybody by this stage, a little ten, eleven year old on his own?

Sacha Distel13:55

I was by that time forty five was what eleven years. I've grown up for a year and a half.

Presenter13:58

And what

Sacha Distel14:00

And I actually my age was a hundred and fifty.

Sacha Distel14:04

And you know, I could realize and see everything and and my grandmother had given him a jewel, uh uh uh ring that I would recognize and with no one, no problem at all. And uh so so that's when uh then that uh lady I was with, Nena was her name, that maid we had with my parents, she was crying but she let me go and we had to drive about like four or five hours to get in the south of Paris. And then my grandparents were there, the Ventura family.

Presenter14:33

But they presumably were hiding as well because they had a lot of money.

Sacha Distel14:34

They had been escaping from Paris where their apartment was totally stolen and wrapped by the German. And my mother worked in a camp, the job was to choose everything that was stolen in the the apartments or, you know, or the house, and she saw the whole furnitures of her parents' place going through, even the piano of her brother. So I was back with my grandparents, hiding from Ventura.

Presenter15:02

But she must have thought when she saw that that they were dead, therefore

Sacha Distel15:05

Yeah, well no, but she she knew by my father who could revenge me, but that was in Paris. They could communicate and she could have escaped.

Presenter15:12

But your mother, though, must have been in fear of her life.

Sacha Distel15:13

She could have escaped, but she never wanted to, because escaping meant, like, ten people would go would be sent to Germany.

Sacha Distel15:20

Being in her case, you know, so she didn't never wanted to do that. So finally, I I was there with my grandparents, hiding under the name of Verdier.

Speaker 215:28

The

Sacha Distel15:29

And a few days later, you know, I was uh a small house and there was a like a path, a little alley going to the road. I saw two two people walking toward the the house and uh a little lady with a white white totally white hair and a and young sli I mean a slim gentleman. And it took me like ten seconds before I recognized my parents. I said, Oh, papa, mammo, you know and that was to me like like a storm and that's how I we got together again.

Presenter16:00

Mm-hmm.

Presenter16:02

What effect therefore I mean uh you say you aged a hundred and fifty years as this boy of ten and eleven. I mean it must have had a lasting effect on you and your attitude.

Sacha Distel16:10

Yes, that that gives you a maturity before the age, that's for sure.

Sacha Distel16:15

And I was really I mean, for years and years still now, yeah, I think of it with shivers, you know, and uh there are quite a few things in my life that have been doing or not doing, just reminiscing, just thinking of what happened in those days, and I'm very cautious about everything, for sure.

Sacha Distel16:36

Record number four.

Sacha Distel16:38

But so now I would like back to a little uh happier things and uh to some souvenirs of my youth. Uh when I say youth when I started to play the guitar and be interested in jazz music. And uh in nineteen forty eight, I was very young, my uncle took me to a concert by Dizzy Gillespie's Grand Orchestra Orchestra.

Sacha Distel16:57

And I remember they went to club, and he started to play, and he played a song called When Lights Are Low.

Sacha Distel17:05

And and that really, you know, struck me, you know, and then that that song played by Mais kept in my mind and in my heart ever since.

Presenter18:11

Miles Davis, when the lights are low. You famously, um Sasha Distelle, met Brigitte Bardot in nineteen fifty eight and you've had to live with that fact ever since, really. I mean, you cannot avoid being asked about it, can you?

Sacha Distel18:22

Yeah.

Sacha Distel18:24

But of course I mean I mean there's nothing to be ashamed of and after all uh I'm not to blame.

Presenter18:27

Well five.

Presenter18:30

No, no. But of course legend has it that she did create you. I mean, as we all know, she just made this film. It was Parry Match's fault really, wasn't it? They said, you know, and and God created woman and she created Sasha Distell. I mean it was

Sacha Distel18:34

Although she just made this film it was

Sacha Distel18:41

It was too good a line to miss, right? Never mind. They say what they want, but you know, it be it became a symbol of the era, of the time, of that beautiful city which Saint-Rope still is. But the the the awful thing was that all the men on earth were jealous and lost. Why was that awful? And some of those men were pressed people. So for about two, three weeks after we met, nobody knew about us. It was really perfect and beautiful. Then they got on us, and then it became just uh and it could not be lived. You know, it was just awful.

Presenter18:59

Why was that awful?

Presenter19:08

Uh

Presenter19:13

You had to take the flag.

Sacha Distel19:15

And the thing was that just after God created woman was the the moment in her life where everybody in the world would

Sacha Distel19:22

would want her for something.

Sacha Distel19:24

But it meant that once you was working you had to be around.

