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.
