The artist, who created a hit in the 1980s inspired by the Macumba chain of nightclubs, comments for BFMTV on the closure of the last Macumba in France.
His name has become inseparable from Macumba, this chain of nightclubs which is bowing out. While the last Macumba in France, that of Englos near Lille, is preparing to close its doors, the singer Jean-Pierre Mader spoke this Thursday, January 23 on BFMTV of his memories of these nightclubs, he who experienced success in 1985 with the tube Macumba.
“It’s an era that is ending,” confided the 69-year-old singer. “It’s synonymous with the 1980s going away.”
“They were big clubs, quite prescriptive of what was going to be played on the radio; there were a lot of resident DJs,” he recalls. “They were also places where you could enter easily, unlike the big clubs in Paris where there was a doorman who filtered.”
“It was a less stressful time, people mixed,” continues the singer. “There was a side friendly (friendly, Editor’s note), we could all get together and party, there was no social barrier, it was open to everyone.”
Quasi-hasard
The song Macumbawhich he co-wrote with Richard Seff, tells the daily life of a migrant who “dances every evening” at Macumba “for the port dockers”. Forced into prostitution, “she offers her night for a few dollars”. Jean-Pierre Mader assures him, it was not a disguised advertisement for the Macumba clubs:
-“It would have been a stroke of genius, and a lot of money!”, he jokes. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have that idea. (With) Richard Seff, we were looking for a place to locate this migrant before the time. The news, unfortunately, caught up with us.”
“We were looking for a club name. I was going for Mocambo, César Palace, and it was (Richard Seff) who had the idea of Macumba. And as soon as we had the phrase, we finished the song very quickly.”
The Macumba d’Englos will give its final evening on the night of Saturday February 22 to Sunday February 23. Established in 1975, the “Macumba Lille” was one of the 23 establishments of the Macumba franchise, born in 1966 with the creation of a leisure club including a nightclub in Montpellier, explained one of the founders Henri Souque to La Voix in 2015. from the North.
