The singer, composer and guitarist Louis Bertignac is the exceptional guest, all this week, of Le Monde d’Elodie. Musician, lyricist, singer, guitarist, producer, the co-founder of the rock group Telephone or Visitors began a solo career in 1986. He took advantage of the pandemic to write, in collaboration with Guy Carlier, his autobiography: nice little story published by Cherche-Midi.
This book allows him to look back on the highlights of his life. From his musical sessions with Telephone and the Rolling Stones to his tumultuous stories with Corine Marienneau and Carla Bruni. Louis Bertignac recounts his whole life without filters.
franceinfo: When we go through your book, nice little storyreleased a few weeks ago, we realize that behind your shyness – you were very shy as a child – there is a real sex appeal and that in the end, this guitar allowed you to conclude quite easily, right?
Louis Bertignac: Yes… I was extremely shy. I found it difficult to approach a girl and the more beautiful she was, the more difficult it was for me to show her that she was interested in me. I was completely stuck. And it’s true that playing the guitar has already allowed me to be deflowered. Unable to go to the girls, thanks to the guitar, the girls came to me.
After Higelin, Telephone and Les Visiteurs, you decided to embark on a solo career. When you start, what do you think about? You were born with bands.
I tell myself that I am no longer old enough to make a group! But with Les Visiteurs, I really tried to make a real band like Télephone and it didn’t work. When journalists came to interview us, it was me. When there was a decision to be made, it was me. So after a while I realized it wasn’t really a band. Unless I made a great band with guys as famous as me, which wasn’t popular at the time, I couldn’t make a band anymore, I understood that.
Your solo career will be launched with a great collaboration in production. Tony Visconti is still the producer of Paul McCartney, David Bowie, T-Rex and Morrissey. There, you will decide to embark on something else with Manu Katché. I would like to talk about the album: She and Louis (1993) which sticks to your skin and which contains the songs go guitar and The girl from Essaouira. The latter is particularly close to your heart and you talk about it a lot in this book.
Yes, The girl from Essaouira is a song that I had composed like that. I had to record it on acoustic guitar. After three minutes, there was enough to fill in verses and the chorus. Easy. I continue and I warm my fingers by saying to myself: there will be another take to be sure. And suddenly, I stopped after seven, eight minutes. I felt that something was bothering Tony Visconti and he said to me: “It was really good the little solos you did at the end“.
The next day he said to me:Look, I didn’t get much sleep last night, but here it is“and he shows me a huge sheet music,”violin parts that will respond to your improvised guitar solos“. And then indeed, the next day, there are fifteen violins, cellos, violas arriving and I see them playing the piece, responding to my guitar. It was absolutely magical.
You’ve always had this guitar and I feel like it shielded you from the public, kind of allowed you to face some fears.
The guitar has often got me out of my shyness problems.
Louis Bertignacat franceinfo
Yes, you could say it’s my screen. Either way, trust can’t come on its own because I’m screwed like this. There are guys who have an innate confidence, me, it’s the opposite, it’s the lack of confidence that is innate.
The scene too?
Of course, for several reasons. It’s that at least I have something to say to people with my guitar, so it relieves, it feels good. Today, I am 68 years old and I have flab and as luck would have it, the guitar is on top. She often got me out of my problems.
The scene will happen very quickly with Bertignacoustic (1994). Dominique Blanc-Francard is behind you on this lovely project. And then Étienne Roda-Gil will join you in 1995 on Bertignac ’96. It was a huge complicity between you.
I completely fell in love with Étienne Roda-Gil from day one. He was absolutely charming.
Louis Bertignacat franceinfo
Yes, I loved this guy. I met him because he was the friend of François, the manager of Telephone. I make him listen to models, he says to me: “I know what to do. I will translate your yogurts. That’ll be enough and it’ll be good songs“. In fact, he didn’t just translate my yoghurts, he said absolutely brilliant things in this album. It’s just so from the first day, he didn’t explain to me how to write a text, what. It was mind-blowing,”Say, do you understand? You cannot stick together two hard or two soft vowels, you need one hard and one soft, one hard and one soft. And that’s how it works“.
I would like us to talk about a song in particular because there was still Richard Kolinka by your side, it’s Open heart with Marianne Faithfull.
It was François, always the same, who introduced me to Roda, who introduced me to Marianne. I say to him: you do not want to sing on a song? She replies: “Gladly”, and so I had her listen to it and she gives us superb backing vocals. Really, it was an extremely nice period, at the top, because when you have texts written by Roda-Gil, you are calm. We know that the album will give good songs.
Louis Bertignac will be in concert on July 8 in Divonne-les-Bains, on July 29 at the Festival du son in Civray and on September 10 at the Lysfestival in Comines.