Roger Waters:
« (…) Stephane Grapelli était à côté lorsque nous faisions Wish you were here. Dave a suggéré que nous pourrions rajouter un bout de country à la fin de celle-ci ou que nous pourrions au moins essayer de le faire. Or, Stephane Grappelli était à côté, dans le studio numéro 1, en train de faire un album avec Yehudi Menuhin. Il y avait un australien qui était toujours derrière Grappeli que nous avions rencontré sur une tournée, alors on a pensé qu’on pouvait obtenir la participation de Grappeli. Donc, ils l’ont fait venir, après avoir longtemps discuté à propos de son cachet. Étant un vieux pro, il a essayé de nous avoir, et cela a créé une certaine tension. Mais, c’était merveilleux de l’avoir et qu’il ait joué sur ce morceau ».
Nick Mason :
« Ça, c’est juste fantastique, j’ai eu peur que cela fut perdu. La chose incroyable est que Yehudi Menuhin est aussi là au même moment, mais il n’a jamais voulu venir jouer car il ne se sentait pas d’improviser».
« Pink Floyd announce Massive reissue Project », Rolling Stone, Mai 2011.
Nick Mason:
« Stéphane Grappelli, to some extent, is the jewel in the crown,” says Mason. “The interesting thing is that we were all so convinced that it didn’t exist, that it’s never even been brought out and bootlegged — which would have happened if anyone had known about it. Come on, what else has ever been unearthed? It’s only because it has been in the pharaoh’s tomb for the past 35 years or whatever.The story was that when Stéphane actually put it down on tape, we were, of course, on the 8-track at the time, and so we didn’t have many spare tapes,” Mason recalled. “We had already done them — the backing tracks, stereo, drums, bass, a couple guitars — we didn’t have room for many experiments. So I thought once we weren’t going to actually run it on the record, that it had to be thrown away in order to put down another guitar or something. It’s lovely. I suppose it says a number of things. First of all, it’s wonderfully romantic — just what he plays. It’s sort of French and Gypsy, and it’s also a wonderful sort of fusion thing, because, actually, at the time, there wasn’t that much interplay between jazz and classical and rock ’n’ roll and so on, and to suddenly have one of the great players of the ’30s and ’40s coming in and playing with us … it is really quite moving, even if the music had been pretty average, which it’s not. »
«Why Pink Floyd' campaign sets the controls to the heart of the fan», Goldmine, 16 November 2011
