MACIAS: SINGER FOR THE DISPOSSESSED

If you go by appearances, Enrico Macias looks like another of those “international” entertainers who are angling for American success. He’s playing the 6,000-seat Universal Amphitheatre Saturday--a step up in size from his previous L.A. dates at the Scottish Rite Auditorium and the Beverly Theatre. The Paris-based singer-composer is also shopping for a U.S. record deal and making plans to record his first album in English.

But Macias, who’s been performing and recording in France since 1962, isn’t just a slick entrant in the Julio Iglesias sweepstakes. His shows here have been marked by intensity and substance, and his musical explorations of the immigrant experience have given him the reputation as “the singer for the dispossessed.”

He comes by that title by hard experience: Macias, an Algerian Jew, was uprooted after that country gained its independence in 1962, and became one of the million refugees who migrated to France.

“It was great pain, a great tragedy for us to build another life,” Macias said in fluent, French-accented English during an interview this week at his publicist’s Beverly Hills office. “To leave our dead people, our families and friends.”

Macias grew up in a musical family in Constantine, Algeria’s third-largest city. His father was a violinist and an expert in traditional Algerian music--a rich blend of Arab and Mediterranean influences. Macias taught himself guitar, and at 15 he joined the orchestra in which his father played. The leader of the orchestra--whom Macias calls “my master and my spiritual father”--was killed in the Algerian war. After moving to France, Macias married his “master’s” daughter.

Macias settled with an uncle in Nice, and there he wrote his first song, “Adieu, Mon Pays” (“Farewell, My Homeland”). Things happened quickly after that. He began singing in nightclubs and was discovered by prominent entertainer Gilbert Becaud, who hired him as an opening act. Becaud’s conductor helped Macias get a record contract, and he recorded “Adieu.”

“In 1962, there was a great television show,” recalled Macias, who looks younger than his 47 years. “A political show, not for show business, and they made a report on all the refugees coming from Algeria. They had not music to cover the reportage, and they said, ‘You know a Blackfeet singing or something?’ Blackfeet is French born in Algeria, like us, refugees. They found my record and they ask me to sing and I sang for the reportage and I was known by all French in 10 minutes. This is how I started.”

With his reputation as the singer for the dispossessed, Macias draws a diverse audience when he plays here. “French people, they know me from France, OK? Other people like me, from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria. They have exactly the same story. They know me since the beginning. I have the Arabs, I have many Armenians, many Greeks, Israelis, many Spanish, Italians--and I sing in all these languages. All these people are united by the same problem. They cut their roots and they have to build new roots in every country.”

Macias’ own roots have remained cut since he left Algeria--he can’t return because he--and his records--are banned in every Arab country except Egypt. “Because of my engagement for Israel, because I am a Zionist,” he explained. But he added that he expects the Algerian government to make a gesture of reconciliation before long.

Macias’ acceptance in Egypt came from the top: President Anwar Sadat invited him to perform there in 1979, as a symbol of Sadat’s new peace treaty with Israel.

“He said first he invited me because his people like me,” said Macias. “But he also said to me, ‘I made peace with Israel, but I want also to make peace with all Jews in all the world, and for the moment you are the representative of these Jews.’ . . . Now, when I think about it, and know that he was killed and all that happened, it is like a dream.”

Macias first performed in America in 1968, but has yet to release a record domestically. He’s casting a cautious eye at the U.S. horizon. “Some people believe in me, and we build a strategy,” he said. “I know it’s very difficult, but I have an audience, I have a potential. . . . I am not impatient. I know how to wait. I don’t want to have success in America very fast, by force.

“I don’t want to be an American singer. I am what I am and I want to be understood. I know people in all the world like authenticity, sincerity, truth. They don’t like something you build like a product. I am not a product.

“I will make new songs especially for America with American lyrics. The authenticity will be kept. The inside of my style will be the same. Maybe the form I can change a little, but I don’t want to hurt what is in my blood and my heart.”