The first yé-yé girl?

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American singer April March once famously claimed that yé-yé was the best music that there is, which might be overstating it although there is no denying the music's considerable appeal. For all that though, there is considerable debate about what yé-yé actually is - a problem compounded by the fact that the term has become decidedly elastic over time. There are plenty of things that yé-yé is not - a mix of French chanson with rock 'n' roll, for example. Strictly speaking, yé-yé is not even uniquely French - there were yé-yé singers in other French speaking countries such as Belgium, Switzerland and - to a lesser extent - Canada, and a healthy yé-yé scene developed in Spain as well. Nor is yé-yé an exclusively, or even mainly, female phenomenon; there were plenty of male yé-yé singers too, from Richard Anthony and even Johnny Hallyday on through Frank Alamo and Hervé Vilard to lesser-known but still worthy names such as Jamy Olivier or Michel Paje. Still, to the wider world of record collectors, it is the yé-yé girls of the sixties - Sylvie Vartan, France Gall, Sheila etc - who stand out as the most enduring representatives of the yé-yé era. But who was the first yé-yé girl?

Female singers had been dabbling with rock 'n' roll style material in France since the mid-fifties when Line Renaud covered LaVern Baker's "Tweedlee Dee" (1955) and actress Magali Noël recordeed Boris Vian's deathless "Fais-moi mal, Johnny" (1956). However, the first chanteuse to properly get to grips with the material was probably the Egyptian-born star Dalida, whose Italianesque accent and love of exotic material had made her the biggest star in the French firmament in 1957. Having shot to the top of the back of a string of hits of Italian origin, at the end of 1958 she switched tack and had a go at The Shepherd Sisters' "Alone", rendering it in French as "Je pars" and landing a monster hit over the winter. While Dalida would never hitch her fortunes exclusively to one style, she dabbled in further rock 'n' roll-styled covers over the next few years, including Paul Anka's "You Are My Destiny" ("Tu m'étais destiné"), The Teddy Bears' "Oh Why" ("Mon amour oublié"), Floyd Robinson's "Makin' Love" ("T'aimer follement"), Brian Hyland's "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini" ("Itsi bitsi, petit bikini"), The Drifters' "Save The Last Dance For Me" ("Garde-moi la dernière danse") and, best of all, Bobby Darin's "Dream Lover" ("J'ai rêvé").

Dalida was a hugely charismatic singer and a major teen idol in the immediate pre-rock 'n' roll era, but although she retained a large and loyal following across the following three decades (and beyond!), her exotic image and essentially adult approach mean that she does not quite fit the mold when looking for the origins of the yé-yé evolution. A better suggestion might be English singer Petula Clark, whose own version of "Alone" had been blown out of French waters by Dalida's cover (as had her version of Jodie Sands' "With All My Heart", which Dalida recorded as "Gondolier"). In an effort to stop Dalida from stealing more of her hits, Clark's record company suggested she begin recording in French, arranging a trip to Paris where Clark fell in love with her local publicist, prompting her to abandon her London home and set up a new career as a singer in France. 

Clark had been a child star in the UK during the forties and although popular enough during the fifties, she had never quite managed to put together a string of hits - like many child stars, she found it difficult to get audiences to accept her new, grown-up image. Her early French releases marketed her in an adult fashion - monochrome images, middle of the road material, even a duet with crooner Claude Robin - although the uptempo material she began to slip into sessions eventually found her a younger audience who could (almost) accept her as one of their own. From French adaptations of her own material like "Baby Lover" ("Mon coeur danse avec la chance") to covers of hits like Adam Faith's "What Do You  Want" ("Moi j'préfère l'amour à tout ça") or Ricky Nelson's "Hello Mary Lou" ("Bye bye mon amour"), Clark carved out an audience among the young who were just beginning to fall at the feet of rock 'n' roll. She even took on Elvis with this string-swept cover.. 

While she would retain her following through the decade, and would make any number of records that absolutely qualify as yé-yé releases, Petula Clark's advanced age (she was 27 at the dawn of the sixties) meant that she didn't exactly qualify as a yé-yé girl either. Dalida and Petula Clark undoubtedly paved the way for the female singers who followed, but the first true yé-yé girl was probably another Biritsh expatriate, one who not only the had looks and the talent to carry it off but also had age on her side.

As noted in Peter Doggett's excellent book Growing Up: Sex In The Sixties, Gillian Hills was only 14 when she was spotted by filmmaker Roger Vadim in 1958. Like Dalida, Hills had been born in Egypt and was being educated in France when she ran into Vadim and, impressed by his smile, sent him some photos. Touted in the press as "the new Brigitte Bardot" (and this only two years after Bardot shot to fame in Et Dieu... créa la femme), she was briefly considered for a role in Dangerous Liaisons before her mother put her foot down and forced Vadim to accept that she was too young to groom for stardom. Hills and her mother returned to the UK but Hills was hooked and determined to set about an acting career. Within a year would be shocking audienes with her definitely sexy performances in the Adam Faith film vehicle Beat Girl, which, building on the appeal of Vladimir Nabokov's novel "Lolita", established the young actress (now all of 16) as a star.

From there, it was back to France where Hills caught the attention of bandleader turned record mogul Eddie Barclay, who saw enough in her abilities to imagine she could become a new style teenage idol if marketed as a singer. After all, if Petula Clark could have a career in France, surely a younger model could be successful too. And so in the summer of 1960, Hills embarked upon a singing career, firstly adding breathy vocal interjections to the old-fashioned Norman Maine cha cha "Près de la cascade") and then teaming up with expatriate American singer and actor Eddie Constantine for some equally hackneyed duets. None of this can remotely be considered to be yé-yé and if it were not for Hills' involvement, it is unlikely that anybody would be interested in these records today. It was only on her first solo EP, issued in October 1960, that she began to mark out the distinctive style that would become known as yé-yé. 

