Alain Chamfort, author, composer and singer spends this week, with us, in Elodie’s world to look back on the defining moments of his career through five of his essential songs. Since his beginnings in the 1960s with Jacques Dutronc, Alain Chamfort has been part of the French musical landscape. He crosses the modes with consistency and is considered a pop icon with melancholic touches. More than five decades that his words, his voice, his writing, his compositions accompany us.
Recently, 17 of his greatest titles have been rearranged by Nobuyuki Nakajima, with 51 musicians from the Orchester national de Montpellier-Occitanie and brought together in an album: Symphonic dandy.
In this first episode, the song Farewell my singing baby which marks his emancipation.
franceinfo: After more than 50 years with us, do you still have so much fun performing the songs? Also to create?
Alain Chamfort: Yes, it is strange, but it is. Insofar as I was free to constitute this repertoire and that I freed myself from the rules from the start. I was lucky, when I left Claude François later, to be able to demand from my contracts that they leave me the freedom to make my choices. And with the experiences of this job, I never stopped harmonizing what I wanted to sing with what I was gradually becoming in my life. So the repertoire totally suits me and I’m always very happy to be able to defend it on stage.
From an early age, you will learn the piano which will quickly become your best friend, your confidant, the one with whom you feel the best.
Exactly yes. It is a place of consolation, of intimacy. We are naked. It’s a bond, an affection, something that reassures us like a security blanket!
Did he save you, help you a lot?
Yes that’s it. That is to say that I had very little luck that my godmother, a piano teacher, noticed that I had an interest in music. My parents not being musicians, they could not have detected it themselves. She alerted them to this ability that she seemed to find in me and then they listened to her and fitted me with a piano quickly, which they rented or I don’t know how they managed because they were not wealthy at the time.
As a child, I took piano lessons and I had this feeling of being in my place, of being in my element.
Alain Chamfortat franceinfo
I had a good ear and was pretty good at it. I didn’t make too much effort, besides I was never very brave. When I should have passed the entrance exam to the Conservatory, another style of music caught my attention. It’s the music I heard on the radio, early rock music, all that stuff. And so, I branched off at that point and headed into more popular music.
What do you keep from your parents?
So many things. I keep a lot of affection, a lot of tenderness, a lot of listening. People who have done everything with little means so that their two children, I had an older sister, lack nothing.
When you first started out, you embarked on group adventures. There were Dreamers, Shakers and it took the Mods for you to trust yourself and start singing. This is what allowed you to be spotted by Jacques Dutronc. You will meet another person too, who will believe in you very quickly, it is Claude François. You meet him, you are an author, a composer at that time and you offer him songs. He will quickly ask to work with you since it will be obvious to him. Was it for you?
When I stopped accompanying Jacques, I could not yet make a living from my role as a singer, so I accompanied a lot of artists. At the same time, I started to write songs and I went to meet performers to offer them. Along the way, we went to offer our sample songs to Claude François, who had a fairly practiced ear and who immediately offered us a publishing contract to become his house composers.
Every day, with Michel Pelay, we went to Claude François’ private mansion, Boulevard Exelmans, to join a small studio that he had made available to us and in which we spent our days trying to write songs and listen to him so that one day he has the chance to record them.
Alain Chamfortat franceinfo
Very quickly, he asked me if I would agree to sing them myself, finally as a duo! He offered to sing in pairs with Michel Pelay, with whom I was working at that time. With the latter, we looked at each other and said: “It’s kinda ridiculous” and Michel kindly offered me to sing alone and then, it started like that.
Born Alain Le Govic, that’s when you become Alain Chamfort. It is true that you will chain all the commercial successes with: love in france or Farewell my singing baby. Farewell my singing baby is moreover a song which counted a lot in your career.
It was a text by Jean-Michel Rivat. At the time, I was listening to American singers and it was a bit like this universe that inspired me. I don’t know for what reasons. But this song became a hit pretty quickly. I was very happy, obviously, to make successes and to be successful. It was promising and above all, it allowed me, perhaps, to consider evolving a little differently afterwards.