My parents love the French popular music of the '60s, '70s, and '80s, and so with my mother's milk I took in melodious lyrical songs in a beautiful foreign language. Finding myself from time to time in French-speaking countries, I hear, each time, those old songs, which still touch the most sensitive strings of the human soul. France has always been famed for its splendid performers. I have chosen ten male singers and five female singers. Why them? On the one hand, I could tell you a little about many other stars of French popular music as well, but I chose these. In any case, each of them is worthy of love and admiration.
francetvinfo.fr / MAX PPP/PHOTOPQR/LE PARISIEN / Frédéric Dugit
5. Julien Clerc
A lover of the work of Édith Piaf and Georges Brassens, Julien Clerc was born on October 4, 1947, in Paris. The singer's real name is Paul-Alain Leclerc, which he changed for a stage name in 1968. The music to all the songs he performs he writes himself. Julien's most popular hits are "Partir" ("To Leave"), "Ce n'est rien" ("It's Nothing"), "Ma préférence" ("My Preference").
My own personal favorite album of the singer's is "Où s'en vont les avions?" ("Where Do the Airplanes Go?"), recorded in September 2008. Light, melodious, deep. There was a time when I listened to it constantly in the car during trips around Tunisia. And I never thought I would manage to get to a concert of his in one of those faraway, exotic countries he had come to on tour. Charming, with an enchanting smile, from the very first chords of the very first song he won over the hall. Among the audience were many French people, who sang along with Clerc. Without holding out much hope for anything, I had brought along to the concert one of the singer's old discs. At the intermission I asked one of the musicians of his band, who had come out on stage and was tuning the equipment, to have the disc signed by the great chansonnier. And — oh, a miracle! The Frenchman did not refuse me; he went off backstage and came back with Julien's autograph. Such small moments of joy are not forgotten for a long time.
INA
4. Michel Sardou
Michel was born in 1947 into a family of aristocrats, but he was quite the rascal. At the age of 16 Sardou meant to run off to Brazil because he did not want to study, but his father managed to head him off. In 1966 Sardou was arrested for not registering for military service, and was sent off to the army for 18 months. In 1967 he wrote a song in support of the United States in the Vietnam War, on account of which the song was pulled from the airwaves at the insistence of Charles de Gaulle himself. Sardou himself was never shy of songs with lyrics touching on sharply social subjects. And all the lyrics he writes himself. Michel has a great number of hits, but in Russia he is not very well known. However, the true connoisseurs of the French chanson have surely heard his hits "Les Lacs du Connemara" ("The Lakes of Connemara"), "Le Java de Broadway" ("The Broadway Java"), and "La Maladie d'amour" ("The Malady of Love").
When I first saw the singer perform on television, I was struck by a certain self-assurance of his, a firmness in the voice, a persuasiveness. It is no accident that his most striking songs turned out to be the social ones, in which, with great talent and musicality, he spoke of the real problems of French society. Although women, surely, prize in him his bewitching smile and his songs about love.
© GEORGES GALMICHE/AFP
3. Michel Delpech
We continue with the "Michels." Delpech toured with concerts around the USSR back in the distant '60s, and so in Russia he is remembered. The Russian listeners, of course, remembered very well his song "Pour un flirt," which is his chief hit. In France he is considered one of the most popular pop singers of the '70s. My favorite album of Michel's I can rightly consider "Le Chasseur" ("The Hunter") of 1974, which contains a great number of his melancholy pieces.
I remember how, while in France, I came home late one evening, on January 2, 2016, after celebrating the New Year at friends', turned on the TV, and saw the terrible news of Michel's death. I was very saddened, since he had not lived to see his "crowning date." In the song "Quand j'étais chanteur" ("When I Was a Singer") he described his life at 73, after a turbulent singing career. He died at 69.
@GIRIBALDI / gala.fr
2. Mike Brant
Among Russian listeners Mike is almost unknown. Brant was an Israeli musician who moved to France. After taking part in the group "The Chocolates," which had been put together by Mike's brother, Brant recorded four mega-hits that melt the hearts of his women admirers to this day (and they are, by the way, already 70 to 75 years old!), thanks to his magical voice and his romantic lyrics. These songs are "Dis-lui" ("Tell Him"), "Qui saura" ("Who Will Know"), "Laisse-moi t'aimer" ("Let Me Love You"), "Rien qu'une larme" ("Only a Tear"). To the misfortune of his fans, he died by suicide at the age of 28, at the height of his fame.
Why did I single him out among several dozen other French singers? To be honest, I don't know. It just occurred to me that in an age of cosmic speeds, of artificial intelligence and internet slavery, it is precisely songs like these that help us not to forget about love, romance, and kindness.
Joe Dassin en 1979. Photo STF/AFP
1. Joe Dassin
I will be giving away no secret if I say that the best-loved French singer in the USSR and in Russia was Joe Dassin. He was born on November 5, 1938, in the USA. His parents came from Odessa; his father was a well-known Hollywood director who, for his progressive views, was forced in the 1950s to leave the States and settle in France, which became for Joe his true homeland. The singer died of a heart attack at the age of 42 in 1980. A year before that he had visited Moscow for the opening of the Cosmos Hotel, where he gave a private concert together with Alla Pugacheva, but he never managed to come for a full tour. L'Été indien ("Indian Summer"), Les Champs-Élysées ("The Champs-Élysées"), Salut ("Hello"), Et si tu n'existais pas ("And If You Didn't Exist"), Le Jardin du Luxembourg ("The Luxembourg Garden") — these are the names of the hits that won the love and recognition of every Russian music lover.
As for me, from my earliest childhood, thanks to my parents, I listened to Joe by whole albums at a time. One of my most beloved became "Les Femmes de ma vie" ("The Women of My Life") of 1978. And then, too, I shall never forget the musical "Il était une fois... Joe Dassin" ("Once Upon a Time There Was Joe Dassin"), which, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the singer's death, in 2010, his children Jonathan and Julien put together. The latter sang the song "Salut" together with his father. Joe from the screen, and Julien from the stage. It was a dialogue between father and son, like an unhurried conversation after a long parting.
"Hello, we are together again, hello, all is wonderful. Time was unable to part us from you again and to eclipse our love." The audience in the Paris hall, the Rex, could not hold back their tears.
Ave France