Wally Badarou

Keyboardist, composer and producer Wally Badarou has also been a member of the group Level 42 and recorded on his own, appearing on numerous recordings, notably those made at the Compass Point studio in Nassau (Bahamas). Born in Paris on March 22, 1955, he began by collaborating with artists such as Miriam Makeba, The Gibson Brothers and Robin Scott aka M on the synthetic hit "Pop Muzik " (1979), before recording his debut album Back to Scales To-Night (1980), and joining the team at Nassau's Compass Point studio, run by Island Records founder Chris Blackwell. Alongside Jamaican musicians including rhythm tandem Sly & Robbie, Wally Badarou took part in sessions with Grace Jones, Charlélie Couture, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Gregory Isaacs, Joe Cocker, Black Uhuru, Gwen Guthrie, Marianne Faithfull, Tom Tom Club and Robert Palmer, alongside his work with British jazz-funk group Level 42, with whom he recorded a dozen albums between the first in 1981 and Forever Now in 1994. Playing a wide range of keyboards, from piano to computer, he released the 1983 album Echoes, among other collaborations with Manu Dibango, Mick Jagger, Julio Iglesias, Talking Heads, Melissa Etheridge, Alain Chamfort and Salif Keita. In 1989, under the artistic direction of Jean-Paul Goude, he produced La Marche des Mille for the commemoration of the bicentenary of the French Revolution. The same year saw the release of the album Words of a Mountain. Later, Wally Badarou diversified his activities into theater and cinema, having contributed to the soundtracks of the films Countryman (1982) and Kissof the Spider Woman (1985). In 2009, he returned to music with the album Fisherman, followed by several isolated tracks. In 2012, the musician joined the Sacem board of directors.

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