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Month: August 2020

At Your Home Without Me: Jerry Wonda Shares Music He Loves

Posted on August 27, 2020February 25, 2021by JC AgidLeave a comment

At Your Home Without Me: Jerry Wonda Shares Music He Loves

When I connected via Zoom with producer and former Fugees’ bass player Jerry Wonda Duplessis, I was greeted with music and rhythm, Bowie’s Let’s Dance! Seated with his bass guitar at arms’ reach at his Minnesota studio, minutes away from Prince’s home and the sadly well-known street where George Floyd was choked to death, Wonda is doing what he loves the most, sharing the music he loves.


His music of course. That includes hits such as Fugees’ cover of Killing Me Softly, Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie, Carlos Santana’s Maria Maria, Melissa Ethridge’s Pulse and more recently the viral success of Newark’s Mayor Ras Baraka’s What We Want.


Music from others as well. That day, Wonda was in the mood for the period-worthy Harold Melvin’s Wake Up Everybody and a song he and I both like dearly, The Eagles’ iconic Hotel California. With some of his musical friends, Wonda launched early May ‘Share Music You Love,’ an initiative to raise funds for MusiCares and help musicians while concerts are halted. A UN Goodwill Ambassador for Haiti, Wonda is also working on bringing music, voices and musicians, professionals or not, from all over the world into a song to symbolize unity.


Born in Haiti, Wonda has never forgotten the donkey he rode to school before he moved to East Orange, New Jersey, into the home of his cousin, Wyclef Jean. He now lives for sharing his luck and dreams with others, children who like him, are born into poverty. “I went to school to be a recording engineer,” Wonda told me, “but I wanted to be Quincy Jones. I wanted to make the music, I wanted to be a producer. I wanted to produce a lot of Michael Jacksons!”


And so, he did.

Continue reading “At Your Home Without Me: Jerry Wonda Shares Music He Loves”

Posted in ART, Byline JC Agid, Covid-19, Culture, Fire Chat With, New York, Not At Home With
Tagged Alicia Keys, Amores como el nuestro quedan ya muy pocos, Amy Winehouse, At Home Without Me, At Your Home Without Me, Beenie Man, BET, Beyonce, Bono, Bounty Killer, Bryson Tiller, Carlos Santana, Charlie Walk, Chez Vous Sans Moi, City High, Clive Davis, Dirty Dancing, DJ Khaled, Eagles, Fugees, George Floyd, Grammy's, Harold Melvin, Havana Nights, Hips Don't Lie, Hotel California, Jerry Wonda, Jerry Wonda and Friends, John Forté, John Legend, Justin Bieber, Killing Me Softly, KRS One, Lauryn Hill, Maria Maria, Mary J Blige, Melissa Ethridge, Musicares, Prince, Pulse, Quincy Jones, Ras Baraka, Rudi Dubois, Shakira, Share Music You Love, The Eagles, The Score, U2, Wake up everybody, What We Want, Wild Thoughts, Wycleaf Jean, Wyclef Jean

At Your Home, Without Me: Ramatuelle, Jacqueline Franjou’s Essential Festival

Posted on August 1, 2020August 2, 2020by JC Agid1 Comment

At Your Home, Without Me: Ramatuelle, Jacqueline Franjou’s Essential Festival

Tonight, August 1st, 2020–and until August 10th. If you are in Ramatuelle, a little village above the Mediterranean Sea near Saint Tropez in the South of France, you might be among the luckiest people. While almost all summer cultural events have been canceled in France, Jacqueline Franjou is opening the 2020 Festival of Ramatuelle, a series of plays, stand-up comedies, and concerts under the stars and the songs of crickets. A must attend annual event, a rarity this year.

This summery feast  has been scheduled every August since 1985. But with movies, theaters, operas and museums still closed in most places around the world because of containment and a very much still present covid19 pandemic, the mere possibility to see comedians and musicians on a stage has become an extraordinary experience. This year’s Festival is an act of audacity and resistance, against all odds, a small, yet safe step to keep us on the pace of being humans, together. 

I was fortunate to attend last summer and I remember fondly the performance of French actor Gérard Depardieu (Golden Globe 1991 for Peter Weir’s movie Green Card) sing Barbara’s most iconic songs in a soft and elusive voice.

I cannot go this summer but will have a special thought for Franjou, the co-founder and President of this Festival, a woman I was lucky enough to work with for a few years and who has never been afraid to be disruptive to keep all of us thinking beyond the obvious. We need this festival, we need culture to fill our hopes and dreams, we need words and scores and stories to pave our immediate future.

Next is the translation from a French interview I did with Franjou while I was still confined in New York and she was already planning this week’s performances (published in Le Petit Journal).

Continue reading “At Your Home, Without Me: Ramatuelle, Jacqueline Franjou’s Essential Festival”

Posted in Amazing Women, ART, Byline JC Agid, Covid-19, Culture, Fire Chat With, Not At Home With, Women can have it all
Tagged Barbara, Christophe, Covid-19, COVID19, Gérard Philipe, Gerard Depardieu, Green Card, Guy Bedos, Jacqueline Franjou, Jean-Claude Brialy, Jean-Laurent Cochet, Michel Boujenah, Peter Weir, Pierre Desproges, Ramatuelle, Saint Tropez, Women's Forum, Women's Forum Brazil, Women's Forum for the Economy and Society, Women's Forum Mexico, Women's Forum Myanmar

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