Algerian musician who immigrated to Turkey: Who is Juanito?
In the 1970s, when the arrangement fashion faded away and was replaced by the "Anatolian Pop" movement, he went to France in 1971 and started working as a taxi driver. While there, he contracted throat cancer in 1981 and lost his voice.
Juanito is a French musician of Algerian origin, born in Tunisia in 1936. Many European musicians went to Turkey in the 1960s, when Turkish pop music began to emerge. Some of them only gave a few concerts and left, some of them also recorded Turkish records in Turkey, and some of them stayed there for short and long periods. One of those who stayed for a long time was Juanito.
Juanito, who first went to Izmir for 2 weeks with the Los Alcorson ensemble in October 1965 and started working at the Mogambo club, chose to stay in Turkey when his orchestra returned to Spain three months later.
The singer, who learned Turkish in a short time, considered this country as his second home. Juanito, who is a sympathetic person, has gained a wide circle of friends in Turkey. He recorded many European songs, especially those written in Turkish by Fecri Ebcioğlu and Ümit Yaşar Oğuzcan, with his soulful voice.
His first single, "The Guardian", was a Ramon Cabrera composition. On the back of the record was an arrangement called "You Are My Friend's Love" (In Turkish, Arkadaşımın Aşkısın). This was the Turkish version of Enrico Macias' composition "La Femme de Mon Ami". His records have sold hundreds of thousands of copies and his concerts have been packed. He settled in Istanbul upon the offer he received from Fahrettin Aslan, Turkey's "King of Music Halls" at that time. In the 1970s, when the arrangement fashion faded away and was replaced by the "Anatolian Pop" movement, he went to France in 1971 and started working as a taxi driver. While there, he contracted throat cancer in 1981 and lost his voice.