By Artsvi Bakhchinyan
YEREVAN — French singer-songwriter and photographer Arlette Kotchounian, 76, was not always called by her name. At the beginning of her career, she was also called Arlette Avedian and Ann Grégory. In 1963, she began two-year career as a singer, recording her first single The People Say/You Laugh at me. She composed songs for Eddy Louis, Martine Clemenceau and other singers, but most importantly, Ann Grégory wrote and composed the English version of The Sun Died, which became one of the best songs in the repertoire of legendary Ray Charles. Their friendship lasted for years, they worked together on the album “Would You Believe,” and in 1976 Arlette gave birth to their child, Vincent Kotchounian, based in Los Angeles.
Ray Charles’ biographer Michael Lydon in the book Ray Charles: Man and Music (Routledge, 2004) has mentioned Arlette’s name for six times. “A classic Left Bank bohemian, small, dark and a heavy smoker, Kotchounian had translated the lyrics of a starkly beautiful song, The Sun Died, that a singer friend had recorded. She brought the record with her and pushed her way into meeting Ray at his hotel. Ray liked the song, was intrigued by Arlette…” (page 272).
My meeting last month with Arlette Kotchunian took place in one of most adorable cultural oases of Yerevan, the Mirzoyan Library, through our mutual friend Gayane Georgyan, who is active in public and cultural activities of our city…
Arlette, welcome to Armenia! Please first tell us about your roots, your family story…
It is a long story! My both parents escaped the Genocide. My grandparents were killed at the beginning, one of my grandmothers died on the way of exile. My mother, Manouchag Avedissian, was from a village near Bursa. Three of her brothers, Mardiros, Zaven and Takvor, were also survivors, and my mother was a baby, who was adopted by a Moslem family in Mosul. She was raised there up to 19 years old, then she discovered she is an Armenian, so she looked for her family. One brother was in Greece, so she put an advertisement to find him. They found each other and my mother went to Greece. The other brother was in Paris, so then she went to Paris and never returned to Mosul. My uncle, Takvor Avedissian, came to Armenia in 1947, but later my mother helped him to move to Los Angeles to reunite the other family members. My mother met my father, Simon Kotchunian, in Paris. Originally he was from Alexandrette, but he moved to France and became a soldier in the French army in Indochina.
