It was the song we hummed at random at dances, parties, in cafes, on the radio and at the Carpentiers’.the famous sequin TV show of the 70s. These songs, like “Come and take a walk in the rain”, were signed by the group “once upon a time” and its singer: Joëlle Mogensen.
Serge Koolen Richard Dewitte are the musicians, lyricist composers and arrangers of the group, very inspired by the Beatles and English ballads, hence a pop and popular mix. In “Come take a walk in the rain”, a young man invites a young woman to the streets of Paris, it’s raining, they love each other, it’s wonderful, and the crystalline voice of the singer Joëlle does the rest.
From 1972 to 1979, “once upon a time” was a hit with a shower of gold and platinum records, 10 hit parade numbers and 150 galas a year. Joëlle becomes an icon and is the first singer to pose naked for the magazine Lui. The suitors are legion: Hallyday, Distel, Dassin, Ray Charles and Mick Jagger who will offer her a scarf that she will proudly wear around her neck. When the group broke up, Joëlle attempted a solo career. Caught up by the demons of drugs, she was found, lifeless, on May 15, 1982 at the home of a suspected dealer in a Parisian apartment in the 19th arrondissement. She was 29 years old.
From time to time, on the radio and on TV, we pay tribute to Joëlle and her group “once upon a time”, and among her fans, the president of the Goncourt academy, the writer Didier Decoin.
Parisian springs and summers pass, Joëlle is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery. She was beautiful, she had talent and success, it was “once upon a time”, a long time ago.