At age 22, Andy Madadian fled Iran with nothing, moved to Los Angeles and started playing guitar at nightclubs to pay rent.<\/p>\n
Now 63, the internationally celebrated pop singer says he\u2019s ready for another \u201cnew beginning\u201d: Madadian is getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the first Iranian artist to earn the honor.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany people may wonder: would you have a new beginning after 14 albums?\u201d Madadian said days before the ceremony unveiling his groundbreaking star. \u201cBut to me it\u2019s new \u2026 because a lot of Americans are just discovering me and my music. I\u2019m hoping this Hollywood star will open some doors. We have a lot of great Iranian artists here in LA, and the western world has not discovered them yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes nicknamed the \u201cPersian Bono\u201d or \u201cPersian Elvis\u201d, the Iranian-Armenian American artist is being honored on the Hollywood Boulevard sidewalk on Friday, after two tumultuous weeks of escalating conflict between Tehran, where he was raised, and the US, the country he has called home for decades.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a very difficult position to be in as an Iranian American artist, because whatever I produce is for my people \u2013 my American people, my Iranian people, my Armenian people,\u201d he said on a recent afternoon, seated inside a bakery in Encino in the San Fernando Valley, not far from his home. \u201cUnfortunately, all of them are in some kind of a clash.\u201d<\/p>\n
Madadian grew up 7,000 miles away in Iran\u2019s capital, in a neighborhood home to many Armenians. Born in 1956, he shared a single room with his parents, grandmother and five siblings, and for much of his early childhood, the family didn\u2019t have any electricity or running water. \u201cBut we had love and music,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n
He excelled in math in school and some expected him to go into economics, but he always knew he would be a musician. His dad, who worked in road construction, helped him take out a loan to buy a guitar from a neighbor when he was 14 years old, and Madadian quickly started playing gigs with other singers to pay off the debt.<\/p>\n
While others around him were interested in Iranian music, Madadian took a liking to British and American rock, falling in love with Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Rod Stewart, Kansas and Chicago. \u201cI was much more rebellious,\u201d he said. Ray Charles was his vocal idol. A CBS recording branch in Iran discovered him when he was about 22 and helped him record a song he wrote in English, with plans to pitch him as an \u201cIranian Rod Stewart\u201d given his similar raspy voice.<\/p>\n
Enthralled with American-style music, Madadian knew he wanted to move to the US. But when he finally came to America, it wasn\u2019t just to pursue his dreams. When the revolution broke out in 1979, many were forced to flee, and Madadian lost contact with the producers who had recorded the single. (\u201cMaybe it\u2019s better it didn\u2019t come out, because my English was not good.\u201d)<\/p>\n