Sacha Distel19:28

And if she was going to do a film in a different city from where I was, that became hard. And I I you know, I could find out that it was going to be like that, and I wanted to be Sasha Distell, being a man and not just Bridget Bardo's companion. And and that's how finally, in in a few months, we could see that although we exchanged rings,

Sacha Distel19:48

We s I found out she was not gonna be the mother of my children.

Presenter19:52

And to you, having children, creating a family because of your history, the history of your own family, your own childhood, as we've heard, was supremely important.

Sacha Distel20:00

Oh, from the age uh as far as I can remember, from the age of fifteen I wanted to have uh children and I wanted boys and God gave me two boys. So thank you up there.

Presenter20:11

What about you and Brigitte? Have you seen each other in recent times?

Sacha Distel20:13

We haven't seen each other for years because she wrote a book and she's she was telling about all her friends.

Presenter20:20

She was pretty fair on you, actually, wasn't she?

Sacha Distel20:21

Actually, wasn't she? Well, I I didn't read it, so I didn't want to read it. She said that amongst the in the lot I was I was well treated.

Presenter20:29

Yeah. Yeah yeah.

Speaker 220:30

I think she rubbish down this rather more than exactly.

Sacha Distel20:30

Last summer, you know, we a friend a common friend of ours died in Saint-Tropez, and I went to the funeral and she was there, and then we fell into each other's arms, and oh, we don't see each other, it's it's stupid, you know. We're part of the Vieille Garde, you know, the old troops. And recently, she I was called by the people in her company, you know, she's she's very much she cares very much about animals, uh abandoned animals. And there was a manifestation in in Paris, very from where I live actually. And she said, Well, Bridget will ask if you could give a hand and go there and be seen there, so people would come. And lots of people, like Alain Delon and some others and me, came there, and within two days, people adopted six hundred and eighteen dogs and cats, which I think pretty well. So from now on, we're friends again. But people from the press don't go and say things again. We're just friends.

Speaker 421:24

So you're hooked for it.

Presenter21:34

Number five.

Sacha Distel21:35

So there's there's a music type of music I like very much because in 1961 I went to to sing at the Copacabana Palace in Rio de Janeiro and on the first night somebody I knew there said, Well there's a club with some young musicians there. You you should I'm going to take you there. You're going to hear some different music. It's wonderful and different. Their names were Jargil Gilberto, Antonio Carlos, Jobin, Vinicius de Moraes and there's a song there called Cocovado, you know Cocovado being the statue of the Christ thing on above Rio and the piece of music is just wonderful.

Speaker 422:09

Uncancing vigola is ya mu ma gansan pra faze felis aquinciama muinta kauma prapensar y tech tempo prazoiar n da jane la visio corcovadu porín.

Presenter22:36

Covcavado or Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars by Stan Gitt.

Sacha Distel22:43

And we heard a little bit of piano by Carlos Zubin just at the end of the day.

Presenter22:46

Oderuis, there he was. Antonio Carlo Jobim, and there was Gio Gilberto there too, yeah.

Presenter22:52

Someone else observed along the way, Sasha, that if you were created by any woman, you were created by Petula Clarke. She certainly brought you over here, didn't she?

Sacha Distel23:02

Yes, yes, of course. It went both ways. The story being that when she started to be very well known in France, she became a president of my television show, which was very popular. Then when she went to America, having those big hits written by and produced by Tony Hatch, she was not in Europe, of course, for quite a while. And Claude, her husband, said, Well, listen, I've got a little bit time for myself now because she's being handled by the right people in America.

Speaker 223:13

Very b

Sacha Distel23:32

Looking at the French scene, if somebody has a chance in in in England

Sacha Distel23:36

I think you might be the one. Would you like to try it out?

Presenter23:39

I see, so it was her husband who really affected it.

Sacha Distel23:41

Yes, that was in 1969. And that's that's how I said, Well, I'd love to try, you know, I know all the songs and

Presenter23:48

Uh

Presenter23:49

And it happened. I mean, I think you were first here on the Val Duniken show, and then you did all of those Morcom and Wines.

Sacha Distel23:50

And I mean yeah.

Sacha Distel23:54

And then you did all of those. And the Billy Cotton band show.

Presenter23:58

Yeah.

Sacha Distel23:59

And and I had a wonderful producer called Nouri Paramore and Norrie was teaching him how to speak English. He said, Sasha, you don't say this feeling, say this, not this, this feeling. And that went on for hours and hours and I I hoe him a lot of

Speaker 224:13

Or is there not?

Sacha Distel24:16

Who was it?

Presenter24:16

Who was it, then, along the way, who nicknamed you Slasher, Distell?

Sacha Distel24:19

Oh, that was Bernie Winters.

Presenter24:20

So was it?

