📖 Marcel Dadi Biography
The exceptional journey of the French picking master
🎭 The Artist
His audience, now of all ages and clearly knowledgeable, is in mourning because when they traveled to attend his concerts, they never regretted dedicating an evening to him. Because beyond his fantastic virtuosity, he possessed a rare gift: humor.
Always dry-witted, he maintained privileged relationships with his audience. Alone on stage, he would tell stories between pieces, explain things, and wielded humor and self-deprecation. With many artists, this kind of digression is often barely tolerable. Here it was quite the opposite: we always wanted more.
His fame went far beyond our borders as his records were released in the USA, England, Germany, South Africa, Spain, Italy, Israel, etc.
🌟 Recognition in Nashville - Star alongside the legends:
Merle Travis Doc Watson Chet Atkins Jerry ReedWhen he returned from Nashville on that fateful July 17, 1996, he had received the crowning achievement of his career by being the only French artist to receive a star on the Walk of Fame alongside the greatest.
Surely he must be "jamming" with some of them now. We are left with his records and the memory of a man with an extraordinary journey.
📚 His Story
Marcel DADI was born in Sousse, Tunisia. On August 20, 1951, he was only three years old when his parents returned to France to live in the Paris region.
At ten years old he began to strum his brother Michel's six-string, who had founded the "Hornets" after the "Crackers" disbanded for lack of instruments. To make things complete, Marcel gathered a bunch of friends from the southern suburbs of Paris two years later (André ASSOULINE, Joseph ILLOUZ, and Maurice LEVY) to perform SHADOWS songs.
At twelve years old, Marcel played on stage for the first time with a patched-up electric guitar under the Kiravi tent (wine brand name). Supreme moment, his band won a prize despite the performance of his brother's group who played SHADOWS songs better than them.
Then came the Rock'n Roll wave, he abandoned instrumental music to borrow from the repertoires of the BEATLES, KINKS, STONES and other YARDBIRDS. For the record, he was already dissecting the licks of McCARTNEY, Brian JONES and CLAPTON. The latter was quite surprised to find a fine connoisseur of his technique when he stayed at Marcel's place a few years later.
🎸 Discovering Picking
At the same time, he discovered another particular style, Folk, embodied by HUGUES AUFFRAY, singing his friend Bob DYLAN. All this mixture would find its convergence with the meeting of Bernard PHOTZER.
Bernard PHOTZER was probably the first professional guitarist he encountered. He played at the Club des Chemises Rouges in Orly. His equipment made Marcel dream - imagine, a Jazzmaster plugged into a Vox!! He played Nashville style and for the first time Marcel saw fantastic sounds coming out by pulling the strings with his left hand.
It was PHOTZER who first taught him Elvis techniques and repertoire as well as the first Picking techniques.
🎯 The Chet Atkins Revelation
Marcel met Bernard LAUX around age thirteen. With him, he discovered DYLAN's style, and tried to reproduce the banjo sounds of Harry (an American) who played with Hugues AUFFRAY. It was also Bernard LAUX who explained to him that an American artist produced both bass and melody in his pieces. This unknown artist was called Chet ATKINS!!!
To support his demonstration he played him a title taught by a certain... Bernard PHOTZER. To satisfy his friend, Bernard L. recorded one day, on a tape recorder some Chet ATKINS titles from the albums he owned.
Immediately seduced by this great guitarist's playing, Marcel spent months reproducing every detail of the recordings. This was for Marcel a true revelation and a passion that would grip him until his tragic disappearance.
🌟 The Creative Obsession
This passion would transform into a true obsession when PHOTZER introduced him, two years later, one after another to:
Bernard P. even sold him for the symbolic sum of one hundred francs (on credit) his entire collection saying: "you will make better use of it than me". Marcel was approaching sixteen. He was already a confirmed instrumentalist and a talented composer. The road to success opened before him.
In 1970, the year of his Baccalaureate, Marcel played at Lionel ROCHEMAN's Hootenanny at the American Center on a Martin freshly and hardly acquired. After a duo with Jean-Eric CHABERT, he played alone in front of an audience for the first time. It was a true Ovation that accompanied his performance. Lionel R. then proposed that he teach his style at the Folk Center.
But music being a rather random art financially, Marcel's parents forced him to get a physiotherapy degree. Rather mediocre in music theory, he ingeniously reinvented the tablature system, until that day in 1971 when Robert GRETSH coldly told him that this system had existed for centuries and was widely used in American specialized press.
Marcel then set out to find these precious works which also had the advantage of giving good place to his masters ATKINS and TRAVIS.
📈 Success and the Method
With the meeting of the CHARNOZ brothers and the import of instruments (and associated equipment), Marcel slowly emigrated to the FOLK CENTER of Quincampoix. Rapidly, the success of DADI's teaching confronted him with availability problems. He then decided to publish his method.
In early 1972, Marcel contacted Jacques VASSAL, folk world specialist at the "Rock&Folk" store. Together they would convince KOECHLIN and PARIGAUX to dedicate pedagogical pages in their magazine using the method developed by Marcel.
🏆 World First
It was in March 1972, that for the first time in the world, individual guitar teaching in tablature form, following a rigorous method, appeared in a rock magazine.
We know that the idea has been widely adopted since, and not only in France. It was also at this time that Marcel was offered to record an album that would be released in January 1973 under the title "La Guitare à Dadi".
It was the beginning of another success. And another story...
📍 Guitar Pickers Association
Guitar Pickers Association perpetuates the memory and teaching of Marcel Dadi. Discover our association, our activities and our community of enthusiasts.