French male singers ’60s

sixties

Songwriters

Georges Brassens (1921 – 1981), Léo Ferré (1916 – 1993), Jacques Brel (1929 – 1978), Charles Aznavour (1924 – 2018), Jean Ferrat (1930 – 2010) are considered the architects of the first golden age of French chanson.
Claude Nougaro (1929 – 2004) , Marcel Mouloudji (1922 – 1994) and Georges Moustaki (1934 – 2013) complete this generation of singer-songwriters.

Léo Ferré

1960 saw the release of Léo Ferré’s album Paname.

Yeah Yeah ! Period

Numerous singers, including Les Chaussettes Noires, Johnny Hallyday, Eddy Mitchell, Jacques Dutronc, Nino Ferrer and Michel Polnareff, emerged during the yé-yé period of the sixties.

In 1962, Hallyday sings L’Idole Des Jeunes at the Olympia in Paris, and Claude François (1939 – 1978) scored his first hits with Belles ! Belles ! Belles ! a Everly Brothers reprise.

Claude_Nougaro

Claude Nougaro, son of an opera singer, singer-songwriter and lover of jazz and latin music, started out as a poet in 1954, but found success as early as 1962, praising his native Toulouse and taking a trip to New York in 1987, a trip that marked his musical revival.

Johnny Halliday (1943 – 2017)
London 1.10.1962
© STR CENTRAL PRESS/AFP/Archives

1960

1961

1962

1963

Serge Gainsbourg

Serge Gainsbourg, born in Paris in 1928 and died in Paris in 1991, was a singer-songwriter.
His first talent, at the age of 13, was painting.

He also wrote, acted and directed the French films Je T’Aime, Moi Non Plus (1976) and Equateur (1983).

His style is very varied: jazz, reggae, chanson classique, rock, which makes it difficult to classify him in one musical genre.

Charles Aznavour

La Bohème is a classic French song, composed by Charles Aznavour on the theme of bohemian life, for Aznavour’s 1965 operetta Monsieur Carnaval.

Georges Brassens

Les Copains d’Abord is a hymn to friendship, written in 1965 by Georges Brassens for Yves Robert’s film Les Copains.

Serge Gainsbourg (1928 – 1991)
Studio Harcourt

1964

1965

Michel Polnareff

Michel Polnareff signed in 1966 with Disc AZ, and recorded La Poupée Qui Fait Non in London with Jimmy Page on guitar and John Paul Jones on bass.

French magazine

Salut les copains magazine traces the careers of many of the « yéyé stars » of the period, immortalized in a giant photo taken in 1966 by Jean-Marie Périer, son of singer Henri Salvador (1917 – 2008).

1966

1967

My Way the English version of Comme d’habitude becomes a worldwide hit.
Georges Brassens is awarded “the Grand Prix de Poésie” by the Académie Française.

Pierre Delanoë

In 1968, lyricist Pierre Delanoë, who had already written for Gilbert Bécaud (1927 – 2001) and Hugues Aufray, reveals american french singer-songwriter Joe Dassin to the general public with adaptations of Italian songs. Yves Montand sings : À Bicyclette and Jacques Brel: Vesoul.