French Pop History

  In 1962, the Vogue label held a series of auditions for new singers, with the lucky ones being launched to market via a series of EP releases in the "Contact" series. The generic title was one that the company used for several years for the debut releases by new singers - among other performers to make their debut in this way were girl group Les Gam's (1962) and singers Alain Dumas (1963) and Pascal Danel (1964). Some of them enjoyed moderately long careers (although not necessarily with Vogue) while others were typical "here today, gone tomorrow" ephemeral pop singers. In the summer of 1962 though, Vogue definitely hit the jackpot.   Françoise Hardy had previously auditioned for the Pathé company, who at the time were making good money off the back of the country's second-biggest rock 'n' roll outfit, Les Chats Sauvages. Despite her obvious talent, Pathé rejected her, thinking she was another, probably inferior singer in the vein of Marie-Josée Ne...

  As many music fans of a certain age will know, Johnny Hallyday was the once and future king of rock 'n' roll in France, shooting to stardom in 1960 and staying the course right through to his death in 2017. This extraordinary longevity is often thought to have come at the cost of international success, with many believing that Hallyday deliberately turned his back on an international career in order to remain king at home, but that wasn't quite how it really was... Two years into his career and with his bilingual, million-selling cover of Chubby Checker's "Let's Twist Again" ("Viens danser le twist") still on the French airwaves, Hallyday flew to Nashville in February 1962 to record his first American album with producer Shelby Singleton. The latter arraned for a crack session crew to back the singer, among them pianist Floyd Cramer, saxophonists Boots Randolph and Bill Justis, bassist Bob Moore, drummer Buddy Harman, and guitarists Jerry Kenne...

  The first rock 'n' roll song to make the French charts was, unsurpisingly enough, Bill Haley's "Rock Around The Clock". As elsewhere, it was buoyed by the success of the film "Blackboard Jungle" (titled "Graine de violence" for French consumption), making the top ten best-selling list in "Music Hall" magazine in early 1956. Although French singers and musicians had been covering rhythm'n'blues hits for a couple of years (notably Line Renaud's take on LaVern Baker's "Tweedlee Dee"), the sound of Haley's record still came as a revelation to French audiences, especially when heard blasting out of a cinema screen. As was customary at the time, the French record industry responded to Haley's hit (it peaked at #4 in the spring) by rushing out a host of cover versions, with each label pressing one or more of the house artistes to add the song to their repertoires in an effort to siphon off some of Haley...

French pop singers of the fifties and sixties are often criticised for being reliant on cover versions of overseas hits - in particular those emanating from the UK or the US. While there is some justification in this - after all, many of the yé-yé  singers in particular began their careers by covering the big international hits of the day - the truth is that many singers did rely on their own material (or that of the country's songsmiths). There were far more original French songs around than is generally realised, and a significant number of those went on to find success internationally, including some, like this one, that failed to ring the bell at home. Gilbert Bécaud was one of the big French stars of the fifties. A remarkable performer and a gifted composer (like Elton John, he could not write lyrics and so relied on collaborators to provide lyrics to his songs throughout his career), he had begun his career as part of the backroom team behind Édith Piaf before rocketing ...