On March 8, 1992, after a national selection, the Belgian public delegated to the grand finale of Eurovision, a charming and very talented 16-year-old singer from Liège, Morgane. Her song, “We want violins”, was composed for her by Claude Barzotti. It earned Claude the first trial of his life.
This Eurovision 1992 was scheduled for May 9, in Sweden, in Malmö. The first complaint dated April 14. In question, a song, “Décalcomanie”, interpreted, a year earlier, on his latest album, by another singer (Italo-) from Liège, Claude Michel, whom the interpreter co-signed with an author who worked a lot for Frédéric Francois, Luciano Manente. In the case, Manente was the sole plaintiff.
That there is, at certain times, a resemblance is undeniable. The experts noted 24 common notes, on the whole of a song. Claude Michel, he had not wanted to sue Claude Barzotti in Justice. First because he was one of his best friends; mainly because he remembered another song he had recorded a few years earlier that had… the same melody, the same offending notes. This music had clearly been given to him by… Claude Barzotti. However, on Claude Michel’s famous album, that of “Décalcomanie”, all the songs were co-signed by Claude Michel and Manente. Whatever the work of each. Behind the scenes, Claude Michel explained that this song had come from him.
In addition, it was, at the time, a kind of fashion: many artists leaving for Eurovision were attacked for plagiarism. This was the case, the year before, of the Clouseau group.
Moreover, the trial of Manente launched others. “What is extraordinary is that in ten years of singing, I had never had the slightest complaint whereas, when you see the number of songs that exist on the market, it is not abnormal that, sometimes melodies sound a bit alike.”
Dirty atmosphere but nice revenge
In the wake of the first complaint, in 1992, he was attacked for plagiarism on the song “I won’t write to you anymore” which dated… from 1984. Not once! Three different complaints for the same song! “The first came from a musician who, indeed, had composed his song before mine but I had no chance of knowing it since his disc came out after mine. For the trial, we looked for precedents. We found dozens of them. Notably with Salvatore Adamo, with his song ‘Si j’étais‘.”
It is also the question of anteriorities that allowed Claude to win, twelve years after the start of the procedure, the Eurovision trial: eighteen songs found contained the same 24 notes. It was therefore considered that Claude Barzotti had not plagiarized anyone.
On the other hand, the affair weighed on the atmosphere, within the Belgian team of Eurovision 92. There were bad things. While the second in the Belgian final, another singer from Liège, Maïra, refused the slightest intervention, others, less well ranked, took advantage of the circumstances to demand that Morgane be put out of competition and suggest that we start the Belgian final again. RTBF strongly opposed it. All of this somewhat damaged the beautiful dream of Morgane who was only 16 years old and who had to take such a weight on her shoulders. In the turmoil, she remained surprisingly calm: “Claude took me aside and explained to me that this matter did not concern me, that it was a problem between composers and nothing else.” In Malmö, she finished 20th out of 23. But the 45-rpm “We want violins” was the best-selling single on the Belgian market that year.
“Between 3000 and 4000 conquests in my life”
Vanessa, Claude’s eldest daughter, was 15 in December 1990, when her little sister, Sarah, was born. The singer then offered a song to the mother of his two daughters, Marie-Pierre. This song was simply called “My wife”. In reality, they weren’t married. Claude Barzotti has never been. And his long life together was soon to end. He was an unfaithful companion. It always has been. He always recognized it. He was even the guest of a program, on French television, which presented him as the most unfaithful man in the world.
In 2017, at the age of 64, he received the DH in his villa located in the heart of Walloon Brabant. Based in Court-Saint-Étienne, he lived there from his second passion: real estate. “I’ve done all the streets here, underlines Claude Barzotti the real estate agent. The song is fleeting, so that was a plus. I didn’t want to change jobs but do something else on the side.” Which did not however prevent him from being a homebody. “The chair is so tired I’m on it all the time! I’m not a dater, I don’t have anyone in my life except my dogs and cats. I don’t want a woman who bothers me when I come home.” And don’t talk to her about marriage! “It is not going good, no ! I don’t like any woman…it’s as easy as that. And yet, I had many. I don’t think anyone in the world has had that. I had between 3000 and 4000 conquests in my life. On tour in Canada, I even slept with 5 women at the same time. Ten women in the same day sometimes.”
