Almost 66 years old, Philippe Corticchiato known as Corti, originally from Gard and proud of it, is more popular than ever for livening up evenings with his passion for bringing old hits and new musical releases to life. Broken mouth in series or at the movies, friend of the people, he looks back on his life of partying but also of excess.
Philippe Corti shows off his imposing Maori tattoo on his right shoulder and deciphers the engraved designs: “there is God, my children, prison, freedom, the sea and the truth” he smiles like a quick summary of his life.
The famous DJ, entertainer and actor meets in Petite Camargue, at the Moulin de Saint-Laurent-d’Aigouze (Gard), a bucolic estate overlooking the Vidourle. This Sunday, June 16 at noon, he will play records and jam, his trademark for 45 years. And it’s not about to stop: more than ever in the spirit of the times, it is popular.
The owner of the place Béatrice has fun when the guest is kept waiting: “Philippe, it’s part of his DNA. Today he’s late, but at one time he might not come at all…”
For Corti, freedom and carefreeness are priceless. But there he is honking in the distance, he arrives from Marseille on a motorbike, takes out of his bag a crown offered by a film festival which suits this king of mischief so well.
“Super human, affordable”
“He’s the child of the country, he’s super human, approachable and what characterizes him is above all his madness” continues Béatrice, who has been around him for another century, that of the 80s, when she went to see him mix at Sholmès, in Rochefort-du-Gard.
“Everyone went there because he was on the decks, he was already extraordinary with his selection against the grain.”
Mixing old with new, combining opera with hard rock… Music guides his steps. Today he quotes “the last Beyoncé”Garou and Johnny’s stainless Gabrielle who works more than ever on the public, “for its scenography… “Die of love chained”!” he immediately intones, crossing his wrists.
“At the table my father spoke to me about Balzac or Tolstoy”
However, his repatriated parents of Corsican origins, schoolteachers, who first passed through Dourbies, in the Cévennes, for his first two years of existence, then near Uzès where he grew up, instead made literature a priority.
“At the table my father spoke to me about Balzac or Tolstoy” he remembers. His mother still loved the opera, but it was at the age of 14, with his harvest pay, that he offered himself “a blue moped and a first record”, the Bourgeois by Jacques Brel, then a second, the double blue of the Beatles.
The cracks of childhood also explain his unbridled and carefree life. His hyperactivity but above all the death of his 10-year-old brother from cancer, which upsets the family balance.
“I learned to live alone”
“This wound never healed… My parents were orbited, I learned to live alone” he says over a glass of rosé and slices of sausage. “I traveled around, what I experienced was On the road again, route 66.”
Today, he claims to be the first professional DJ since he set up his turntables at the end of the 70s at Privé in Avignon and at Sholmès, with a colossal collection of vinyls.
“I had all my records in a military trunk, two friends helped me carry it… Today, I have everything on a USB key” sums up the one who had accumulated 45,000 vinyls.
“He was naked on the decks and mixing… With eleven fingers”
In 1986, he gave his party letters to Scatola, in Port-Camargue, where, as owner and DJ, he revolutionized the night. By doing anything big, the Corti label, microphone in hand.
“With his knack… It was fire, we finished at 10 a.m., he was naked on the decks, he mixed with… There you go, he mixed with eleven fingers” laughs Béatrice to picture this scene below the belt.
The Parisian people, who come to have fun in the South, love and follow. “Why? The bourgeoisie I made him dance the caterpillar, I told him “forget where you come from” that’s why they love me” Corti analyzes.
He became the darling of Christian Lacroix, close to the famous lyricist Étienne Roda-Gil and hosted the ultra-media wedding of Yves Mourousi in Nîmes, which served as his launch rocket, 40 years ago. The first song he plays there? “Born in the USA, Springsteen, I was shitting myself… I put the cap on backwards, shirtless and off we went.”
Corti also delights clubs in Paris, including the Palace where he brings out two youngsters… Laurent Garnier and David Guetta.
“Nicollin calls me into his dressing room and says to me: “Little one, I can’t pass for a badger”
But his name is inevitably associated with the legendary Churascaïa in the Camargue, where he will also be the music provider this Sunday, for the 59th anniversary of a nightclub so special to him. He actually saved her one evening on “Everybody Talks About It”, his friend Ardisson’s show where he was in charge of the blind test, that is, making the guests guess songs.
“Loulou Nicollin, a guest, calls me into his dressing room and says to me: “Kid, I can’t pass for a badger, I need the answers to the blind test”. I tell him but no one has them, not even Ardisson!”he reveals to us.
