According to the legend of the Dassin family, they owe their American surname to Joe Dassin’s grandfather, barber Samuel, who emigrated from Odessa to the USA at the beginning of the 20th century, without knowing a word in English. When asked what his name was, he thought that they wanted to know where he had come from and said in Yiddish: “ik bin fun Odessen”. The immigration officer recorded it as he heard it – Dassin.
Many considered Joe Dassin a Frenchman, but a sensitive French ear can discern a subtle American accent in his songs.
A native American, with ancestors from Ukraine, essentially cosmopolitan, fluent in four languages, singing songs in French, English, German, Spanish, Italian and Greek, he always strove for success in his short life, relying only on oneself, in spite of the fact that he was born into the family of the famous director Jules Dassin and could deny himself nothing.
Before the world fame came to Dassin, he managed to work as a garbage man, a dishwasher, a bartender, a truck driver, a home delivery man, a presenter on the RTL channel, an author at Playboy, a successful novelist and an actor.
He did not like to pick low-hanging fruit; Joe was attracted to compete with oneself. The first musical experiments were unsuccessful, he was even advised not to sing anymore, but this only excited Dassin, and as a result he achieved his goal – 20 million discs in 15 years. This enumeration could still continue, were it not for the heart attack that interrupted his career and life on the rise, - wrote Boris Lozhkin on Facebook.
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