Sacha Distel24:21

Yeah, Mike and Bernie, you know, we were sharing shows together. You know, I was I was on the scene all the time meeting all the great people here. And that was Bernie. He started that.

Presenter24:27

Yeah.

Presenter24:31

That was great. And then of course you had the great hit Raindrops Keep Falling on the Head, which won the Oscar for the soundtrack of Proscality.

Sacha Distel24:34

Keep going on the head.

Sacha Distel24:38

Yes, but I wasn't singing the song in the film. That was a country western singer, American. Which I only met last year, as a matter of fact, called B. J. Thomas.

Presenter24:40

No, no, no, no, no.

Presenter24:43

But that helps.

Presenter24:47

And you sing it in French as well?

Sacha Distel24:48

Following the the hit song here in in England, I decided to do it in French as a true prisoner someday.

Presenter24:57

Well all the rain falls on me.

Sacha Distel24:59

Toothlap retones or raindrops.

Presenter25:01

Yeah.

Sacha Distel25:01

It's not as strong, hasn't got the same double meaning as it has in English.

Presenter25:06

No, quite. Which did you prefer singing in?

Presenter25:09

English or French?

Sacha Distel25:09

English or French? For me, uh being a jazz musician and having a an an English ear, uh English thought ear, I think singing in English is a lot easier.

Sacha Distel25:21

You know, we have a lot of en on all the nasals, en and then the hard sound like tran, tron, pron, pran, you know, in French. You I know you found it very romantic, but for us sometimes it'll be difficult to say.

Presenter25:33

A bit of a snort. Yes. Okay, next piece of music, number six. What is it?

Sacha Distel25:34

Yeah.

Sacha Distel25:39

It's me.

Sacha Distel25:40

Pardon my accent, uh but it's really a thing I think it's the record I've done in through all my career which I like best. Moy Funny Valentine

Sacha Distel25:56

Sweet Comic Valentine.

Sacha Distel26:02

To make me smile.

Sacha Distel26:06

With my heart.

Sacha Distel26:13

Your looks are laughable.

Presenter26:18

I cast away Sasha DeSterl, Sir Martin Taylor, and the Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra with their version of My Funny Valentine. You're practically ageless, as I've said, Sasha, but I think I'm right in saying you have had a couple of health scares in your life. You had a couple of bouts of cancer, have you not?

Sacha Distel26:34

Well, you know, I mean, the thing is, you know, funnily enough, was in seventy, nineteen seventy when I was playing the London Palladium, found out.

Sacha Distel26:41

Which was not the thyroid, which was not the easiest way to manage, you know, playing like ten shows a week at the London Palladium and I also lost my father, which was, you know, although joyful and wonderful and splendid souvenir, you know, appearing at the London Palladium for three weeks season. But on the other hand, which is a little bit the story of my life, you know, there's always a good side, which everybody sees and knows about. And unfortunately, there's always the other side, which I'm trying not to show too much, because everybody's got his own problem, and they've got enough with theirs, they don't need mine.

Sacha Distel27:18

And then the second time was about eleven, ten, eleven years later, which is around eighteen eighty one. I had a

Sacha Distel27:25

the problem with the skin and uh

Presenter27:27

The melanoma

Sacha Distel27:27

The majority of the

Sacha Distel27:28

That led in melanoma, yeah, that's that one in that led me into uh one year.

Sacha Distel27:33

chemotherapy in in the days where it was not handled like it is now and it was really

Presenter27:37

is not

Sacha Distel27:39

Very difficult.

Presenter27:40

But twenty years ago, I mean, you you've been healthy ever since.

Sacha Distel27:42

The hills

Sacha Distel27:43

Well, that's the greatest thing, you know. I mean, I'm waiting for you. We have a say in Francine, never two out of three without three.

Presenter27:48

Oh dear.

Sacha Distel27:49

But but you might I mean I talk about it very

Sacha Distel27:53

casually in a way, because uh lots of people have the same problem, just to see if you can give them hope.

Sacha Distel28:00

Do it, you can do it.

Presenter28:01

And and y you know, beyond that, you have had, to coin a phrase, a good life, haven't you? I mean, you know, houses in Paris and in the Alps and in the Cote d'Azur, um, happy family, married to the same woman as you say for forty years, now the grandchild.

Sacha Distel28:08

I would call it so, yes.

Presenter28:17

Yeah.

Sacha Distel28:17

Uh

Presenter28:18

But it's it's it's been good. It is good. It goes on being good.

Sacha Distel28:22

It keeps on being good. It's been very, very good. You know, um music is is really important to me, and music always keeps me progressing and and building and constructing. And there's a great American guitar player who unfortunately died

Sacha Distel28:36

when he was very young and uh I think he probably influenced all the jazz guitarists of today. And this guitar player is called Wes Montgomery.

