“For Angela McCluskey and Paul Cantelon
In my heart forever❤️

……………………………………………
The Summer of Rose
It was so hot that summer in Paris, 2003. The days were spent indoors, the little flat on rue Condorcet, in the 9th. Shutters closed, shielding the entry of any sunlight. Hazy, arid siestas. Fans blaring. Cold towels.
It was only in the early evenings we could emerge.
Angela McCluskey and her husband Paul Cantelon, whom I had only rather recently met in NYC, were spending the summer in Paris and this was when we really got to know each other. Quickly we were spending every evening together. We would arrange to meet at aperitif hour, in one of the local cafes just below Montmartre.
The evening light fading, so beautifully, the streets still emanating the heat. There was nothing really to do but order some rose wine, always arriving as it would in the iced metal bucket, white towel. Chilled relief. Paris felt more like Algiers might in a dream.
To know Angela and Paul was like being invited into another world. Even the way they dressed, almost casual royalty: Ang, colorful dresses and flowers in her hair, and not small flowers, orchids; and Paul in his sweeping white coat-tails, long blonde hair. They made heads turn. Paul always brought along his violin case. He called it his ‘Fiddle’ affectionately. As soon as a piano was discovered in one of the cafe’s they seemed visibly drawn to it. Until finally Ang would tell Paul - Well come on then, sit down and let’s play a little tune!
And they would begin to play. Paul twinkling the piano keys, Angela perched on the edge.
The sound of her singing always made everyone in the place stop and pay attention instantly. It would start slowly, but as the music began to speak and unfold it was almost like witnessing a conversation between them, a conversation which had been going on for a long time (Relationships are conversations really). The way Angela sang was enrapturing, overwhelming, vulnerable, delicate and powerful. It wasn’t long before passersby started streaming into the place, hearing the music from the street and wondering what was going on. And then, the best of the repertoire would come. Maybe it would be ‘Don’t Explain’ Billie Holiday or ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’ by Leonard Cohen but when they played in these most intimate of locations and moments, it wasn’t a Leonard Cohen or Billie Holiday song anymore: They owned it. You would never hear the songs in the same way again.
By the end the entire place would be cheering and clapping: Encore!!!!
I was stunned by this. It seemed to me that Angela lived and walked through a world that was primarily made of music. Music followed her. She was the music itself really: A whirlwind musical world, a feeling of being touched by divinity. It was so pure. So vulnerable. Exposed. Ready and willing to be itself. It didn’t need to be anything else.
That same summer in Paris we started collaborating. Playing impromptu gigs in the basements of cafes, Angela was always meeting people. Texting friends to come. By nightfall we would be in some tiny cavern beneath a cafe. She captivated the room, any little dungeon club. She made you realize why you were there. So many songs we worked on. I wrote a song specifically for her called ‘One Last Surprise’ Paul played an incredibly beautiful piano on it. She loved it but maybe in this case, because it was FOR her, she never could quite settle on the words. It remains unfinished, still awaiting her part, and yet she is in it, utterly. I call it ‘You missed a great night’ sometimes, because back in NYC that was what she might tell me the next day, after the rare evening wherein I had not gone out.
You missed a great night
Our senses of humor coalesced as well. Paul and Angela took to calling me ‘Sonny’ as if I was their adopted son. This also was a sort of improv theater. They loved that I would just play along without batting an eyelash. Paul and I, giggling wildly at the reactions people would have. Because it wasn’t just a statement, we would spontaneously play roles, sometimes he would be lambasting me as his son, a runaway he had to pay bills for. Or enacting other wild stories with strangers. Life with the two of them was always like entering a wondrous theater where there was a fine line between reality and farce, raw emotion and acting. Essentially every moment was a creative moment.
Later on, a few years later, we’d be back in Paris playing at Elysee Montmartre with Carla Bruni. Huge celebrity crowds. No rehearsals, none needed. On stage with them, magic. Angela always met people, everywhere she went. I think because of the music she always brought into peoples lives. Once you were a part of it that new reality was intoxicating. I was just a willing accomplice.
Sonny.
She would sometimes say to me: Well, darling I just sing because when I was young I found out I have this wee voice, I don’t know where I got it from! But you, she would tell me, you are a real artist even if you don’t know it.
I know it, she would say. And I am going to make sure you know it, too”

- Scott McCloud