Art Mengo
- Composer
- Soundtrack
French singer-composer. Born in Toulouse from Spanish immigrants (both
ardent Republicans who fled their country because of Franco's
dictatorship), Michel Armengot suffered a 70% deafness during his
childhood. Despite that, he early played a small electronic keyboard
his mother gave him and as a teenager he regained perfect earing thanks
to an operation and soon showed a big passion for music. After his
'baccalauréat' diploma, he studied physics and chemistry at university
and played piano in a local bar in the evenings. He eventually dropped
his studies and created a home studio in his bedroom. He wrote several
compositions while his brother-in-law Patrice Guirao wrote lyrics
around his melodies. In 1988, Michel brought a demo tape to the
Polygone studio in Toulouse where he was signed for the single "Les
Parfums de sa Vie". With his artist name Art Mengo (an anagram of his
family name), he and his distinctive husky vocals had a big success
with this song but because of a legal problem with his label he was not
able to release his first album before early 1990. But when it was
released, the album "Un 15 août en février" was a big hit in France
(60,000 sold albums). Then he had another problem: his new single "Caïd
Ali" was banned from French airwaves during the Gulf War. It didn't
stop his success: he was voted Best New Male Artist of the Year at the
'Victoires de la Musique' Awards in 1991 and he recorded a new album
("Guère d'amour") in 1992. The same year he wrote the hit song "Ça ne
change pas un homme" for French star Johnny Hallyday, and the following year he
composed an entire album for German singer Ute Lemper with whom he also
sang the duet "Parler d'amour". Quite a timid artist, he finally
performed in a series of concerts in 1993 at the Casino de Paris and in
two French famous festivals: 'Le Printemps de Bourges' and 'Les
Francopholies' in La Rochelle. Then he took a two-year break before his
new album "La mer n'existe pas" (still collaborating with Patrice
Guirao). More at ease in live performances (which he admits is a
personal therapy), Art Mengo recorded his first live album, "Live au
Mandala", in 1997, and another studio album, "Croire qu'un jour ...", in
1998. Although his talent and some few hit songs, he has not really
reached big public reputation yet. In 1999, famous singer Florent Pagny
recorded a new version of Art Mengo's "Les Parfums de sa Vie " (on
album "Récréations ").