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Artist
Jo Basile
12+ albums
easy listeningfrenchmusettetangolibrary music
about
Jo Basile was the pseudonym of Joss Baselli, accordionist and veteran of the French music scene in the 1950s and 1960s. Basile's parents were Italian emigrants to northern France, part of the large wave of Italians who came to work the coal mines in the Pas de Nord and Belgium. Although his parents ran a cafe, they were also great music enthusiasts, and Baselli began taking music lessons at the age of six. He and his brother Enrico both studied the accordion and, after a few years of serenading patrons in their parents' cafe, began playing on a semi-professional basis by their late teens. After World War Two, Baselli met an accomplished accordion player and pioneer of the bal musette style, Gus Viseur, who encouraged him to pursue a career in music. Baselli moved to Paris in 1950 and several years later, while working a summer job in Pau, near the Spanish border, met the rising young chanteuse, Patachou. She offered him the job of principal accompanist, and as her career took off, rivalling Edith Piaf's in popularity, he became a recognized soloist in his own right. Patachou opened a cafe in the Montmartre section of Paris, which became the center of the bal musette scene. Around the same time, Joss married Gus Viseur's daughter. In 1958, Patachou toured the U.S. and Baselli attracted the attention of Sid Frey, owner of the Audio Fidelity record label. Frey was about to release the first series of long-playing stereo records and was signing numerous international artists.
