About a year ago I posted the soundtrack from Bonjour Tristesse, with its title tune in a perfect, languid rendition by Juliette Gréco. At that time I said I would get out my Gréco records for a spin.
And so I did, producing this nice transfer of a 1957 LP, which I promptly forgot about. No time like now to bring it to light, I suppose.
Gréco's appeal is conveyed well in an article on the TCM web site; she has "an ability to convey a world weary quality mixed with a romantic fatalism"; also noting her influence on such singers as Leonard Cohen.
Gréco was called the "muse of the existentialists." (I have been called the "muse of the psychoanalysts," but that's another story.) Muse or not, there's no question that she was an important figure in postwar French pop music, collaborating with many writers and composers on a series of hit songs. This US LP collects a number of her earlier songs.
5 comments:
There is a Bing Crosby recording called, "Every Town is Paris When You're Young." Listening to Juliette Greco last night, thanks to you, I wondered what equivalent, if any, I found to this music or if I had ever known a Paris in my American life. Recently, poet Frank O'Hara has convinced me of a certain French quality to New York life in the 1950s. But I bet you he needed occasional enhancement from Greco. We just didn't grow up with such tender music as "Chanson de Gervaise" or skipping-down-the street waltzes such as "Mefiez-vous de Paris" or "Guingettes." And I never heard my mother sing any songs to herself like "Vous Mon Coeur" or nod knowingly as she listened to the likes of "L'Amour" (one of the most beautiful songs on this album filled with beauty). Again, you have answered a deep need to hear a music that may have vanished (although the French still pay homage to a past this rich). It was hard not hear Greco as a muse, maybe even a mother, to Marianne Faithful (although Greco's voice is so much more intact in these recordings). Thanks for reminding me why French New Wave films took complete possession of my life in the 1960s and have never ceded their grip. This is healing music and good will come to everyone who hears it.
Thanks David - great comment. It may be worth noting that Greco was popular in New York in the 1950s. I am too young to have experienced New York in the 1950s myself (and it certainly wasn't Parisian in the 70s!).
By one of those amazing coincidences, I just watched the movie "An Education" last night (in which a Juliette Greco LP plays an important role) and was online looking for the soundtrack because a couple of her songs are used. I stumbled across this instead, much much better. Thanks, Buster.
Remastered version from mp3 files (Apple lossless format):
https://mega.co.nz/#!aY8CBAgb!nS89s9ncSAhSzOAIvioHFoTTeayUNylDD6KTdYbu_XQ
Quite an unusual finding! Thanks.
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