Gypsy Queens interview: from the Côte d'Azur to the stars After who knows what negotiations, the deal was duly signed, and the group's debut album is released on December 10. Produced by Larry Klein (studio mentor for the likes of Madeleine Peyroux, Walter Becker and Melody Gardot, as well as being the former Mr Joni Mitchell), the album is a slick cross-section of the Queens" crowd-pleasing repertoire. With songs in French, Spanish, Italian and English, there's something for everyone, from Malagueña to Volare, while Klein's prestige secured the services of Graham Nash for the Crosby, Stills and Nash song Marrakesh Express, a couple of members of America on their 1972 hit Ventura Highway, and Ms Peyroux on L'Americano. "Larry brought us a professionalism buskers don't usually have," says Didi. Usually we just we get people going. On the record, we play the guitar properly. Buskers they may be, but this isn't a bunch of guys bashing away for a few coins. They play 200-odd gigs a year, from private parties and events across Europe, to the US and Russia. Prince Albert of Monaco is a patron, and sometimes plays drums with them. They've played parties for Prince Harry ("a cool guy, not uptight at all," according to Mexican percussionist Manuel Polin), hymned Bill Murray and Huey Lewis at St Andrews golf course, and performed for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, probably for the last time in the light of Armstrong's fall from grace. It was in Nice's discreetly chic restaurant La Petite Maison that they met and performed for, and with, Rod Stewart and Elton John. Bono, who owns a house at Èze, often pops in, too. It's here that the group perform on my night out in Nice, and, by a happy accident, tonight's star guests are actors Richard E Grant and Jude Law. Without missing a beat, the Gypsy Queens cluster around their table and launch into L'Americano, the tune Law and Matt Damon sang in The Talented Mr Ripley. Law cheerfully claps along and joins in. For good measure, the group chuck in Sweet Caroline and Barbara Ann. Sceptics might dismiss the Gypsy Queens (a joke name that stuck) as a band of mercenaries fawning over the rich and famous for money, and it's an accusation they're alert to. Bassist Jason King, who first came to Nice from Brighton as a member of The Wonderfuls, protests: "We don't play for celebs every day. Half the time we're playing for normal people just having a party. If you play as often as we do, eventually you meet the right people. The Gypsy Queens have evolved over a dozen years or so, from the days when Italian-born Didi first got together with fellow-busker Phil Jones (a lanky Californian with a hint of Harry Dean Stanton about him) in the Nice flower market. Didi saw that "with the sort of success we were having on the street, we could take this to a further level." Focused, driven and a ferociously hard worker (and networker), Didi assembled a solid band around him, now completed by US saxophonist Jay Metcalf and Norwegian guitarist Anders Klunderud. With their album and record deal, they're about to leap into the unknown, and the group are ambivalent about leaving their comfortable set-up in the quest for the mysterious "next level." But if it all falls to pieces, you suspect that Didier Casnati will not be short of options. "The fame, the money, it'll happen if it has to," he shrugs. If it doesn't, I have contingency plans. The Gypsy Queens' self-titled album is out on December 10