Sacha Distel28:47

And he invented a lot of things and I love to listen to him every now and then.

Speaker 429:21

Yeah.

Presenter29:24

Where's Montgomery and Erguin? Nigeria back.

Sacha Distel29:27

The trouble pronouncing is Nigeria reverse Eridin.

Presenter29:28

So it's it's Nigeria.

Presenter29:30

BAP

Presenter29:31

Okay.

Presenter29:32

Um, there's one thing you might regret perhaps in or in your life, which is that you never made it into film, Sasha. You did have a great opportunity and you passed it up, didn't you?

Sacha Distel29:41

Yes, that was About Souffle, the Jean-Lee Godard, and I thought it was quite beautiful. I did a couple of films though.

Presenter29:47

It was quite beautiful, but it made John Bo Belmondo, didn't it? I mean, that was, you know, you could have been there.

Sacha Distel29:48

Jump over.

Sacha Distel29:50

It was you know you could

Sacha Distel29:52

Yeah, well, I mean you can't you cannot do everything uh of course, but but you know the thing is that I was uh on the road all the time, doing like two hundred and fifty concerts a year. But I really wish I could have done like the the great Americans do, you know, like sharing, uh taking like one year and be to be in the films and w one year to be singing and playing music. But I mean, you know, I've still got another twenty years ahead of me, so might still happen.

Presenter30:18

Well, we're going to send you to a desert island between now and then. What are you going to sit there and regret or think about or what will you do on your desert island?

Sacha Distel30:27

What would I do? I would get very bored, that's for sure. I would be looking around for trees, fruits, um watching uh the sea

Presenter30:40

But are you practical? Could you look after yourself?

Sacha Distel30:42

In case a boat would come with a beautiful girl.

Presenter30:46

But I mean, could you, you know, fend for yourself, do you think? Could you build a shelter? Could you?

Sacha Distel30:50

Uh

Presenter30:51

Make life real for yourself.

Sacha Distel30:51

Make life worth for yourself. You know, in my early days I've been a scout, a Boy Scout, so I I know quite a although I'm not a manual really, you know, I I'm more uh uh thinking uh about things and art artist more than everything.

Presenter31:06

Are you a cook?

Sacha Distel31:07

Uh not very bad, but there wouldn't be anything to cook, anyway.

Presenter31:10

Well, you never know.

Sacha Distel31:11

Fruit, I mean I don't think they they raise potatoes or things on a desert island, yeah.

Presenter31:15

What about keeping fit? I mean, you've got to keep this body, this face.

Sacha Distel31:18

But that's what you do, you know, um you know, being like like a monkey uh turning around in a cage. It depends how of the size of the island.

Sacha Distel31:28

Uh what can I say? Or I I can think is or can say is well, whatever happens, or come rain or come shine.

Sacha Distel31:34

And uh there's a song, a beautiful standard, and we c we'll come back to Sinatra if you allow me to, with a great Don Costa arranging of a a great song and a

Sacha Distel31:45

Beautiful big b large orchestra with the symphonic tendency with the jazz.

Sacha Distel31:50

to it, which is the story of my life in a way.

Sacha Distel31:53

And that uh version of Camerino Cam Shine by Sinatra.

Sacha Distel31:57

Arranged by Don Castle is probably my favourite record of all. So if you I may play it now for you, it'd be a great pleasure and thank you very much.

Speaker 432:06

Days may be cloudy or sunny.

Speaker 432:13

We're in or we're out of the money

Speaker 432:23

I'm with you, baby.

Speaker 432:27

I'm with you, Rain, Oshine.

Presenter32:34

Uh

Presenter32:36

Come rain or come shine, sung by Frank Sonato. An amazing chord at the end there. I take it if you could only take one of these eight records, that would be the one that you'd take.

Sacha Distel32:44

I think so, yes.

Presenter32:45

What about your book? We give you the Bible and we give you the complete works of Shakespeare. You're allowed one other book.

Sacha Distel32:50

One book of my own.

Presenter32:51

What's your favourite book?

Sacha Distel32:53

I I might take the Paolo Coelho, uh I don't know how it's called, uh the Alch the Alchimiste it's called in French. The Alchemist. The Alchemiste I've loved that book and I've read it quite a few times.

Presenter33:04

And we give you one luxury. What would that be?

Sacha Distel33:06

Well, to for me luxury would probably be a grand

Sacha Distel33:12

Piano

Sacha Distel33:14

of one of the two good labels, possibly of Beckstein, because then I would have the time to properly learn.

Presenter33:21

Sasha DeSelle, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Sacha Distel33:25

Thank you very much. It's been a great pleasure for me. Thank you.

Speaker 233:34

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.