Not only was his audience almost exclusively female, but they were all crazy about him. He magnetized them. When you’re a singer, rich and famous, it helps. But, without pride or pretension, he said that it was a state of things that already existed before glory and success.
Besides, he couldn’t say no. From then on, after the inevitable separation with Marie-Paule, the mother of his daughters, he decided to assume this life of a happy, seductive bachelor and he never lived in a couple again. He nevertheless wanted to separate the two parts of his life: his family home in Court-Saint-Étienne, with his dogs and cats that he has always adored; and a bedroom, a bachelor flat, in Brussels, for the gaps.
The rape case: the hell of an acquitted
Everything changed in 1996 when one of his conquests filed a complaint for rape, facts that dated back to 1993: “He locked the door and left me no choice.”
The singer’s version was very different: “This girl is a singer in whom, sincerely, I found talent. She asked me to produce the record she was preparing. I had shown interest. But at the time, I had just produced Morgane’s album which was not doing very well. The market in Belgium was very difficult. I backtracked. This girl was angry with me and she did everything to poison my life. The least we can say is that she did not hesitate on the means. I actually had relations with her, but on several occasions. She can hardly claim that each time I raped her. I have never been a model of loyalty, but never have I ever forced a woman into anything..”
Nothing is harder for a man than to prove his innocence in a case like this. The fact is that the singer was found innocent, both at first instance and on appeal.
Nevertheless, the case left its mark. Its main market at the time was Canada. Where we were already very intransigent with these things. His status has collapsed and it will take him many years to more or less regain the place he occupied before the complaint. “This woman killed me! It really hurts when your 6 or 7 year old daughter comes home from school asking you, ‘Dad, what is a rapist?’ I already had a drinking problem before when I drank my first glass of wine only at 33 years old. But I started having a whiskey and then several to ward off the stress of going on stage. After the shows, I had also taken solid drinks, but with only a few drinks. Probably the mixture with the drugs I was taking. But this rape complaint came when I had just learned that my mother was suffering from cancer. There, I really fell. I went very far, up to six bottles of whiskey a day! I was shaking all over my body. I could no longer drink the soup with a spoon.”
Alcohol, insomnia, thrombosis, pacemaker…
The end of Claude Barzotti’s life: a quarter of a century of combat. A fight against alcohol: “There is one thing that freed me: I was made to understand that it was an illness. A serious disease insofar as there is no medicine. When it comes back to me, I do a five-week cure in a hospital. It is far from being a three star hotel. It’s immediate withdrawal, with medication to help bear it. It’s really very hard. They claim that 30% of the people they treat never relapse. I do not believe it at all. I’m not sure there are 10% successes. Among the people with whom I kept in contact, all fell back. But there is no other solution. I still managed to drink a lot less and stop shaking.”
In 2012, he even made a song on the subject, “I’m coming back from a trip”: “I’m coming back from a trip full of temptations And anguish and tears And hallucinations I’m coming back from a country in the heart of the desert A very small country At the gates of hell…”
The hospital, he also knew it for other reasons. It began at age 43 with a thrombosis that left no trace. That was before he got drunk. High cholesterol levels were found. Perhaps there was another explanation. Insomniac, he had already entered into what could be called the Elvis Presley cocktail. Sleeping pills for the night then, to stay in shape during the day, stimulants in the morning.
Three days after his alert, he was up and walking normally. On June 1, he was on stage.
Afterwards, the alcohol did its damage. Kidney surgery twice. Then a hernia in the stomach. A pacemaker at 66. And an immense fatigue that systematically dissipated as soon as he went on stage.
