••• But obviously, I did not not become a great singer overnight, far from it. Vocals that sounded 'alright' on the demoes suddenly appeared harshed and uneasy in the full-fledge control room, with the recording engineer, and the tape-op, and the producer all waiting for the best to come up. And my poor accent could only worsen the case if anything. And I was agonizing to see my pieces engender another lifeform, quite seductive on the big speakers, but nothing close to what I had in mind originally. All of which made each listening a traumatizing experience for years.

... more practice, hands on.

••• Today, I can look at it as a corner stone on my learning path, one that I had to stumble over in order to see clearer through my strengths and weaknesses. I can retain the value of some of the melodies and arrangements. I can see what my voice had to offer, how best I should have exploited it, and what I should have avoided at all costs. And above all, I learned to write and perform outside of my all-time heroe's umbrella.

••• Last but not least, I learned to treasure my demoes like nothing else. Technology did not allow us yet to build on demoes rather than redo them from scratch in the studio, with a stopwatch over our heads. But it was obvious that soon as it would, I'd make it my primary tool, and I'd never let a tiny change in tempo, nor the smallest difference in fingering or in reverb color, destroy the essence of the painstakingly crafted demos never again.

••• With my brother Idriss Badarou (bass & vocals) Boris Bergman (lyrics), Dominique Blanc-Francart (engineer), Pierre Dobler (engineer), Vicky Edimo (bass), Patrick Francfort (drums), Sher Komisar (lyrics & vocals), Celia Lacombe (vocals), Monique Lesueur (vocals), Bernie Lyon (vocals), Emmanuel Roche (percussion), Serge Roux (lyricon), Claude Vamur (drums), I never had that many guests again on any of my following albums.

••• Leo, thanks for giving me the opportunity to learn through my mistakes. There's a song album in the making, and I sure know whom I'll dedicate it to.

••• 'A Rasta In London Town', mark of the disco era . Could 'Lady Finger Blue' be a call for an instrumentalist career instead ?

_______

... well how do you define yourself, image wise ? (grin).

••• Those were the days of my pre-MIDI Korg machines, with the 800-DV and Polyphonic Ensemble 1000 at the center stage. On the last days of recording, we were to rent a great new 5-voice keyboard that also had 'memory', the S.C.I. Prophet V ...