As usual for the time, the record mixed original tunes from French industry insiders with covers drawn from American sources. Of the former, "Cou-couche panier" was a catch and effective tune also recorded by Eurovision-winner Jacqueline Boyer but it was the on-the-nail cover of Jo Ann Campbell's "Kookie Little Paradise" ("Le paradise pour toi") and the daring "Ma première cigarette" (adapted from a seemingly-unreleased US original, "Smokin' My First Cigarette") which marked Hills out as - well, different from the rest. At a time when most French singers earned their spurs on stage before venturing into a studio, Hills was a refreshing break with tradition, parlaying a youthful, sex-kitten image, a knowing smile and a bright, engaging personality into a recording career based not on the chansons and accordions of old but on something new and defiantly young. "Le paradis pour toi" might have had a touch of Dalida's exotica about it - a tendency enhanced by the promotional Scopitone video - but it also offered a breath of fresh air to a young audience seeking stars of their own to follow. The record was not a big hit - at least, judging by how difficult it is to obtain today - but it laid down a marker for the future.

Hills' first two records for 1961 continued this uneasy blend of old and new, mixing tunes penned by the likes of Charles Aznavour (who would be responsible for penning any number of yé-yé hits during the early sixties) with covers of material ranging from Sophia Loren's "Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo" ("Zou bisou bisou") to Bobby Rydell's "Good Time Baby" ("Allons dans les bois"), the latter of which absolutely set the template of the music we now know as yé-yé, although Hills was beaten to the punch by a rival (and slightly earlier) version by Richard Anthony. By the end of the year, she had her style down pat, dropping the last trappings of exotica and emerging from the chrysalis as a fully-formed yé-yé butterfly with superb covers of Helen Shapiro's "Walking Back To Happiness" ("Je reviens vers le bonheur") and The Shirelles' "Mama Said" ("En dansant le twist"). 

Hills's rise had not come without its mis-steps. Earlier in 1961, she had been booked to provide the female vocal reponse to Frankie Jordan on a cover of Floyd Robinson's "Out Of Gas" ("Panne d'essence"). Hills pulled out at the last minute, so the gig went instead to producer and arranger Eddie Vartan's sister, with the resultant smash hit vaulting the newly-emerged Sylvie Vartan to stardom. Still, things worked both ways. When actress Dany Saval was unable to team up with the country's leading (and best) rock 'n' roll outfit Les Chaussettes Noires for the soundtrack of the film Les Parisiennes, Hills stepped up to the plate to duet with the band's frontman, Eddy Mitchell on the exuberant "C'est bien mieux comme ça" (another Aznavour co-write), which went on to become the biggest hit of her career.

Somewhat suprisingly, Hills opted not to capitalise on this success, spending most of 1962 on modelling assignments and not entering the recording studio again until the spring of 1963. Seeking greater control over her recordings, she set herself to writing songs, penning all four of the songs on her "comeback" EP. Although the sound was still of a piece with the yé-yé recordings of her past - a sound which was now dominating the teenage pop marketplace - the record was a remarkably mature effort from a singer who was still only nineteen years old. Hills' seductive appeal was still put to good use on the attractive cover photo (something that makes collecting yé-yé records so much fun today) but witihn the grooves was the sound of a singer very much in tune with the times that were a-changing...

Issued in the sumnmer of 1963, the record sold comfortably if unspectacularly, with Hills' lengthy absence from the airwaves having left her far behind the triumphant Sylvie Vartan, Sheila and Françoise Hardy, all of whom owed a little something to Hills' pioneering efforts. Later in the year, she recorded "Une petite tasse d'anxiété", a duet with Serge Gainsbourg - his first yé-yé composition - that has frustratingly never been released commercially on record or CD, although the pair did film a video for televison use...

It could have been the start of a near perfect relationship but instead, Gainsbourg went off to write hits for France Gall, to win Eurovision, write the score for the teleflm Anna and then craft a series of pop smashes for Brigitte Bardot, for Jane Birkin and for himself. Hills meanwhile cut a final EP for Barclay, with the results surfacing in January 1964. Again, all four tracks were self-penned but sales were disappointing. A switch to the Disc AZ label in 1965 saw her covering The Zombies' "Leave Me Be" ("Rentre sans moi") and The Lollipops' "Busy Signal" ("Tut tut tut tut") but Hills was by now tired of playing the pop star. She returned to the UK, when she cut a final record (1966's "Tomorrow Is Another Day") before returning to acting with a role alongside David Hemmings and Jane Birkin in Michelangelo Antonioni's Swinging London classic Blow-Up. Further film roles followed, including one in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange before she walked away from the industry and relocated to the US to work as a book and magazine illustrator. 

All in all, it had been quite an interesting career. While film buffs still look fondly on her work in Beat Girl and Blow-Up, it is probably her recordings that attract the greatest interest today. "Zou bisou bisou" was used on the soundtrack to the hit TV series Mad Men, while "Tut tut tut tut" found its way into the Netflix series The Queen's Gambit. In 2018 she was tempted out of retirement to make some new recordings, culminating in the 2021 album LiLi. Her classic French recordings continue to be reissued, and as international interest in the yé-yé era continues to grow, Hills' pioneering work as the very first yé-yé girl of all continues to find a new audience. 

You can read more about Gillian Hills and the other performers menitioned on this post - and much more besides - in my newly-released book. Feel free to grab a copy here: BOOK