Le twist du Père Noël

 

Christmas, 1961. The rock 'n' roll wave that had finally broken over France the previous year had gone from strength to strength and the onset of twist-mania at the end of the year had helped to cement its place in the French musical firmament - even parents were happy to get out on the dancefloor to do the twist. The yé-yé explosion was just around the corner. Everywhere, it seemed that the new teenage music was in the ascendant. Everywhere except, so far, the world of Christmas music.

Christmas in France was synonymous with Tino Rossi, a star since the thirties whose 1946 festival offering "Petit Papa Noël" had been a hit not just that year but every year since, making the transition from 78 to EP without even pausing for breath. The biggest commercial success of Rossi's career and the biggest selling French record ever, it was (and is) to the French what Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" was (and is) to Americans - inescapable, ever-present and in a sense, the spirit of Christmas. Most young rock 'n' roll fans had grown up with it, and either loved it or loathed it for that reason but they had to admit, it wasn't Christmas without it. The only problem was, well, to be brutally honest, it didn't rock, it didn't roll and above all, you couldn't twist to it...

There had been other Christmas records in the intervening years. Some of them were original French songs, some were revivals of old festive favourites, some - like Line Renaud's 1956 winner "J'ai vu Maman embrasser le Père Noël", were covers of American hits (in her case, Jimmy Boyd's "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". There had been revivals of Rossi's finest hour by Eddie Constantine (1956), by Yvette Giraud (1959) and by exotica queen Dalida (1960); there had even been covers of Bing Crosby's hardy perennial, reworked into French as "Noël blanc" by the likes of Paulette Rollin (1954), Patrice et Mario (1958) and - her again - Dalida (1960). However, enjoyable as all of these were, none of them even remotely threatened to knock Tino Rossi off his throne as the king of Christmas - and none of them were any use to twisters either. 

What young rock 'n' roll fans - and twist fans - needed, badly, was a Christmas song in their own style, and by 1961, it seemed that the music industry agreed. Johnny Hallyday was too busy teaching the French how to twist but his main rival, Richard Anthony, took time out from twisting to lay down four tracks for a Christmas EP, launched to market as the winter began to close in. Wisely avoiding "Petit Papa Noël" (the cuddly, family-friendly rocker was already being unfairly tagged as "the Tino Rossi of twist"), he did nevertheless tackle the old German favourite "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht" (best-known to anglophones as "Silent Night", as recorded by - yep, him again - Bing Crosby) in a French adaptation as "Douce nuit" (as had Dalida the previous year). The rest of the EP was more promising though - three original French tunes that made comparisons irrelevant. "Dis-moi pourquoi Noël" and "Noël pour notre amour" were decent enough, although neither was particularly memorable, but the final track, "C'est à Bethléem" had a decent enough rhythm that was suitable for dancing. It wasn't exactly hard-edged rock 'n' roll but then, Anthony had never been a died in the wool rocker anyway, so that wasn't altogether surprising. 

What was surprising was that to all intents and purposes, the record was a complete flop. Admittedly, Anthony had two big selling EPs on the market at the time, turbo-charged by covers of Chubby Checker's "Let's Twist Again" (in English) and Ray Charles' "Hit The Road, Jack!" ("Fick' le camp Jack"), but there were only so many records that his fans could afford to buy. Still, he was one of the biggest selling stars of the era and a consistent hit-maker for two years, so presumably his label, Columbia, had high hopes for the record. Yet it failed to catch fire and is today one of the hardest of Anthony's EPs to find. For the reasons why, we need to look across town to the rival Barclay label.

Les Chaussettes Noires - the first real rock 'n' roll band that France had produced - had enjoyed a very good year. Since scoring a hit with their very first release (a cover of Joe Jones' "You Talk Too Much" titled "Tu parles trop") they had unleashed three further EPs, enjoying tremendous sales across the course of the year to establish themselves - and in particular, frontman Eddy Mitchell - alongside Johnny Hallyday as the country's most popular rock 'n' rollers. What better way to finish the year, thought label boss Eddie Barclay, than with a Christmas release? Even better, how about one that also tapped into the twisting sounds that were now sweeping the country? And so the band set to work, with the results popping onto the market in November.

Perhaps with one eye on potential post-Christmas sales, the label only put three Christmas songs onto the EP, with the fourth "Vivre sa vie" being a cover of Cliff Richard and the Shadows' "Gee Whizz It's You". The other three were all sufficiently festive to make up for it, with some of the country's finest songsmiths providing the band with some top drawer material. "Noël en France", composed by Georges Garvarentz with lyrics from Jacques Plante, was perhaps the least memorable of the three but the other two were solid gold classics. 

Any Scots living in France would have found something naggingly familiar in the tune of "Noël de l'an dernier", adapted as it was from from the classic Hogmanay favourite "Auld Lang Syne", although surely it had never been performed like this. A solid rocking beat underpinned the band's arrangement, with Mitchell delivering a custom-built lyric from Jean-Paul Vignon in suitably emphatic fashion. An instant radio favourite, the song also lit up a thousand teenage parties and helped the record to power up the charts, leaving Richard Anthony's efort in the starting blocks. And yet....

Good as it was, even this Yuletide winner was overshadowed by the track that kicked off the record's second side. Again crafted for the band by Georges Garvarentz, "Le twist du Père Noël" more than filled Eddie Barclay's request for a Christmas twist. Custom-built for the band of rockers, the song fizzed and popped as hard as any of the year's rock 'n' roll hits, but was firmly anchored in the twisting rhythm that had seemingly taken the country by storm just a few weeks earlier. With Mitchell delivering the lyric in a voice that seemed to cross Elvis Presley with Gene Vincent, albeit filtered through Mitchell's Parisian accent, the result was an instant classic, a massive hit that both cornered the Christmas market that year and more than confirmed the band's early promise. 

The band would stick with the twist for their next few releases before reverting back to their rock 'n' roll roots later in 1962. Military service would subsequently sap the band of their strength and unity and late in 1963 Mitchell would depart for solo career. The band soldiered on for another year but it was never the same and by the end of 1964 it was all over. Eddy Mitchell maintained a high profile throughout the sixties before fading away and then returning, bigger than ever, in 1974. He remains one of the country's most prominent vocalists and, with the passing of all of his best-known rivals, is now the last man standing of the French rock 'n' roll revolution. And his - or rather the band's - Christmas EP remains a much loved favourite of the country's rock 'n' roll and yé-yé generations.

You can read more about the singers, songwriters, bands and songs mentioned here - and much more besides - in my book. Feel free to grab a copy here: BOOK

Joyeux Noël...