Midi Libre – SYLVIE CAMBON
Corti gives in to the person who owned the box: “I told him, I’ll give you the name of the superbanco where you win everything in the end, on one condition: you reopen the Chu.” Nicollin shouts “Trust” when the song has barely started, saves face and reopens the nightclub ten days later…
Diving competition with Barthez at Zidane’s wedding
Having become “Papi Corti” and gaga with his grandchildren, he could multiply the anecdotes endlessly from his diving competition with Barthez to Zidane’s wedding which ended in oysters via Mansour Ojjeh, ex-boss of the stable Mc Laren, for whom he improvises a fake VIP in Saint-Tropez on the dance floor.
Or the signing of the resumption of I will survive by Gloria Gaynor by a Dutch brass band. He puts the song on a compilation that he slips to the footballer Boghossian for the 98 World Cup: the victory hit is born.
“Music is always linked to an emotion, the first girl kissed like the car accident” he philosophizes.
“Apart from alcohol and cigarettes, I pay attention to everything”
Corti never hid the excesses, he practiced them, but it’s over, he assures us.
“Apart from cigarettes and alcohol, I pay attention to everything” he laughs while greeting a customer at the Moulin.
Sentenced to 4 years for “international traffic” of ecstasy at Papagayo, on the Côte d’Azur, exactly 30 years ago, he still believes he was executed by the courts. What didn’t kill him made him stronger, and, in the adversity of finding himself in prison, he remembers Johnny’s CD “Mirador” sent by Roda-Gil, of the Corsican clan who killed him. taken under his wing, of the radio-television “les gamelles de l’info” which he set up with other prisoners and friends who remained faithful.
Thierry Ardisson, the first, by giving him a job on TV after his release from prison. What does he say about his friend today?
“He’s an actor, he has the face of a gangster from the 50s, 60s”
“Philippe, I’ve known him since 87, we lived a Parisian movida together, we were Gypsies King. He’s a close friend, I have Baffie and he’s my country. I like coming to see him in the Camargue, after five, six pastis, we become surrealists! It’s fantasy, creativity, no sense! summarizes Ardisson.
“Above all, he’s an actor, he really has the look of the gangsters of the 50s, 60s and the banter, he’s the André Pousse of today, if Audiard were alive, he would make him perform.”
Today, above all, Corti claims this popular culture, sometimes identity-based, and too bad for the mischievous minds who caricature him as a slightly reactionary buffoon claiming “it was better before”.
“You made me dream of Intervilles at the age of 7”
“Mr. Corti, you made me dream at the age of 7, for Intervilles” says Roland, 37, a craftsman who is waiting for a selfie at the Moulin.
“Intervilles, the best show, only the Parisian bobos found it corny” he contrasts with the nostalgia of “happiness in the eyes of children” of these small towns which had spent a year preparing for the show’s arrival. Julien Lepers commented on it…
“Come on, let’s call him” says the sixty-year-old DJ.
“Corti? He’s a friend! If I kill someone, he hides the body” laughs the host, via video, while he is on the TGV.
“We are following you today with my son” Roland slips to him again.
“It touches me…. I bring back so many memories to people… I would have pissed off 5 generations!” he blurted out before heading off to take a nap.
The anniversary of “Chu”, series on TF1 and Canal +
What’s the latest news from Philippe Corti? This Sunday, June 16 in the evening, the Churascaïa, in Aigues-Mortes, celebrates its 59th anniversary and Corti will play Coupo Santo as the first piece, “to remind the public where he comes from.”
DJ, it’s the right record at the right time “and look at the audience, not at their navel” exhorts the one who has ignited the Chu more than once.
At the Moulin where he is also performing this Sunday June 16 at noon, he looks at a photo of Erika, a former transformist “who was returning to the Chu on a moped with a monkey”, he remembers. Concerning this separate place, he warns: “It’s a beautiful flower, be careful to water it well, and not just anyone can play there, it’s a temple, for young DJs to start with Chu, it’s heresy.”
Corti plays will tour this summer in Greece or Portugal to accompany a famous accordion player.
Le Gardois notably appeared in the series Sous le soleil or Mafiosa but also in several films including two feature films by his Corsican friend Éric Fraticelli: le Clan and Inestimable and one by Olivier Marchal, Overdose.
He will be featured in the new TF1 series Commandant Saint-Barth run by Florent Peyre, “I play the role of a barbouze looking for a princess” Corti said. On the other hand, he is more discreet, for the moment, on the new series that he will shoot for Canal + soon, which takes place in Corsica and features thugs.
