When France rocked around the clock...
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...