He had a soft voice and a rather quiet rock style, so it was probably without making much noise that Jean-Louis Murat knocked on the door of the beyond. The rather discreet French singer-songwriter born Jean-Louis Bergheaud died Thursday at the age of 71.
Murat has released 21 albums in nearly four decades. His first, private passions, appeared in 1984, but it was with Cheyenne Autumn, launched five years later, that it became known to the general public. Among other things for the songs If I should miss you And keep you close to mewho set the table for Regret, sung in duet with none other than Mylène Farmer. An association that seems incongruous as the ways of one and the other are opposed.
A great sentimentalist, Jean-Louis Murat has always shown his attachment to soft rock, with neat arrangements often inspired by folk, country and even blues from the United States. Jimtitle that opens his album mustangois also inspired by the writer Jim Harrison, author among others of legends of autumnswhose stories often take place in the great outdoors of America.
mustango (1999) remains one of the milestones of his discography, one of the peaks of which will remain his album Dolorespublished in 1996. Fort Alamo, which opens this disc, is typical of the Murat way: a tone imbued with nonchalance, finesse in the words and elegance in the staging. And if his way remained quite classic, he was not reluctant to explore with synthetic sounds as we can hear in Snowdropone of his many songs about desire.
PHOTO BERNARD BRAULT, PRESS ARCHIVES
Show by Jean-Louis Murat at L’Astral, in 2010
In Quebec
Murat, in Quebec, has never really been a crowd-pleaser, although he has come to shows a few times over the years. He had his hours of glory with us between his albums The raincoat (1991) and The muzhik and his wife (2002), disc on which we find in particular titles as quite folk-pop as The passing love And the afterlife.
Half-poet half-imaginary cowboy, the songwriter was also a kind of literary rocker, who also took over Ferré putting Baudelaire to music (Charles and Leo).
His disappearance will leave a void in the left field of French song and in the hearts of those who had become attached to his drawling voice and his soft grooves.
By a curious coincidence, the very first collection of his greatest hits is due out this Friday, when he had long refused to see his work – which also includes a number of live recordings, literary projects and film scores – summarized in a compilation.
Jean-Louis Murat had just completed his last tour, on May 19, in support of his latest album, The real life of Buck John, which was launched in 2021. This fiercely independent artist died at home, in Auvergne, his native region, to which he had remained attached. In his memory, we will listen again Naked in the crevassea piece of bravery lasting 10 minutes topped with a poignant chorus imbued with soul and the idea of gospel.
With Pierre-Marc Durivage, The Press