While clubbers on South Beach were busy grooving to the turntable action of DJs attending Miami’s “Winter Conference,” a few hundred miles further north, Salvatore Adamo held audiences entranced with a very different kind of sound. The romantic ‘chanson’ crooner - who has sold a staggering 90 million records worldwide - stopped off at North Miami Beach Performing Arts Theater as part of his current mini-tour of the States.

Adamo seemed to be taking his international traveller lifestyle firmly in his stride. "After my last show at the Olympia in Paris,” he said, “I went off to perform at Vina Del Mar, a big popular music festival in Chile. Now, after taking a week off to relax in the Bahamas with my wife, we’ve come out to the States to do around ten dates or so, finishing up in San Francisco and Chicago. This is sort of a mini-tour, a way of seeing how the land lies, you know. The dates were fixed up by a Russian tour organiser." The audience at the Performing Arts Theater on North Miami Beach certainly had a big Russian turn-out. The Russian contingent included Natalia, a Muscovite who has been living in Miami for the past 14 years. Natalia confided that she has been a big fan of Adamo's since she was a child, loving his music as much as that of Charles Aznavour, Mireille Mathieu and Joe Dassin. On closer inspection, the audience turned out to be three-quarters Russian – and female – with the other quarter made up of French fans, third-generation Italians and Quebecois (from the large Quebecois community in Miami Beach). Given the over-riding Russian presence, the MC announcing Adamo launched into a lengthy Russian monologue pre-show – from which just about the only thing that could be gleaned by non-Russian speakers was a reference to Tombe la neige (an Adamo classic which has been recorded in no less than 500 versions worldwide!)

Eagerly awaited by all present, Adamo’s eventual entrance on stage was greeted by rapturous applause. The singer smiled his famous crooked smile and, turning to the audience with natural good manners, asked which language they’d prefer him to sing in. Looking dapper and elegant in a smart black suit, white open-necked shirt and matching handkerchief sticking out of his pocket, the crooner slipped suavely into his opening song. Adamo celebrates forty years in the music business this year – and his success is all the more impressive as his forty-year career included classics such as Tombe la neige, Inch’Allah and Vous permettez Monsieur which rocketed to no.1 not just in the French charts, but also in Italy, Spain and Russia. Thus, Adamo had no problems slipping in and out of four different languages in Miami!

Carried away by Adamo’s charismatic stage presence, one particularly overwhelmed fan shouted out a passionate "I love you" at one point – which provoked sympathetic laughter in the crowd. (The Chilean groupie was later found backstage begging for autographs). Adamo remained cool and serene in the face of this passion. A singer who is renowned for being naturally shy in life, he prefers to reveal himself in his songs. The closest he got to addressing the crowd personally was when he dedicated C’est ma vie to the large Québécois contingent in the crowd. (The song was used two years ago as the theme music for a milk advertising campaign in Quebec!) Then there was a reference to Belgium, Adamo recounting how "I left my native Sicily and arrived in Brussels when I was just 3 years old. I wrote the song Bruxelles as a tribute to the city which gave me my big chance in life." Another tribute to Belgium followed with Les filles du bord de mer (a song which Adamo’s compatriot, Arno, recently recorded a rather more raucous punk version of).

Boosted by the fact of being on stage and getting such an enthusiastic reception from the crowd, Adamo broke into a couple of quick dance steps, before inviting the audience to sing along with him. With his voice sounding huskier and hoarser than ever, Adamo crooned the lyrics to one of his most enduring classics - "Z'étaient chouettes les filles du bord de mer," shouting "Spassiva!", "Merci!" "Thank you!" at the end.

While Adamo’s light, romantic side has been made much of throughout his career, the singer has also touched on more serious subject matter in his work. He wrote Le monde a mal after a trip to Kosovo on behalf of UNICEF, introducing the song in Miami by saying he sincerely "regrets that the world goes at such a hectic pace these days that people forget to take time to live!” Adamo also picked up his guitar at one point, paying tribute to the political Russian poet Vladimir Vissotsky, after which he launched into Inch’Allah (written just before the Six Day war). "My requiem for all those millions of souls fallen on both sides," announced the singer, putting his hand on his heart as he ended the song, evidently moved, with the words "Salam, Shalom."

Returning on stage for a final encore Adamo was blinded by the glare of flashbulbs as a formidable crowd of Russian ladies advanced upon the stage, cameras clicking away like crazy. Crooning Laisse tes mains sur mes hanches first in Italian, then Spanish, then French, Adamo bid Miami a final farewell, leaving a whiff of ‘chanson’ nostalgia drifting on the balmy night air.

Biography: C’est sa vie, Thierry Coljon (Editions Le Félin)
Autobiography: Le souvenir du bonheur est encore du bonheur, Salvatore Adamo (Albin Michel)<