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Mediterranicana
Thierry ‘Titi’ Robin’s music has naturally absorbed the
cultures that have circled the Mediterranean down the
centuries. Garth Cartwright salutes a true original.
ing and poetry and philosophy too. This is
T
hierry “Titi” Robin is a remark- you start thinking he’s a ‘fusionist’ though,
ably personable individual and Robin declares his aversion to any such not defined by national borders or ethnicity
while his long hair and ring- attempts to categorise him. but is something that has come out of thou-
bedecked fingers suggest an
“I grew up in the countryside, close to
sands of years of Mediterranean culture,
early-1970s rock star, he is
Brittany. My father worked in the fields. We
people living and travelling and trading
extremely unpretentious, shrugging off
were a poor family, my parents didn’t have
and coming together and fighting and
the difficulties with the sound during his
too much education, but we lived well. It
absorbing each other’s culture.”
recent performance at London’s Cargo
was a simple life, very related to nature. “When I first started playing guitar I
and flexible about interview times the
The children were all born at home, we had learnt the songs that were popular with
following morning.
a traditional country life. When I was 12 we teenagers, that I could play with friends,
I’ve been following Titi’s music ever shifted to the city – Angers. We lived in a but when it came to play from the heart it
since I first encountered him playing on a very mixed area – French, Gypsy, Arab – and was the Mediterranean style. My first audi-
Barbican free stage at that venue’s first we were all arriving there from our villages. ence was the Arabs and Gypsies from my
Gypsy Festival in the late-1990s. Back then I came from a French village while some of neighbourhood. We mixed everything up
his blend of music styles was quite unlike my friends came from a village in Morocco. when we worked together and they loved
any other Gypsy music I recognised – fla- We grew up together and to me it was nat- this. I don’t know why. This is why I came
menco married to Arabic flavours and the ural that I learn of their culture.” to love the oud because I heard it played
melancholic accordeon of French musette;
“I never studied music in school instead
in my neighbourhood and it was so beauti-
I marked him out as a sonic adventurer.
I studied music on the street. I listen to the
ful. The first Gypsy style I learn is from the
Several years later he played Womad, the
Arabic or Gypsy music that I hear in their
strong Mediterranean flavours in his
houses and in my house I listen to the
music lending the festival a sense of heat
radio – I liked Johnny Hallyday and
and wonder, while his performance on
Beatles and what I heard on the
Charlie Gillett’s BBC London Womad
radio! – and I try to find a good
broadcast genuinely rocked the radio.
balance. From the beginning I
Despite the pop and crackle of the speak-
began to develop a very
ers at the Cargo gig, Titi magnificently
strong feeling for what I
pulls flurries of notes from his guitar,
call Mediterranean cul-
bouzouki and oud, the trio’s sound
ture. This is not a music
engulfing the room. His daughter joins
that is specifically Gypsy
them on stage, singing and dancing, her
or Arabic but some-
energy carrying the music forward. Titi is a
thing larger, some-
musician with magic in his fingertips.
Photo: Jak Kilby
thing involving paint-
Robin, aged 52, has been a profession-
al musician for half his life and across that
time he has developed a remarkable body
of work, his music proving capable of syn-
thesising Mediterranean sounds with
Rajasthan rhythms and dancers. Before
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