MIDEM has been cancelled. MIDEM is the acronym for Marché International du Disque et de l'Edition Musicale, which is organized annually in and around the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in Cannes, France. It’s a big-deal trade show, billed as the leading international business event for the music ecosystem, and it has been held since 1967.
But not this year. Because of the Trump virus, there will be no MIDEM until 2021. That, as it happens, will be the 50th anniversary of my sole visit to the festival, at which careers are launched and sunk and bought and sold. Yes, it was 1971 and I found myself in France for the first time, in the role of musical director for a newcomer named Helen Reddy. I was there with Helen and her husband, Jeff Wald. Helen’s career was Jeff’s masterpiece, and I was the easel stretcher for it. We flew from LA to Paris, and I hit the ground running, since I actually could speak a wee bit of French, and therein lies a tale.
My high school French teacher in Bloomington, Indiana, was a stern-appearing woman named Virginia Kruse. I enjoyed languages, and appreciated her teaching, and she appreciated my enthusiasm for it. But I didn't really appreciate how much I learned in her classes until I arrived in Paris with Helen. We were to do a couple of TV shows before trying to jump-start her career by appearing as a somewhat featured performer at the aforementioned 1971 MIDEM. While we were in Paris, I read the papers and watched the (two-channel black-and-white) TV, and I found that a flood of memories from Miss Kruse's classes were cresting inside my head. By the time we got to Cannes, I was going full-bore (in every sense of the phrase), cracking jokes with cab drivers, making puns in French and generally having the kind of good time that French-speakers have, that the non-fluent miss out on.
We flew from Paris to Nice, where Jeff rented a car to drive to Cannes. The first time he parked the rental, he opened the door and someone drove into it, almost removing it from the auto body. The next day, he took it back to the rental agency and convinced them to give him another car, since that one was “defective.”
We had a night off, and I went out to a performance by a band called Martin Circus, which was a weird band of varying styles, naturally of interest to me. Great show, as I remember it, but don’t ask me for details. Afterward, I walked back toward our hotel, which was on a side street, and so small that it didn't have a bar (Helen was not yet any kind of star). So I stopped at a small lounge just off the Croisette (the main drag of Cannes, along the waterfront), for a relaxing beverage before settling down for the night. I seated myself inconspicuously in the back of the room, intentionally away from the couple at the bar who were having a heated conversation. The man I recognized as a record-company executive, known to be an unpleasant gent (and remember, I was working for Jeff Wald). He was seated at the bar, attempting unsuccessfully to communicate in English with a local working girl who clearly spoke only French, regarding the price of some pleasure he wished to purchase.
He didn't know me at all, and I didn’t want to know him, but he worked to draw me into their conversation. He demanded to know if I spoke French. I said no, but he wouldn’t accept that answer, and I eventually found myself drafted to serve as their interpreter.
Since they were negotiating the price for her services, I told him I would attempt talk her price down.
At that point, I was counting on his ignorance of the French language being total, because I began telling the young girl in French that he was a rich American pig with far too much money, and suggesting that she raise her price much higher. Gradually, I worked her amount up to at least ten times her original fee. They agreed on the deal, and left the bar arm in arm. On the way out the door, she gave me a wink, which seemed to promise that further business might be feasible in the future.
My conclusion from this experience: I made everybody in the room happy that night. The look that la Douce gave me as she and her client departed suggested that if I choose to alter my career path, I might eventually find myself driving a fancy car down the Croisette, tending to my string of women. Meanwhile, the record company fellow presumably got exactly what he wanted, at what he thought was a a fraction of her asking price, so he felt blessed that he had found me in that gin joint that night to close the deal.
After they departed, the bartender, who had been observing the entire scene, told me that there would be no charge for my drinks and food, and that whatever else I wanted would also be on the house, because it was the funniest scene he'd ever witnessed in his many years at that bar.