When Seahaven resident Emmanuel Serriere started his first French music radio show in 1975, in San Francisco, he only had eight records. “So what?” a friend said to him. “Just ask listeners for music.” Over the next 10 years, Mr. Serriere, who last month started a new French pop music show on KWMR, amassed over 3,000 albums from listeners, music companies and the French consulate (where he met his wife during a visit to acquire some tunes). The KQED show ended in the mid-80s, when he moved to Calaveras County, where he continued his lifelong work in helping those with mental disabilities. But Mr. Serriere, who has owned a home in Inverness since the ‘70s, recently returned to the bayside neighborhood of Seahaven after five years of living in the south of France. “I visited KWMR, and the bug bit me again,” he said. After a few months of training, he started his show, The French Touch. Though many moves over past decades have decimated large portions of his album collection, he hasn’t had trouble finding tunes for the show. “KWMR has a good collection of what they call classics, from the ‘40s and ‘50s. I have lot of ‘70s and ‘80s [music]. And I also know the latest ones, because I just came back from France!” said Mr. Serriere, who is often referred to in Inverness as “The Frenchman,” though he noted there is at least one Frenchman in Tomales and another in the San Geronimo Valley who have called in with requests. Mr. Serriere enjoys contemporary pop singers like Zaz and Louane, but one of his personal favorites is Yves Montand, who died in 1991. “He’s a poet, he’s an activist, and he sings songs about what he believes,” Mr. Serriere said. One of Mr. Montand’s songs, a rendition of the popular French tune “C’est si bon,” is the theme song for The French Touch. “That’s my theme song, because life is good,” he said.
Inverness Frenchman launches pop music show
