Alain Peters

One of the leading exponents of maloya, a traditional musical genre sung in Reunionese Creole, Alain Péters was born in Saint-Denis (Reunion Island) on March 10, 1952. Introduced to music by his father, he learned to play guitar and, at the age of thirteen, joined Jules Arlanda's orchestra, which took him on a tour of the island's dances. A member of several bands in the early 1970s, including Les Lords and Pop-Décadence, he joined René Lacaille's Caméléon in 1975 and ventured into progressive rock with Satisfaction. Torn between his two musical cultures, maloya on the one hand and rock on the other, Alain Péters created his own style and took part in the development of the collective project Chante Albany, dedicated to the texts of the Reunionese poet Jean Albany. In 1979, he founded a new group called Carrousel, which recorded the album La Vie Est Un Mystère three years later. Ready for a solo career, Alain Péters released his first solo single, "L'tonton Alfred", and worked with producer Jean-Marie Pirot on the album Mangé pou le Cœur (1985), from which "Romance pour un zézère" is taken. However, undermined by alcoholism, he spent several periods in the Saint-Paul asylum and left to seek treatment in Toulon. Brought to Paris by one of his friends, he wrote the songs "Rest' la maloya" and "Dan' Vavangues", which were recorded in the Montreuil studio of former Caméléon partner Loy Ehrlich. Back on Réunion, Alain Péters gave two concerts before dying of a heart attack on July 12, 1995, at the age of 43. The compilation Parabolér (1998), produced by his friends and followed by Vavanguèr (2008) and Rest' la Maloya (2015), was released in his honor.