Guitarist Joël Favreau tells Georges Brassens, his friend

Georges Brassens was born on October 22, 1921 in Sète. On October 22, 2021, he would have been one hundred years old. During the last years of his life as an artist, he collaborated with guitarist Joël Favreau who accompanied him from 1972 to 1981. Together the two musicians recorded four albums among which we find Fernande (1972).

Between the two men, the story begins in the mid-1960s with a first meeting at the Théâtre National Populaire in Paris. 26-year-old Joël Favreau arrives in front of Georges Brassens’ lodge to greet him. In 1972, the singer, who has just lost his guitarist Mimi Rosso, then telephones the one who will accompany him until the end of his career. This phone call will change Favreau’s life: “He said to me: would you like to play with me? His request was almost like a prayer. It’s an incredible gift he gave me”, says the musician.

During these nine years of collaboration, Joël Favreau accompanies Brassens only for studio recordings and television sets. The guitarist keeps a special memory of these musical sessions. “We were lost in the middle of a big studio behind screens and we were recording everything live in one or two takes. And Brassens was not going to listen to himself. He would ask if it was good and if we would say yes to him, he went on to the next song “, remembers the octogenarian.

Driven by the desire to celebrate the memory of the singer of The Hecatomb, Joël Favreau has written a book detailing their nine years of work and friendship. The artist will also be performing at Ancenis on October 29, 2021, the fiftieth anniversary of Brassens’ death. He will take up the repertoire of the man with the pipe.